Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 16 July 2010 - Shine

Featuring:
- Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3
- Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2

Garrick Ohlsson - Piano
Tadaaki Otaka - Conductor

Tonight's the Second Town Hall Proms of the year. A prelude to the concert is the organ recital by Calvin Bowman, of course. He played Bach's lengthy 'Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV. 542', Jehan Alain's quiet variations of a theme by Clement Jannequin in which the stage lighting to the organ changes every now and then, Galuppi's Allegro e spiritoso, and a rather quirky arrangement of Verdi's Grand March from Aida. It's really strange and fascinating at the same time to listen to organ blaring the glorious brass notes.

For the concert proper, there's no escaping Rachmaninov that night. Even all the encores are Rachmaninov's compositions. The title of this concert refers to the movie Shine which features a pianist trying to play the difficult Rachmaninov's D minor concerto. I've watched the movie, but it's not really my favourite movie. Amadeus is a much better and more memorable movie.

Main dishes for tonight was Rachmaninov's two warhorses: third Piano Concerto and 2nd Symphony. I am undecided which piano concerto of Rachmaninov's I prefer better, I love the unabashed lush super duper romantic second concerto, but yet found the third much more intelligent without being over sentimental like its predecessor. Anyway, I am no authority in 'Rach 3' compared to this guy here. I did notice though that Garrick played the shorter cadenza in the first movement, and played the uncut version of both 2nd and 3rd movements. I also noticed that I forgot the time completely when Garrick played the whole concerto, I was so focused on the performance, and totally immersed in a performance in which a technically assuring, maturely minded, and intelligent pianist at work. Garrick took the first movement just a tad slower to say Argerich's or Horowitz's (with Reiner) recordings. However, instead of taking the slower tempo as a sign of insecure techniques, I sensed that Garrick is just keeping some energy in reserve. He didn't overdo the virtuosic bit, unlike Horowitz, but yet still enough to convince me of his pianism. I have never enjoyed this concerto's second movement better than in this performance, the rhapsodic, yearning, and fantasia like Intermezzo. And the finale is just .. breathless, the orchestra supporting Garrick was just really totally hot, and producing lots of wonderful accompaniment moment, esp. in the marching like session, just before the coda and the unabashed super romantic D major episode after that. The bravura finale is a total eargasm. An unusually very quiet audience roared right after this.

What a performance. Instead of making the concert just another concert to show off his virtuoso skills, Garrick went one step further and presented a mature, musically satisfying performance without going overboard in the fireworks. Credit must also be given to the orchestra who maintained its presence throughout and the maestro for balancing both contingents impeccably. Garrick gave Rachmaninov's Prelude in C sharp minor, and again, the audience is just stunned to silence with the thundering bass chords in the climax of the piece. Brilliant.

What comes after this concerto is another great performance. I don't know what's with the orchestra tonight, they just seemed to be in the right gear all the time, and by MSO standard, I think the ensemble was just a notch above the average MSO performance. The lush 3rd movement was one of the highlight of the concert, its long and intertwining melodies were just as sonorous as I could have asked for. One moment in the finale that I treasure the most is when Maestro Otaka signaling the entry to the horn section, and suddenly all the horn sections responded and lifted their instruments, as if they were playing the climax of Mahler's 8th symphony. That's glorious. Also, halving the tempo in the section just before the coda works beautifully in terms of squeezing out every single possible emotional outbursts from really those special moments. It's simply one of the best symphony performance that I had from MSO this year, I think.

After that, and a short speech from Wilma Smith regarding the death of Sir Charles Mackerras, we were then presented with Rachmaninov's Vocalise. A heartfelt performance is the only way to describe it. I attended what is to be his last concert in Australia, and remembered commenting how frail he already is back then. Unfortunately my wish of seeing him conducting again was not granted. RIP Sir Charles Mackerras.

Maestro Otaka, really, you totally deserved all that applause for that night, and yet you're too shy to receive them! I don't know what's wrong with your eyes, you seemed to wipe them off after the concert, which only leads me to thinking two things: 1). You're touched by the performance, and maybe to the loss of Sir Charles or 2). You're already sleepy and long for bed. I strongly believe the reason of you wiping your eyes is the first thing I thought of, but your gesture of 'oh look at the time, it's time to sleep and stop applauding' might swing me a little to the second explanation :).

Next concert: Britten's War Requiem, next week.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 June 2010 - Mozart Magic

Featuring:
- Mozart Cosi fan tutti: Overture
- Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
- Mendelssohn Capriccio brilliant for Piano and Orchestra
- Haydn Symphony No. 96 'Miracle'

Howard Shelley - Piano/Conductor

First Town Hall Proms this year. And Town Hall Proms = Organ recital by Calvin Bowman. That night he played Sinfonia from Cantata No. 29 Wir danken dir, Gott which turned out to be the arrangement of the famous Preludio from the 3rd Partita for solo violin. Next on the offering was Mendelssohn's Third Organ Sonata in A major, Op. 65. I enjoyed this 2 movements piece very much, the first movement sounded like a majestic Bach chorale, and the second movement more introspective in nature, and calming. Franck's rather lengthy and less interesting piece Chorale No. 3 in A minor closed the recital.

The title of this concert is your usual cheesy marketing programming, "Mozart Magic", and would infer that the night triumph would belong to Mozart's music. Sadly, it's Haydn's music who stole the show for the night.

Mozart's overture to Cosi fan Tutti started the concert, but the MSO was just getting warmed up for the night. While the woodwinds passages are beautifully rendered, the performance in general lacked energy, and the strings sounded muffled. It's a good performance, and yet there's nothing so memorable about it. After this short piece, the members of the orchestra stood up to have the seat arrangements fixed up. A piano is needed for the next piece and this which should have been clear from the program was apparently not so clear after all for a patron sitting behind me which uttered quite loudly, "what? that's it?". Anyway, Howard Shelley came back stage and with the piano positioned so that the audience faces the performer's back, explained the reason of this awkward position and also the glass cover that replaces the piano lid on the piano. To be succinct, the glass is so that he can see the woodwinds section, and help with the clarity and the acoustics of the hall. He also talked a little bit of Mozart's composition which was composed during the same period. He also played some excerpt of Mozart's 19th, 21st, 23rd, and 24th piano concertos.

After all that, he finally started the concerto. MSO was better here, but still lacking punch (for my taste). I always associate the d minor key signature to pieces with high tension. On top of my head, I can name Mozart's Requiem, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Brahms' 1st piano concerto, 2nd movement of Brahms' 2nd piano concerto, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mahler's 3rd Symphony, Sibelius' violin concerto, Haydn's Nelson Mass, Bach's Chaconne for solo violin, Schumann's 4th symphony, Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, Dvorak's 4th and 7th symphonies. All of them are masterpieces which are famous for their high tension. My disappointment is that MSO did not play these high tension passages as tense as they could be played, the string attacks are not furious enough, I might say that they played the music just a bit fierce compared to how they would play a major key classical symphony, where I would have liked VERY FIERCE. Anyway, that's only my problem. The piano playing was fine, I enjoyed the beautiful 2nd movement a lot, although the contrasting episode was rather tame. Howard played Beethoven's cadenza for the 1st movement, as he did for the last movement. I like Howard's phrasings in general, and he did take some liberty in changing some notes in the 2nd movement to my fascination. The piano's clarity was much better this time, maybe because of the fact that it's a brand new concert grand piano just shipped from Hamburg (as told by Howard)?

Mendelssohn's piece was okay, but I couldn't say I enjoyed the performance very much. I enjoyed the arpeggios that started the piece, but from there it all went downhill. There were some passages in the piece that reminded me of one of Mendelssohn's own piano concertos, but I couldn't remember which one.

Finally, some remarkable playing from the orchestra. Howard brought some wits and energy to Haydn symphony which he didn't for the other programs that night. The highlights were a graceful minuet in the 3rd movement with the long oboe solo. The finale was played as marked, 'Vivace assai', the best moment of the night for me, really. And as always, a wise lesson for newcomers to Town Hall Proms: there's always encore after. You can kinda see it when David Thomas (principal clarinet) running back to the stage. I wondered what would happen if the audience didn't really like the performance and the planned encore would not go ahead simply because the applause is not long enough :). Anyway, Howard teased the audience if they would like some romantic music to end the night, and offered Sibelius' Valse Triste, but unfortunately, despite beautiful playing, no one seemed to take Howard's suggestion to waltz to this music in the concert hall.

Next concert: ACO playing 2 of my favourite symphonies: Schubert's Unfinished symphony, and Brahms' majestic 1st symphony.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 May 2010 - Beethoven - The Journey Begins

Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2
- Olli Mustonen The Old Church at Petäjävesi
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4

Olli Mustonen - Piano/Director

I was really looking forward to this concert only to be let down big time. The two Beethoven's piano concertos came up really short, and included some awkward phrasings and quirks that I don't really enjoy at all. Olli Mustonen is a fine pianist, but his readings of Beethoven's concertos left me cold. With the 2nd piano concerto, I missed the clarity of the notes. Also, throughout the whole concert, Olli seemed to play a lot of final resolving notes of a phrase so softly that I almost cannot listen to them. This is really annoying me and sometimes I just have to make up the sound of that resolving notes to complete the playing of a beautiful phrase in my mind. Directing and playing a piano concerto will always be a challenge, and it's really frustrating when the ensemble wasn't perfect, e.g. a couple of mistimed entries, and the balance of the orchestra was really off. On top of that, Olli busted out quite a number of wrong notes in the 4th piano concerto. His cadenzas are weird, sort of jazzy and sound 'pop'ish. The last movement of the 4th concert was interpreted like a horse galloping to finish line. Fast tempo and nothing else. I can't honestly say I felt any of the soul from the performance of this favourite Beethoven's concerto of mine. The audience clearly didn't share my opinion and cheered loudly for the performance. Well, I guess it's hard to stay put after you listened to the finale's brilliant coda.

This frustrating performance got even more frustrating for me when in the beginning of the 4th PC during the magical chords of the opening, which for me is a big factor of the enjoyment of this concerto, an audience member sitting right behind me said 'oh, I love this' right when she recognised that magical chords. Thanks very much for speaking out my mind lady, but I prefer if you keep it to yourself next time. Also, in the 2nd movement of the same concerto, someone tried to unwrap candy in the prayer-like section till the end of that movement. Thanks for ruining the performance further. What a joke. I swear I'm not going to let anyone sitting beside me to do this thing in a concert although there's a good chance he/she won't like me very much after that.

It might be a very frustrating concert, but there's some good moments here. Olli Mustonen's symphonic-suite music is actually quite enjoyable. The music, depicting an old church in a Finnish city, is in 5 movements. The first depicting the activity of builders of the church with changing and time signature and ends suddenly. Sacred Touch, the next movement, highlights the beautiful woodwinds writing for it. The Demons, and St. Christopher (3rd and 4th movements) are my favourites with the highlight definitely goes to the slightly out-of-tune hymn-singing portrayal. The finale ends as sudden as the opening. When I think about the piece again at the end, I think it definitely has a lot of the ideas from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

The best moment of the concert is the encore Mustonen gave after curtain calls for his Beethoven's 4th performance. Here, he found the touch, the clarity, the sensitivity, and the sonority to express chorale-like melodies found in the piece. Sadly, I would never know what it is.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 30 November 2009 - Revolutions

Featuring:
- Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
- Leif Segerstam Symphony No. 190 - UFO, under F & over World Premiere
- Beethoven Symphony No. 5

Stephen Kovacevich - Piano
Leif Segerstam - Conductor

This was one of the non-brainer concert that I picked when subscribing to MSO this season. Just look at the program: Brahms' masterpiece in piano concerto, Beethoven's 5th symphony; and finally Webern's piece Six Pieces for large orchestra. Oh well, they changed the Webern's to a strange symphony and replaced Caetani with the composer of this symphony. But, the soloist, world-renowned Stephen Kovacevich is still performing. The change in conductor shouldn't be that big of an impact to the concert, or so I thought.

My expectations were running high before the start of the concert, and yet I came out feeling bored and totally disappointed. This could be the worst MSO concert I attended this season. Very disappointing indeed when put in the context that the hall is quite full (I'd say 90% full).

Let's start with Brahms' second piano concerto. I've listened to some bits of Stephen Kovacevich's recording during the ABC concerto countdown few years back and I wasn't impressed at all. IIRC, I even turned off the radio at one stage because I couldn't stand his playing in the first movement anymore. He sounded like he was struggling with the technical demand of this piece and the natural flow of this piece was being taken away from it. Anyway, I kept my mind open during the performance, and within the first minute, I already felt a bit uneasy right after the opening cadenza of the soloist. There were a couple of wrong notes, and the playing was really insecure. It did not help also when the horn section fired some wrong notes after that. The tempo of this movement felt a little bit dragging and my favourite part of this movement -- right in the middle of this movement, when the soloist played a prayer-like melody accompanied by bass pizzicatos - was quite a let down. The rest of this movement was quite okay until we reached the end of this movement. I totally abhorred it when a conductor held the pause before the last chord too long for the sake of holding up the tension just for a bit more. The conductor did exactly that, and more after that in the later movements and in Beethoven's symphony. Instead of achieving a perfect tension-release moment, he succeeded making me utter 'ridiculous' and as a result, the home chord in the end felt underwhelming.

The soloist was better in the second movement; I actually enjoyed his agitated opening. However, the orchestra was rather tame in comparison to the soloist's aggression. "For god's sake", I thought, "come on, this music is in D MINOR. Where are all the tensions?". Fortunately, the central D major episode was much better. I loved how the soloist played the reverie-like passage here. The music now reverts back to D minor, and again, the orchestra sounded really tame. The coda of this movement is one of my favourite Brahms moment - the agitated piano and orchestra fighting each other with massive chords. The performance was okay, partly due to the piano swamped by the orchestra at that chord clashing moment.

Finally some gorgeous playing from the orchestra: David Berlin's cello solo in the third movement was glorious. Kovacevich shone for a few moments here, until he made a few mistakes during the long trills. I enjoyed the last movement the most, the dance like quality and cheerfulness was brought out wonderfully. I even commended Kovacevich for dramatically increased the tempo during the coda although the orchestra was lagging behind in the first few bars of its entry.

After the break, it was the time for Segerstam's 190th symphony. According to the note, he has composed 230 symphonies. Apparently the piece was inspired by a talk about UFO, and the interesting thing is that Segerstam did not conduct it during the performance. Instead, he played a piano in this piece which requires a super big orchestra with massive percussion section and a pair of harps and pianos. Markus Tomasi, the concertmaster of the evening, would some time stood up and gave indications to the orchestra. Other members who also stood up are the principals of piccolo and flute, although it wasn't clear why.

The piece itself was interesting in producing different sort of noises, especially the percussion section which included 2 sort of hammers: the big hammer that one would use in Mahler's 6th symphony; and the smaller hammer that you usually used in your household to fix stuff. Musically, I was bored after a few minutes, and the piece did not attract me at all. It went on for around 15-20 minutes (I did not look at the time) and through out the performance I was thinking that it's such a waste to use this massive size orchestra to play this sort of music. That pretty much sums up what I thought of this symphony.

Someone once said that Beethoven's symphonies are fool-proof. It's very hard to mess up a Beethoven symphony compare to a Brahms symphony. I totally agree with this opinion. With Beethoven, you can get away with okay performances and audience will still love the performance, but you can't do the same with say, Brahms' 4th symphony. It's either a great performance or a total boredom. Therefore, it will take a lot of mess ups to turn a Beethoven symphony into total boredom. Guess what, I was bored with this performance of Beethoven's 5th.

Let's start with the first movement. The opening motif was undramatic and definitely did not set up for all the tensions to come. The whole first movement did not even provoke me to bob my head once (during all the sfzs)! And yes, we're talking about Beethoven's 5th here! The second movement was a total boredom. The rubato used in the strings and woodwinds at the end of main theme phrases disgusted me to no end. Oh yes, add to that the misfired trumpets. The third movement tempo felt more like 'Allegro non troppo' or 'Andante' rather than the marked 'Allegro'.

One thing that I can praise about the conductor is how he was being patient in the end of the Scherzo leading up to the C major outburst in the finale. That I think, was when MSO played best and finally make some big noises during the whole concert. However, this glorious moment did not last long - till the conductor messed around too much with the sudden dynamics change in key phrases. He surprised me by putting lots of emphasis in the piccolo part, but other than that I have no good things to say about his interpretation. And finally, I don't know why, but he ended the symphony with that annoying too long pause before the last chord.

A few other things that annoyed the hell out of me during the concert. Did people really come to concert hall to listen to the music or just to unwrap candy during the first movement of Beethoven's 5th? Can't people just turn off their mobile phones during the performance? Can't people just be shut up and sit comfortably without tapping their shoes, not being restless, not loudly scratch their hands or heads, not SNORE, and not finger-tapping your programs during the rhythmic section of last movement of Beethoven's 5th? I can tolerate these behaviours if it's a young kid or young adult attending concert for the first time because they can still "grow up". However, if you are 50 years old plus and still do these things, it's probably a bit too late to ask you to "grow up". Probably a good idea if you don't come to concert at all. Buy a good recording of it, and listen to it while sitting at your comfy sofa in your living room. You'll probably enjoy it much better than sitting next to strangers in Hamer Hall's not so comfy seats.

I really hope MSO's next concert is much better than this one.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 16 November 2009 - Beethoven 4

Featuring:
- Brett Dean Testament
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
- Beethoven Symphony No. 4

Dejan Lazic - Piano
Richard Tognetti - Artistic Director and Lead Violin

This was a Beethoven-flavoured concert, with 2 major Beethoven pieces and a piece by Brett Dean who was inspired by Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament. The piece - Testament - started off with unison strings playing what was described as 'sound losing grip' in the program. This was emphasised by similar idea in the woodwinds. The piece was really slow in the beginning and I lost interest as the music progressed. It doesn't help that I'm not familiar with any Beethoven's String Quartet, and therefore couldn't notice where Brett Dean quoted the slow movement of Op. 59 No. 1 in this piece. I can't honestly say I was impressed with the music. However, the problem might not be with the music; I was a bit tired that day and my concentration was wobbly that day. The finale was much better, although again, the piece in general didn't have any strong impression on me.

Dejan Lazic gave a very refreshing performance of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto. Although the opening did not convince me, due to Dejan did not play the full note value of the opening chords, he compensated it with a few interesting things. The most notable aspect is he played his own cadenza (which I confirmed when I talked to him after the concert). The cadenza is a unique blend of Chopin, Rachmaninov, Scarlatti, and possibly a bit of Beethoven himself (Dejan told me that Busoni is one of the composer in the mix). The other notable aspect is the use of rubato, and the playing of a high degree of freedom in the tempo. He would slow down the tempo in a beautiful cadence, only to do an accelerando in the following phrases. His phrasings are delicate, while the ever present bass line provides the overall balance. The ACO accompanied Dejan's freedom of tempo dutifully, and overall provided a wonderful accompaniment throughout. ACO really shone in the second movement - a small chamber orchestra producing big sfz and accented notes effortlessly. While Dejan's playing in this movement is fine, it did not manage to move me as much as other recordings that I know of. The third movement rises out from the depths of hell in second movement into the exuberance of joy. I loved the balance of the counter melodies of violas and cellos against the violins in the opening of this finale. Again, Dejan played his own cadenza in this movement in the style as far removed as from Beethoven's own cadenza. The coda was exciting and played prestissimo to a thunderous applause. After several curtain calls, Dejan gave an encore - a rather fast Chopin's Minute Waltz. Not my favourite rendition, but I won't complain when a soloist gave an encore in the concert.

One more note about Dejan. I noticed he's very much down-earthed guy when signing autographs for the audiences. Every time an audience came up and praised him for a wonderful performance, he would bow down deeply to express his gratitude. Also, he stood up all the time during his interactions with the audience although he could have easily sat down.

The final piece of the concert is Beethoven's much neglected 4th symphony. This, along with the 8th symphony, are my favourite Beethoven symphonies. I'm not saying that they are the greatest piece of music that Beethoven wrote, but I just feel extremely happy when listening to both of them. I commend ACO to have the balls to program this underrated symphony. At first, I was a bit skeptical on how ACO can successfully play this piece with only small number of double basses (only 2). Could they possibly sustain this piece? Turns out that they can, and coupled that with beautiful playings of every sections of the orchestra (esp. the woodwinds!), you'll get a knock out performance. Richard's choice of tempo is on the fast side (as usual for his Beethoven), and it works out really well with the energy that ACO put for this performance. I still can't get over the way Richard conducted with his bow though. The audience seemed to love the performance, and it's a good advertisement for this much neglected symphony. Thumbs up for programming this ACO!

London Philharmonic Orchestra concert 10 October 2009 - Program One

Featuring:
- Graeme Koehne Powerhouse - Rhumba for orchestra
- Ravel Piano Concerto in G major
- Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4

Jean-Yves Thibaudet - Piano
Vladimir Jurowski - Conductor

Holy crap. I was so looking forward to this concert and the concert met my every expectation. Let me just declare this: I have never heard an orchestra whose members are on the edge of their seats on every second of the concert. To plagiarise someone else's word on LPO: 'This is an orchestra on fire'. I bought the program; it costs 20 bucks - a bit expensive, but I'm quite happy with the quality of it. Another way to think about this is: I got a circle seat for both concerts for $25 each. That's pretty much unbeatable price. Paying extra $20 for the program won't hurt me at all after that.

So, let's start with the concert: Graeme Koehne's Powerhouse, subtitled Rhumba for orchestra, is a piece for large orchestra and clearly obsessed with the Rumba dance. A good piece, although with some popular tunes in it. Although inspired by some popular musics, the pieces itself contained considerable amount of good ideas. Vladimir Jurowski gave a very exciting reading LPO executed music passages effortlessly. One musician that caught my eye immediately was the leader of the second violin who was really into the music. The orchestra never seem to run out of energy and stamina, and always delivered the extra punch during climaxes to heighten the effect.

A very stylish Jean-Yves Thibaudet came out as the soloist for Ravel's masterpiece - Piano Concerto in G major. The orchestra size is much smaller compared to the massive force required in the Koehne's piece. The playfulness of the first movement was brought out successfully and Jurowski impressed me again by bringing out little details that I never noticed before. Jean-Yves executed the piano glissandos in the beginning wonderfully. He also listened attentively to the orchestra and made the performance much more intimate for the soloist and orchestra. I enjoyed all of the movements very much, but the 2nd movement, as beautiful as it was played, fell a bit short of my expectation. The third movement made up for it, and it was played with such energy. A very solid performance.

The main program of the night is Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. This is the piece that I can hum from beginning to end, and so I thought I know all the details. I was wrong. Jurowski revealed that there's a lot more to this symphony than what I know. The first movement began with a big fanfare which was brilliantly played by LPO brass. Jurowski took a slower tempo than what I normally comfortable with, especially in the sections before the fate motif reappears in the middle and the end of the movement. The tempo was so dangerously slow that it can bore the audience if not executed to perfection. Jurowski maintained the intensity throughout and used the slow tempo that he maintained throughout the development section to do a big contrast during the recapitulation of both reappearances of the fate motif when he did an accelerando. That was seriously glorious. The 2nd movement was poignant, as it should be, and I am seriously impressed with the reading of the second theme of this movement. The 3rd movement is an orchestral showcase for pizzicato strings, and excruciating part for the piccolo. No trouble at all here. Each pizzicato was clear as crystal and the dynamic and colour contrast between each of them are ultimately brought out. Allegro con fuoco is the marking of the 4th movement and that's how Jurowski interpreted it: furious with neck-breaking speed. All players are on the edge of their seats, the climaxes were overwhelming and I heard more stuff that I never heard before. The finale is just otherworldly and ultimately brought down the house. After a prolonged applause and standing ovations, we were given the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker suite as an encore.

This concert was seriously awesome. Let me comment on Vladimir Jurowski. He's such magnetic and charismatic on the podium. His gestures are precise, grandeur and just so exciting to watch. His left hand is just crazy, he probably showed other conductors so many interesting things one can do with that hand only. His musical interpretation is superb. Details are being attended to, climaxes are overwhelming. His reading of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony, especially the 1st movement is thought-provoking for me. This is the first time I felt this way about a performance. Also, he never underestimated the importance of a phrase in the entire 4th symphony. Each musical phrase is treated at utmost respect and executing them brilliantly throughout is a huge feat.

I seriously can't wait for tomorrow's concert. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto and Beethoven's Eroica are pieces that I'm too familiar with. Gave another thought-provoking reading of them tomorrow, Maestro Jurowski!

Finally, it's a bit disappointing not to have full house in Hamer Hall, although both seats in the Circle and Stalls are at capacity. So if you want to go tomorrow and wonder if there are any seats left, the answer is yes.

On a personal note, I sat next to a Russian lady in the audience. We chatted a little, and more when I found out that her musical knowledge is pretty good. She loved Mahler, and complained about the conservative taste of Australian audience. When discussing about piano concerto, she mentioned she enjoyed Saint-Saens' 2nd piano concerto and Prokofiev's. 'Which one (of the Prokofiev)?' I asked. '2nd or 3rd?'. To my surprise, she said she loved the 2nd! And to her surprise, I responded, 'Yes! finally someone who loved that piece!'. And finally, she impressed me again by saying, 'You know..there are some composers who don't like Tchaikovsky's music. Brahms doesn't like Tchaikovsky'. To which I replied, 'Yes, Tchaikovsky hates Brahms too. The feeling is mutual there'. She apparently loved my reply :). Aaaahhhhhh, how I wish everyone is as knowledgeable as this old Russian lady.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 24 August 2009 - Davis Conducts Elgar

Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
- Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Elgar Falstaff

Jonathan Biss - Piano
Sir Andrew Davis - Conductor

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major has long been my favourite Beethoven piano concerto. Its introvert nature made this piece feel more intimate and personal when compared to the extrovert and extravaganza of the first movement of the Emperor concerto (Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5). Jonathan Biss presented a delightful reading of this concerto, but I withheld some reservations of his performance. The magical opening chords were not so magical, but still okay. Both the orchestra and piano in the first movement sounded a bit muffled, lacking crisp and clarity in tone. Jonathan's performance is highlighted by strong bass chords presence and plenty of body gestures, and wonderful uses of rubato. I think Jonathan offered Beethoven's cadenzas for both first and last movement, but I could be wrong. In second movement, both the pianist and orchestra seemed like clicked into gear and producing wonderful tone. I enjoyed this movement a lot except from a slight moment during the not-so-together pizzicato entry of the orchestra and the soloist when the soloist played the second wistful theme which leads directly to a mini-cadenza. The conductor picked up the tempo in the last movement, and when Jonathan started his solo part, David Berlin accompanied him with his cello. Jonathan dashed through the coda, bringing the whole piece into an exhilarating ending. Huge applause followed and after several curtain calls, Jonathan gave the 2nd movement of Mozart's sonata in C major, K. 545 'Sonata Semplice' as the encore.

As the title probably suggests, the star of the concert is not Jonathan, but the conductor Andrew Davis. He showed his capability as a world class conductor in the second piece, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. The 'echo' group consisting of small number of strings is placed on top of the stage, where the percussion usually is. It's hard not to compare this performance to ACO's performance 2 weeks ago. IMHO, ACO's performance is very crisp while MSO's is very airy - perhaps due to significantly larger amount of strings that MSO use in the performance. Sir Andrew's masterfully build up the layers of wonderful melodies and the climax is very satisfying. Not to be outdone by ACO's section leaders, MSO's string section leaders also provided gorgeous solos. Nice, solid performance.

After the other players come in (Vaughan William's piece is only scored for strings), Sir Andrew gave a short speech about the next piece, Elgar's Falstaff and described it as 'a piece that he loved dearly'. Unfortunately, despite what Elgar said that this piece is unlike Richard Strauss' tone poem, I still think it's very much in the same spirit. Add to that my unfamiliarity of Falstaff's story and Shakespeare in general, the result is quite obvious: I can't feel as passionate with the music as Sir Andrew. I enjoy the drunken bassoon solo, but found the piece to be incomprehensible by large. A disappointing end to an otherwise wonderful concert for me.

I'm not going to Sir Andrew's next concert which is on this weekend. This is not because I don't like his conducting style (lots of big gestures!) which I enjoyed very much; but rather my unfamiliarity of the programs: Strauss' so-called-ethereal Four Last Songs; and several Wagner's music. I'm looking forward to my next MSO concert: Beethoven's Coriolan overture, Mozart's Sinfornia concertante for violin and viola, K. 364; and unfortunately my least favourite Brahms' symphony: the 3rd.

3MBS Classically Melbourne - Orchestra Victoria: Hamer Hall - 6 August 2009

Featuring:
- Carl Maria von Weber Die Freischutz overture
- Saint Saens Piano Concerto No. 2
- Melody EotvosHuygens Principle
- Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel)

Andrea Lam - Piano
Marko Letonja - Conductor

At first, I did not want to write a review for all of this, but after reading the review from the Arts Hub (which explains why I only wrote this review today), I should perhaps question some of the things mentioned there.

If anyone who thought that this concert was the best concert or fantastic or magnificent, then perhaps give my review a miss, and read this review instead.

If you're still reading, my words below might change your opinion of this concert. Proceed with caution. You have been warned.

Let me rant a little bit. I know a large number of people who said the concert they attended is fantastic, gorgeous, etc. They never found bad things to say in a concert, although perhaps the brass sections were off by miles during the performance. Bless them if that's the case, cause they will never have a bad time during even the most unbearable concert. Same case with reviews, some critics just don't seem to be able to write bad stuff about a concert.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. Perhaps it's my curse, but I can't deny myself when a performance does not entertain me. This concert is one of the concert that I found myself bored during the performance. Let's start with Die Freischutz which was a solid good start to the concert, although I have some reservations with the Horns in the beginning. I don't know about you, but if you read the review from the Arts Hub above, it doesn't tell you anything about the concert or even the piece itself. Romantic style? Sure, Weber it's a romantic, but an early one. React against classicism and order of Bach and Mozart? I wouldn't say so. There is one important passage in the piece which actually reminded me a lot of the first movement of Mozart's 40th symphony (you'll know it if you're familiar with Mozart 40). I would say that Weber is actually indebted to Mozart's compositional technique. Listen to the last few bars of the piece, the style is just so similar to the last few bars of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, especially the strings rhythm that ended the Jupiter.

I have heard Saint Saens 2nd Piano Concerto in the same hall, played by a fearless Simon Trpceski. I was so impressed with his performance, but less so with Andrea Lam's. She has the technique to play the concerto, but her performance was less satisfying due to several weird tempo changes in the outer movements. Also, the overall picture of how she organised her playing of this concerto is not convincing to me. The playfulness of the second movement perhaps can be brought out a little bit more. The orchestra itself missed some of the entries. One of the msot remarkable thing that I noticed is one of the front desk of second violins missed the entries in the beginning in the final movement because Andrea did not really pause much in between. She gave an encore: Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor, op. Post. Review in Arts Hub is wrong, the nocturne is NOT Nocturne in C minor as written in that review; and also NOT the Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No.1 (which I think it's vastly superior piece compare to the encore). The encore piece is the Nocturne that was used in the movie The Pianist; if that helps. I enjoyed Andrea's Nocturne very much, and honestly, I think, that's her best playing of the night.

There was a presentation for composers' award that night and Melody Eotvos and another composer from Melbourne won the prizes offered. Eotvos' piece 'Huygens Principle' has interesting description. It's about an experiment with 'observing the nature of waves in a pond'. I was looking forward to listening this composition, but ended up feeling a bit disappointed, although I enjoyed some of the musical ideas presented there, like the main theme that was played in several disguise in different instruments with different dynamics (IIRC). Perhaps I can write more about it if I listen to it again, but the chance of the piece is performed again in Melbourne is pretty low or close to zero - a fact for most contemporary composition.

Finally, a piece that I both love and hate. I love Pictures at an Exhibition in its original form - as a solo piano piece -. I love Sviatoslav Richter's Sofia Recital CD which gave me a wonderful listening experience, despite the audience cough and fingers slip in a couple of places. I hate Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by other: Horowitz's own transcription for solo piano or the famous Ravel's version for orchestra. The Promenade themes played by trumpets? Poo-poo. The piece accompanied with bad brass sections? Awful. That's what happened in the concert. I'm sorry for the harsh words, but I don't think the brass section was having a good night. Ravel's arrangement made the piece too pretty, too superficial, and lost its dark-Russian character. I was totally bored in the Old Castle, stayed in that boredom level until we reached the Baba-Yaga. The main reason is not the music itself, but Ravel's arrangement just made the music lost its appeal to me.

Finally, the night got better for me: the orchestra gave an encore - the Gavotte from Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The best performance of the night, by far.

Other thing that I didn't enjoy: donation speech. I know that this concert is a free event. But, still...

One last note, I sat at the last seat of the right side of second last row in the Balcony! Almost at the top. The acoustic is surprisingly okay, considering the distance from the seat to the orchestra. I still can't say I enjoyed that seat though: I have to look down painfully throughout the performance.

Proper blog post..

I haven't been posting new music that I have discovered for a long long time. Partly because of my busy schedule, and partly because I don't feel the urge to write about them.

I joined a choir a while ago, and it changed my way of listening to choral music. After I learned to sing Mozart's requiem, now I can fully enjoy the part where I don't really like before, e.g. Domine Jesu and Hostias. Other movements became more attractive and interesting, e.g. Kyrie, Rex Tremendae, Confutatis and I found more pleasure listening to them compare to my previous experiences before joining the choir.

In the past few months or so, I've been listening to Faure's Requiem. What a great piece this is. Sure, it doesn't have the Dies Irae sequence, but the music simplicity (compare to say Verdi's or Brahms' Requiem) is simply heavenly. Most people would no doubt associate the Pie Jesu and In Paradisum when they heard about Faure's requiem. They're both fantastic movements, but the movement that I love the most is Sanctus. I can always imagine heavenly images when I heard harp arpeggios in the beginning of Sanctus. Also, being a tenor myself, I always enjoy the Tenor entry after the horn passages in the middle ('Hosanna in excelsis'). Other movements have their own charm, such as the baritone solo in Libera Me and the little 'Dies Irae' episode which sounded a bit underwhelming. As a whole, I still very much love this requiem.

The new choral music that I listened to recently is Haydn's Nelson Mass. Whoa, what a piece! I fell in love with the dramatic Kyrie the first time I listened to it. Gloria is an upbeat movement in the beginning, with memorable bass solo in the middle, and back to the same melody as the opening melody. I'm less keen on Credo, but still enjoy the 'descendit descaelis'. I guess I would be less keen on Credo in every mass if I always compare how composers set the 'Et vitam venturi' text with Beethoven's setting of the text as a massive fugue in his Missa Solemnis. Sanctus starts off solemnly before the 'Pleni Sunt Caeli' section changes the mood completely. The Benedictus is wonderful to sing at, especially during the most dramatic (IMO) in the whole piece where the trumpets and drums play fortissimo passages against the choir singing the word 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini' just before the 'Hosanna in excelsis' section in the end. Agnus Dei rounded up the whole work with upbeat 'dona nobis pacem'.

In piano concerto world, I'm still discovering Prokofiev's piano concertos. After the fantastic third piano concerto, I'm quite surprised with the different mood in his second piano concerto. The cadenza in the first movement is quite obvious fiendishly difficult to play, and of course the tricky running scales of the piano in the Scherzo. Heavy brass opens up the third movement and will catch a lot of people off guard. But what impressed me the most is the last movement. There's this passage around the 6 minutes mark in my recording where the piano enters after a fermata from the orchestra. The piano played a very eerie, satirical melody of the main theme. I always feel unsettled here. I don't know what to feel with the finale where it feels like the piano is arguing with the orchestra and finally had enough and ended it (and also the piece) with a big chord with the timpani in the end. A true masterpiece which made plenty of impacts to the listener!

I have also been exploring Chopin's Nocturnes - opp. 9 and 15 - . I very much prefer op. 9 nocturnes to op. 15 due to their more memorable melody and elegance. Op. 9 No. 2 and No. 3 are my favourites among these six nocturnes (3 each from both sets). For me, Ballade No. 3 is rediscovered when I listened to Cortot playing it in the EMI set. Whoa, what difference he brought to the piece! Just a couple of seconds in the beginning and I know that his playing is going to change how I think about this piece. His playing of other ballades is wonderful as well, do yourself a favour and get the recording of Cortot playing the ballades! They're so different (yet feel so right) than the other ballades that I've listened so far (Rubinstein, Zimmerman, and Richter).

Finally, I'll round up by just mentioning the 5th symphony of Dvorak. A very much underrated work with plenty of beautiful melodies. I loved it when Dvorak brought back the main theme of the first movement in the very end of the piece where it was played by one of the brass (trumpet?). That moment always made me very happy. The 2nd and 3rd movements are good fun as well. You might recall Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in the opening 4 notes of the 2nd movement of this symphony (I noticed this courtesy of Wikipedia).

Until next time when I have listened to more interesting music and have the mood to write more about them.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 26 June 2009 - The Dance of Life

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Ruy Blas: Overture
- Mendelssohn Concerto for Two Pianos in E major
- Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances

Silver-Garburg - Piano Duo
Yan Pascal Tortelier - Conductor

Before attending this concert, I had a few drinks and let's just say that it is something to be avoided in future concerts. As a consequence of that, I couldn't concentrate properly on the first half of the concert. It's so unfortunate as Mendelssohn is one of my favourite composer. That being said, based on my half-concentration, I don't think Ruy Blas overture is as interesting as the other famous overtures by Mendelssohn. It has its moments, but not as memorable as the other overtures. I was looking forward to the performance of the concerto for two pianos, but it ended up being an okay performance with muddy sound from the orchestra. The third movement was the the movement that I enjoyed the most. Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg then gave a wonderful encore which snapped me out from doziness: a four-hand piano performance of Stravinksy's Russian Dance from Petrouchka. Click here if you feel like watching a performance of it. They took the piece faster, played better, and better in-sync to each other than the pair in the video.

Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances is not one of my favourite works out of his symphonic outputs. I thought it was not too memorable, doesn't have the 'it' tune. But, I gladly changed my mind after today's performance. Tortelier's has wonderful insight to this piece and I noticed what's missing in the recording that I have. Those missing pieces made a big difference in enjoyment of listening to this piece. I was intrigued by Tortelier's treatment of the first theme of the funny marking 'Non-allegro' movement. Instead of driving the marching rhythm it fast, he took it quite slow, and therefore revealing something that has been missing in my recording of the piece: the Dies Irae motif. Wonderful attacks from MSO winds helped too! The brass that opens the second movement is quite unusual.I don't think I would ever associate a Waltz movement with brass instruments. But they too soon gave away to waltzing rhythm in string pizzicatos. Finally, Tortelier let loose and drive the orchestra to its capability, unleashing a rousing finale. Fine playing from the orchestra enhanced the excitement. But, what I commend the most from the performance is Tortelier's ability to make me appreciate every moment in the piece which I normally found boring.

Despite my concentration lapse in the first half, the concert made me leaving the concert hall in upbeat mood. Tortelier is a wonderful conductor, and I'm impressed with him conducting Symphonic Dances without both the score and the baton. I would love to see him back conducting MSO in the future.

Finally, MSO (or the Arts Centre) did something stupid with the program notes. Instead of leaving those program notes outside in the foyer area, they kept them on a special stand. This is all fine, but the moronic part is they kept the stand behind the hall's doors! Therefore, people can't get a copy of the programs to read before the doors are opened which usually happened 15 minutes before the performance.

Next concert: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Should be great.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 April 2009 - The Emperor

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Overture: The Fair Melusina
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 'Emperor'
- Stravinsky Concerto for chamber orchestra 'Dumbarton Oaks'
- Beethoven Symphony No. 8

Barry Douglas - Piano
Douglas Boyd - Conductor

Let's start with one good thing: I kept my promise and arrived (too) early for the concert. I had plenty of time to read through the program notes and seeing how much audience flocked in to the hall. With the program that MSO is offering for this concert, you would have expected to see a good number of audience, right? Beethoven's Emperor Concerto is a favourite classics - voted number 1 in ABC 100 classics concerto. Beethoven's 8th symphony - although not as famous as the odd-numbered symphony can attract some crowds too. Mendelssohn's and Stravinsky's pieces, as fine as they are, are probably just there to support the two Beethoven pieces. However, contrary to my expectation, the audience number is just disappointingly low. The balcony seats are virtually empty, and only 75-80% seats of the stalls are occupied. The circle seats fared much better, 90% of them are seated. So, why the low number of audience? Maybe people are just too sick with the 'Emperor'? Maybe because it's Saturday afternoon? Maybe because of Melbourne Comedy Festival? I have no idea.

To the concert: The Fair Melusina was executed sprightly with nice attack during the fast section of the piece. The opening movement and the end which are calmer were marked with excellent woodwinds playing from the orchestra. Good solid performance. Next piece is the 'meat' of the concert: the Emperor concerto. It started out promisingly, three nice chords with piano intersecting between them. Excellent opening. The pianist continued his fine playing, with the conductor provided excellent accompaniment. Then I realised something, the pianist, wonderful as he was, was not majestic enough in his playing. The big tunes in the first movement sounds a little bit underwhelmed, but it got better during the end of the movement. Personally, I got quite tired/bored with the big tune of the Emperor concerto after a while. The whole first movement is too long - "too many notes" - if I may say. Unlike most people who voted 'Emperor' as their favourite concerto, my favourite piano concerto of Beethoven is the subdued 4th piano concerto. Anyway, the cadenza was played much better, a fitting end to the end of first movement. The second movement is the highlight of the performance for me, now that was a gorgeous singing melody from the pianist. It almost hypnotised me, it was just dead gorgeous. The spell was broken during the transition to the Rondo, which was perfectly fine apart from a couple weird tempo choices in the middle. In the end, a satisfying performance, well worth listening especially the second movement. 3 curtain calls for the pianist, but no encores :(.

After the interval, Stravinsky's bouncy Dumbarton Oaks concerto bounced back my interest. Its cute, bouncy rhythm made me grinned - not unlike Prokofiev's. It started off imitating Bach's 3rd Brandenburg concerto jumping rhythm, but them it ventures out to do something else. The second movement was highlighted by some fine flute lines. The third movement was a quick one, ending with a glimmer of brilliance. Nice fine music. I have to thank my own ventures to Prokofiev music that have given my brain some 'training' to listen to this irresistible weird rhythmic music.

A straight, no non-sense playing of Beethoven's 8th symphony closed the concert. And yes, I never failed to grin throughout the performance. I loved every single bit of Beethoven's 8th symphony. It's compact, full of musical jokes and brilliant orchestration. I liked how the conductor emphasis the marching brass rhythm in the last movement. The horns are to be praised for their fine playing in the trio of the third movement. But the surprise was me finding out that the audience actually liked the performance as much as I do. Good surprise, because I have assumptions that people only like Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th symphonies. Oh yeah, I sure hope the other people did not notice my facial expression during the performance of this symphony. If I have a mirror, I'm sure I looked like a lunatic with never ending grins.

Next concert: Rachmaninov's ever popular Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini - next month.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 August 2008 - Three Great Romantics

Featuring:
- Carl Maria von Weber - Oberon: Overture
- Robert Schumann - Piano Concerto
- Johannes Brahms - Serenade No. 1

Oleg Caetani - Conductor
John Chen - Piano
Calvin Bowman - Organ

For his organ recital, Calvin Bowman started off by presenting a rather lengthy Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552. Schumann's pieces from Canonic studies for pedal piano, Op. 56 was next, I love the second piece as it has a very childlike tune. Brahms' Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen was very nice as well. And a lively piece by C.S. Lang Tuba Tune rounded up the performance.

The decision to either subscribe to the entire Town Hall series or not, I recalled, was one of the toughest decision for me to make last year because of this concert. On one hand, I wanted to save money by not attending to this concert because MSO has already programmed very similar program last season differing only in the Brahms' work which I have not listened to before. On the other hand, if I did not attend this concert, then I can't have the Town Hall subscription and assigned a fixed seating for all the other 3 concerts that I want to go. In the end, I found out that I only need to pay $12 extra for this concert if I chose to subscribe to the whole series compare to purchasing individual tickets for the other 3 concerts separately. The promise of listening to Brahms' serenade helped me in justifying the extra $12 that I need to pay for this concert.

The concert itself did not disappoint, if Brahms is your motivation to go to this concert. However, if your motivation is Schumann's Piano Concerto, then I think you might feel a little bit disappointed. I'll elaborate this later. The concert program started with Oberon: overture which I already loved. The orchestra executed it brilliantly and the audience loved it. Credit also to Caetani for his sudden tempo acceleration after the slow introduction, I liked it very much. Next up is the disappointment of the concert for me. The Schumann Piano Concerto started good, but then as with the other pianist who played this same concerto last season, John Chen wasn't able to bring out the most of the concerto. The middle section of the concerto was, to be honest, quite bland. It did not help the performance when the pianist made a small number of mistakes as well. The cadenza which is the make or break of Schumann Piano Concerto for me, was fortunately quite good although Richter's reading of it is never surpassed. The performance of the second movement was okay to border-not-so-good. Fortunately, the finale was very good. However, as a whole, the performance is not so good. By the way I have some rant on audience's concert etiquettes today: the audience sitting at my back and around me weren't being helpful for me in enjoying the performance. There were chair creaks through out; the couple sitting behind me did some annoying things: unwrapping a candy, flipping through the concert program in the middle of the concert and scratching their legs loudly. And for the first time in my concert-going experience, I saw a guy passing a glass of wine to his friend who is two rows in front of him in the middle of the first movement of piano concerto. Although Australia is a laid back country, this behaviour is just unacceptable.

Moving on to Brahms' serenade: this is the gem of the night. A work of 6 movements, it started with a very uplifting first movement. The second and fifth movements are two nice scherzos. The middle movements are a beautiful Adagio although it did not start very convincingly and a charming Minuet. Haydn-like last movement was the first thing that popped up in my mind after listening to the first few bars of the finale. The whole serenade was marvelous. I very much enjoyed the whole piece. Hungarian Dance No. 1 was the encore of the night.

The number of the audience was quite disappointing, this is probably the emptiest Town Hall concert that I've ever attended. Next Town Hall concert should hopefully filled up with more people because it has two masterpieces: Mozart's Jupiter symphony and Requiem.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 19 July 2008 - Toward the Light

Featuring:
- Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
- Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2
- Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 5

Simon Trpceski - Piano
Thomas Dausgaard - Conductor

I'll be frank and just admit I subscribe to this concert because of Saint-Saens piano concerto. I wasn't familiar with the 2 other pieces when I made my decision to subscribe to this concert. It's a bit of gamble since I had bad experience with Richard Strauss music played by MSO. The last season concert of his 'Sinfonia Domestica' bored me - one of the concert that I just wished it ended as fast as it could. With Nielsen, I read someone saying in Amazon classical music board that he 'spoke as much as Mahler did with his symphonies but in half the time'. In other thread of the same forum when posters were asked to vote for the best symphony ever written, there are surprisingly a number of votes for his fifth symphony despite strong (and popular) competitors from say Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Dvorak symphonies. I'm curious to see what the fuss is all about.

To prepare myself for the concert, I listened to Till Eulenspiegel and Nielsen's fifth symphony 2 days before the concert. I actually fell in love with Till in the first listening! A character of quick wits and plenty of tricks, he was portrayed excellently by Strauss - the opening horn solo depicting Till is just delicious. The music is also delightful with plenty of tongue-in-cheek passages throughout. I especially love the market scene where you can just listen to the havoc of the market from the music. And how about the whistling tune that is played after Till fooled the scholars? Fantastic. This piece and Also Sprach Zarathustra - which I spend one full evening on listening and listening to it again - now made me look at Strauss' music in a more positive way.

Nielsen's fifth symphony is a very modern symphony. One just needs to listen to the opening movement and will be taken aback on how modern it sounds. Despite being modern, it never reached to the atonality of Schoenberg. The symphony projects the impression of victory through struggle. It has a number of powerful moment and the best known moment in the whole symphony is when the snare drum 'fights' against the rest of the orchestra in the second part of the first movement. I was not entirely convinced with the second movement when I first heard it, but second listening should give me a better insight.

Now to the concert. The orchestra played Till very well. Individual solos were wonderful. However, in the end I felt the performance lacked in drama compared to the performance of Furtwangler or Karajan. Till's death scene may serve as an example to this. It wasn't as dramatic as it could be. In a sense it's too bad since the scene where Till was captured and whistling desperately was very good portrayed.
Despite all of this, it's still a very good performance.

You won't believe how the Saint-Saens piano concerto was played. Such virtuosity, showmanship and clarity playing. Simon Trpceski is one of the pianist to keep your eye on the next time he gives the concert. He was thoroughly impressive in the concerto, and very much comparable to Stephan Hough's performance of the fifth piano concerto with MSO last season. The performance started off with a bang, the long piano line was given such power that might surprise unprepared listeners. The technically difficult long cadenzas were nothing for the pianist, he played it off easily and such clarity in the playing. The playing was never muffled even in the stormiest passages. The orchestra accompanied wonderfully throughout. After the first movement, the pianist - would you believe it! - took some time to adjust his tie bow. He then proceeded and gave a most exciting Scherzo. In some points of the performance, he even moved his body as if he was dancing to the tune. This scherzo remained a crowd pleasing movement, several of the audience clapped after this movement. I don't blame them, the playing was just delicious. The finale started off in a similar fashion with the first movement - with lightning speed attack to the stormy opening. My heart started racing from the beginning of the second movement and it didn't stop until the last note of the finale. That showed how intense and exciting Simon Trpceski playing was. He gave two encores, the first one was very poetic - I regret not listening closely to him when he mentioned it before he played. The second encore was a composition by his fellow Macedonian composer. Both pieces were wonderful.

Nielsen's fifth symphony was next. A very good or rather, excellent first movement. The battle scene between the snare drum against the rest of the orchestra was so powerful and when the 'noble' theme came out victorious, I was emotionally overwhelmed. I again have a little bit of problem understanding the second movement, although the fugues (there are two fugues in the second movement) were now a bit clearer to me. The conductor is to be applauded for his energetic conducting and the powerful sound he extracted out from the orchestra.

Last note that I want to make about the concert is the number of attendance. Poor MSO, this concert was the less-attended concert that I've been to so far this season. Almost half the stall seats were empty! The circle seats were much better, it was 75% full. The balcony fared the worst, from a quick glance, I can tell that 80% of the seats were empty. This situation really saddens me and I can only think of one reason on the low number of attendance: this is the third performance out of 3 of the program.

Next concert: my highlight of this MSO season: Tchaikovsky's violin concerto and Brahms' first symphony on 2 August. Two of my favourite works. Can't wait till the day comes!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 June 2008 - Ravel's Bolero

Featuring:
- Berlioz Le Corsaire Overture
- Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20
- Schoenberg Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31
- Ravel Bolero

Boris Berman - Piano
Mario Venzago - Conductor

Marketing technique is applied to the fullest to the title of this concert - crowd-pleasing Ravel's Bolero. As if the other programs in the concert is not as good as Bolero. It succeeded in enticing me to subscribe to this concert, so I guess MSO has nothing to complain about their marketing department. The concert hall (at least the Stall and the Circle) was quite packed at around 90-95% capacity full and I guess almost 95% of those people, including me, attended this concert mainly because of Bolero.

I subscribed to this concert because of Bolero is a pretty much an orchestral showcase, where there are plenty of solo lines for the principals of the instruments. Musically speaking, it's a - forgive me - pretty much boring piece. I'll elaborate that later.

The concert started with Berlioz's Le Corsaire overture, which I am already familiar with before the concert. It's actually quite a good piece, but it will never reach the status of Symphonie Fantastique. The orchestra played well for this piece and I also discovered some of the pieces that I never picked up in the recording that I had. A little note of the conductor, Mario Venzago: he used big gestures when conducting, and at one point, he danced in the podium. He is the first conductor that I've seen so far in my short concert attending career whose hands went full stretch up and from there, along with his body, sank as low as he possibly can. His gesture is precise and meaningful, however and I actually kind of enjoy how he conducted this piece. A warm applause followed after the end of the piece, which I think it's not enough considering how well the orchestra played the piece.

The second piece of the concert is one of the masterpiece of piano concerto repertoire, the Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. Before the concert, I have not listened to this concerto in my life. I've listened to a snippet of the 2nd movement at the end of the movie Amadeus, but that's about it. 3 hours before the concert, I went to Youtube and found video of Friedrich Gulda playing this concerto and watched it. A fiery performance, and Gulda's technique is magnificent, I was completely absorbed by his performance. The piece was played more tamely by the MSO, and Berman's playing, while was excellent, did not completely satisfy me in the end. He wasn't as engaging as Gulda, I guess. The first movement lacked a little bit in drama and stormy mood department, but the second movement was delicious. The finale was good, but again, Berman's playing did not reach the level of Gulda's playing for me. The concerto ended well, and long applause followed. Most audience will be disappointed not to be offered an encore. And after this concert, I will definitely start looking for recordings of Mozart's piano concerto.

Now, to the most difficult music of the night, Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31. The conductor actually made a speech before playing this piece. He said that although the piece was written around 80 years ago, it is still very modern due to its complexity and the 12-tone system. He made anecdote of 12-tone system, saying that Schoenberg's idea of 12-tone system is that every note will be treated in the same manner, just like how everybody has the same rights in the society. However, he also noted that, as with the society, there are some individuals that have more power than the others, and that is also the case with 12-tone system where the notes, B (B flat), A, C, H (B natural) (representing the word BACH) is treated in a more special way. He did not expect the audience to hum or like the piece and he said he's very happy if the audience is attracted just a little to it, just like how people are attracted to Picasso's cubism paintings. Sure enough, the piece was difficult to play and listen. But amidst the lack of melody in the piece, there were lots of things going on in this piece. Lots of variations, chamber-music like variance and a whole lot more such as col legno playing, contrasting materials, extreme dynamics change, and how the motif in the beginning of the piece was heard again near the end of the piece. I actually kinda liked this music and never bored a single moment in this piece. I would be bored if I only listen to the recording, but the sight of how the piece is played by the orchestra really helped me ATTRACTED to the piece. Needless to say, majority of the audience did not like it, only lukewarm applause followed. I even overheard someone saying, "at least they end the concert with something good, the Bolero".

The Bolero itself that I was looking forward to is to me no comparison to Schoenberg's piece. I ended up bored by the same tune played by different instruments again and again. I even wondered if the strings players are actually bored playing pizzicato for most of the piece, only to join the fun in the end with their sweet sound. Don't take me wrong, the orchestra played very well, and the principals were very good. The snare drums player did a fantastic job in keeping the tempo and the dynamics of the notes are very well judged. But during this piece, I contrasted this piece with Schoenberg's and found how simple Ravel's craft is in this piece compared to Schoenberg's. Anyway, enough with the bashing of Bolero, it's still a crowd-pleasing piece, and I myself was and will always be overwhelmed with the full sound of the orchestra when the cymbals and bass-drums crashed down near the end. But I will think thrice to attend Bolero concert again if MSO program this piece next season or two. The audience shouted bravo in the end, and I was the only person that, as far as I can see, applaused not as enthusiast as the rest of the audience.

To sum up, a very good concert, 3 out 4 programs were played brilliantly, the Mozart's piano concerto just a little bit short from brilliant. Discover a new gem of Schoenberg and find myself not-liking-Bolero-so-much-anymore after listening to Schoenberg's piece. Next concert is: Saint-Saens' 2nd piano concerto in 2 (or 3?) weeks time.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 16 May 2008 - Bohemian Rhapsody

Featuring:
- Antonin Dvorak - Symphony No. 7
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 'Elvira Madigan'
- Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta

Alexander Briger - Conductor
Amir Farid - Piano
Calvin Bowman - Organ

2 weeks before this concert, I started listening to Dvorak's 7th symphony. A great work, which is underplayed nowadays because of the immense popularity of his 9th symphony. The starting dance like rhythm of the Scherzo was the highlight of the symphony for me. I haven't listened to any of Mozart's piano concertos in full yet and tonight was my very first time listening to his 21st piano concerto. Janacek's Sinfonietta is a work that I don't even know exist. So, there were 2 programs that I am completely unfamiliar with before the concert.

As usual with MSO's Town Hall Series concert, there is an organ recital by Calvin Bowman. The programs included: Bach's Fantasia on Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BWV 651 which was a little piece with a number of fugal elements in it; Bach's O mensch bewein dein Sunde gross, BWV 622 a prayer like - very serene - piece, and it made me feel very humble when listening to it; Mendelssohn's Allegro in B flat, a short lively piece with no immediate memorable melody, but very enjoyable nonetheless; and finally two pieces from Messiaen's L'Ascension - Alleluias sereins d'une ame qui desire le ciel which was a little too drag out music although it was very interesting at the beginning and Transports de joe d'une ame devant la glore du Christ qui est la sienne which was a more fast-paced and definitely more interesting than the Alleluias.

Now to the main concert: The Dvorak's was good, just a little bit short of great. The conductor conducting without a score, took a very fast paced at the beginning of the symphony. Because of that, clarity of some passages are sacrificed for an extra excitement of the music. The climax of the first movement fell a bit short for me. There was a two to three minutes pause between first and second movement, because apparently more than 50 people were late to the concert! The concert as was told by MSO e-news was sold out. The second movement itself was better executed, so as the third movement's dance-like main theme. The trio was a bit disappointing, I don't know what's wrong with it, but I felt a bit lost when the trio was executed. The return of the main theme was a very good welcome. The finale was brilliant with clear delicate melody from the woodwinds.

Mozart's 21st piano concerto often nicknamed 'Elvira Madigan' because of the prominent use of the music in the movie with that title. It was famous for the lyrical aria-like second movement which was brilliant in the concert. The soloist, Amir Farid gave a very good performance throughout and the orchestra gave a very good accompaniment to a crowd-pleasing music. A very enjoyable piano concert, and I think it's about time I listen to Mozart's piano concertos.

Janacek's Sinfonietta is a quite short but very interesting work featuring 12 trumpets! The opening movement whose theme will be restated in the finale is scored for brass only. The second, third and fourth movement were all very enjoyable. The finale in which the main theme was restated and all the 12 trumpets played at the same time is an uplifting piece of music that will surely leave a good impression for the audience. The audience seemed to have enjoyed the piece very much, which is very good for a rarely played music.

Summing up, a good night out! And the seat that I was assigned to for the remaining Town Hall concerts were wonderful. Am very happy that I subscribed to the Town Hall series.