What concerts are you looking forward to? (Part II)

[Ganondorf]

On 27th, at Finnish National Opera, Elektra. I have actually seen this production before but it has been almost 10 years so my memory is a bit hazy.

[Brian]

Tomorrow at the Dallas Symphony, with former GMGer Greta:

Barber | School for Scandal overture
Beethoven | Piano Concerto No. 3
Adams | Harmonielehre

David Robertson
Emanuel Ax
Dallas Symphony

My first time seeing Harmonielehre live, and its Dallas premiere. (Greta's actually attending two of the weekend's concerts, to see it twice!)

Was a wonderful experience! Harmonielehre really is very impressive live, and so is the DSO, which handled this incredibly tough piece in its season premiere with 6 new musicians in the orchestra, including a new principal oboe. (I did see some string players flexing their wrists after the finale.) David Robertson conducted a soulful, romantic interpretation; Greta tells me it's a little slow compared to MTT, but it's still thrilling in all the right places. Although the second movement is often described in terms of Sibelius' Fourth, which it directly quotes, I was struck this time by how much the finale seems to take from Sibelius' Fifth.

In the Beethoven, Emanuel Ax was steady, precise, and mature - except one very funny joke. In the finale's cadenza, when it was time to shift to C major and bring the orchestra back for the coda, he started playing the finale of Beethoven's First Symphony instead! He got about a bar and a half in, just enough for the musicians to start laughing, before cutting it off and returning to the correct piece. 

[Senta]

Was a wonderful experience! Harmonielehre really is very impressive live, and so is the DSO, which handled this incredibly tough piece in its season premiere with 6 new musicians in the orchestra, including a new principal oboe. (I did see some string players flexing their wrists after the finale.) David Robertson conducted a soulful, romantic interpretation; Greta tells me it's a little slow compared to MTT, but it's still thrilling in all the right places. Although the second movement is often described in terms of Sibelius' Fourth, which it directly quotes, I was struck this time by how much the finale seems to take from Sibelius' Fifth.

Well, it's been a bit since I've been over to the forum, but us talking about it Sunday brought me back here and I found this ha! I mean, I HAD to come say something about hearing one of my "soul works" live, twice. It was really special to experience it with a whole group of us Sunday too, also including friends from Houston who are massive John Adams fans.

Honestly, it was everything I dreamed of and more. Definitely teared up in the 3rd movement – just sublimely gorgeous, transcendent music.

I have Robertson's wonderful 2008 live recording with SLSO, it has more expansive tempi but is a favorite due to its detail. Last weekend he took it a tick faster than that recording, and since Sunday, I checked out the John Adams/Berlin Phil recording and can say the performance was very close to the composer's own tempi.

I always figured I'd have to fly somewhere to ever hear this piece live!! When DSO announced their season and I saw it, led by one of my fave Adams' specialists no less, I was over the moon.

Extremely impressed by the orchestra. DSO was truly firing on all cylinders, incredible execution of all the technical and emotional demands of the piece. Divine.

And a delight to finally see David Robertson live – such joy, energy and communication with the musicians, clear direction and sooo much detail throughout, not just in the Adams. I have the score to Harmonielehre and have enjoyed delving into it over the years, they totally nailed its often very specific dynamic ebb and flows, and struck that balance between power and beauty that the piece needs.

I really hope DSO releases this one on their YouTube Digital Concert Series (and made sure to say so in my post-concert survey!)

In the Beethoven, Emanuel Ax was steady, precise, and mature - except one very funny joke. In the finale's cadenza, when it was time to shift to C major and bring the orchestra back for the coda, he started playing the finale of Beethoven's First Symphony instead! He got about a bar and a half in, just enough for the musicians to start laughing, before cutting it off and returning to the correct piece. 

Thanks for catching that and alerting me to this clever joke    I thought the musicians seemed extra amused! Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves during the Beethoven, and Manny was of course, superb. We also loved that Robertson went and sat at the celesta to hear his awesome encore!

I'm just now checking out concerts around here this coming season and am thrilled to see HSO is having John Adams here in April with his new piano concerto + another new work, and Ives' Unanswered Question and Copland's Appalachian Spring. Looking forward to that!

[Brian]

Hey, good to see ya, stranger!! 

[Iota]

Fri night at the Wigmore Hall.

Mozart
Fantasia in C minor K475

Shostakovich
Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor Op. 61

Interval

Schubert
Drei Klavierstücke D.946
Fantasy in C D.760 'Wanderer'

Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano)


First time seeing Leonskaja live. She walked straight on stage and with only a brief pause to lower the music stand, dived straight into the Mozart Fantasia. Though thoughtfully played the Mozart felt hurried, not because it was fast, but because she didn't seem to want to allow the music many breathing places. This was clearly her vision and not some lack of sensitivity or concern, but it didn't work for me.
The Shostakovich Second Piano Sonata which came next was completely different in every way. She played it with such mastery and conviction that this uniquely strange and wondrous music poured out of score gloriously and was both moving and completely absorbing. She played too with a bravura that I found hard to believe in someone who is 79 years old. This piece has grown on me immensely recently and last night was yet another step up along that silvery road.
After the interval, both the Schubert Klavierstücke and the Wanderer fantasy for me suffered somewhat from the same problems as the Mozart. They were expertly played again, but for me the shimmering magic that emerges from Schubert's music when its's allowed time to breathe was largely absent (this wasn't the case at all in a recording of D.958 by her I listened to recently). There were some very beautiful things she did at times in the Wanderer, and once again her technical mastery was impressively unaffected by the passage of time, but overall it just felt a little anonymous to me.

Despite my reservations I felt a kind of fondness towards her throughout, she feels such a sincere presence and a very formidable one. She played an absolutely exquisite Strauss (I think) waltz as one encore at the end, with such charm that it made me laugh out loud. At the end of it all I came away from it feeling very elated by what I'd experienced, warts and all.

[Wanderer]

In Vienna for a few days. Tonight, Rossini's L'occasione fa il ladro. 😎

[brewski]

On Thursday, opening night of The Philadelphia Orchestra, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Yuja Wang. I'm impressed that they are ending with the Julia Wolfe piece, which they played for the first time last March. Program notes here.

Márquez: Danzón No. 2
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Wolfe: Pretty (2023)

[Wanderer]

In Vienna for a few days. Tonight, Rossini's L'occasione fa il ladro. 😎

What a superb evening that was! Intimate venue, clever and humorous modern staging (that did not just stay confined to the stage), excellent singing and acting and a hilarious Rossinian nod to Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Tannhäuser tonight and Il barbiere di Siviglia on Friday at the Staatsoper.

[ritter]

What a superb evening that was! Intimate venue, clever and humorous modern staging (that did not just stay confined to the stage), excellent singing and acting and a hilarious Rossinian nod to Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Tannhäuser tonight and Il barbiere di Siviglia on Friday at the Staatsoper.

Sounds great! And enjoy the remainder if your operatic escapade to Vienna!

I wouldn't mind seeing Tannhäuser again in the theatre. It's been decades!

And if you have a Tafelspitz at the Rote Bar of the Sacher Hotel, then the trip will be complete! 

[brewski]

On Thursday, opening night of The Philadelphia Orchestra, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Yuja Wang. I'm impressed that they are ending with the Julia Wolfe piece, which they played for the first time last March. Program notes here.

Márquez: Danzón No. 2
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Wolfe: Pretty (2023)

Loved this concert, with clear good vibes from Yannick for the orchestra and for Wang, as well. Had heard the Márquez once before, with Dudamel IIRC, and this version was equally spirited. Wang was almost too quiet in parts of the Ravel, but that made the rest emerge like bolts of lightning, and she offered a blistering encore, Kapustin's Toccatina. The Wolfe is a totally engaging half-hour of nonstop motion, part minimalism, part rock band (with a drum set) that made an unconventional finale.

Plus, and I won't go into details here, Yannick opened the evening with some well-considered remarks on the current artistic state of affairs in the U.S. As a nice coda, I sat near a couple from Dallas, visiting Philadelphia for the first time, who had never heard Yannick, the orchestra, or Wang. They were enthralled.

[Florestan]

Wang was almost too quiet in parts of the Ravel, but that made the rest emerge like bolts of lightning, and she offered a blistering encore, Kapustin's Toccatina.

How about her dress, Bruce? Color, size, transparency --- inquiring minds want to know. 

[brewski]

How about her dress, Bruce? Color, size, transparency --- inquiring minds want to know. 

Here's a post I added on Bluesky, which you should be able to see without a Bluesky account.

I will add that I 100% affirm her choice to dress like a rock star. She's beautiful and has the musical chops, so why not. If some people have never heard her and are pulled in by her attire, fine: "Come for her dress, stay for her dazzling Ravel piano concerto." It wouldn't work — in fact, her choices might be downright annoying — if she weren't so prodigiously talented.

Also, my two cents: classical music in general could use a bit more glam. And see? We're talking about her!

[Florestan]

Here's a post I added on Bluesky, which you should be able to see without a Bluesky account.

Thanks.

I will add that I 100% affirm her choice to dress like a rock star. She's beautiful and has the musical chops, so why not. If some people have never heard her and are pulled in by her attire, fine: "Come for her dress, stay for her dazzling Ravel piano concerto." It wouldn't work — in fact, her choices might be downright annoying — if she weren't so prodigiously talented.

Also, my two cents: classical music in general could use a bit more glam. And see? We're talking about her!

I completely agree with all of the above.

[Wanderer]

An Earth-shattering Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln yesterday at the Konzerthaus. Today:

Anton Bruckner

Symphonie Nr. 9 d-Moll WAB 109

 Fassung mit der Vervollständigungdes Finales von Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, John A. Phillips und Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs (Fassung 2012, 2021–22 revidiert von John A. Phillips)

Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich

Ivor Bolton | Dirigent

[brewski]

This weekend, my first time hearing Yunchan Lim live:

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Marin Alsop, conductor
Yunchan Lim, piano

John Adams: The Rock You Stand On (world premiere)
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3
Prokofiev: Selections from Romeo and Juliet

[Brian]

Ohh, what a delicious program. I bet you will make Greta jealous, too! 

[brewski]

Later this month, opening night of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society with the superb Sphinx Virtuosi and cellist Sterling Elliott, in a typically intriguing program.

José White: La Bella Cubana
Clarice Assad: "Perpetual Motion" and "Danca Brasileira" from Impressions (2008)
Jessie Montgomery: New Commission
William Grant Still: Suite for Cello
Quenton Blache: A Vision for Peace (NWS/Carnegie Co-Commission)
Prokofiev: Sonata No. 7 (arr. Ruben Rengel)
Ginastera: Concerto For Strings, IV. Finale
Ponce: Estrellita

[Kalevala]

Bruce,

Will they be rebroadcasting the concert by Pavel Haas?  Busy day today at home.

K

[brewski]

Bruce,

Will they be rebroadcasting the concert by Pavel Haas?  Busy day today at home.

K

It is still up for now, though no idea how long. They do archive many of their broadcasts. (Click on the "Live" tab to view them.)

This one was particularly fine!

[Kalevala]

It is still up for now, though no idea how long. They do archive many of their broadcasts. (Click on the "Live" tab to view them.)

This one was particularly fine!

Thanks!  Maybe after dinner tonight?

K