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

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

The Melbourne ring cycle of 2013?
I heard quite a few good things about that production.

Yep that production.

[GioCar]

Did you end up getting to any of the Grisey concerts, GioCar?

Yes, to Espace acoustiques and Quatre chants. And tonight I have Le noir de l'etoile waiting for me 
But as you may have seen, I'm a terrible reviewer expecially if I have to write in English...but I will improve, I promise 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Yes, to Espace acoustiques and Quatre chants. And tonight I have Le noir de l'etoile waiting for me 
But as you may have seen, I'm a terrible reviewer expecially if I have to write in English...but I will improve, I promise 

Sounds amazing!!!
Wish I could see more live Grisey!

[GioCar]

Yep that production.

I'd love to see it, but I am not aware of any DVD or commercially available video for the Melbourne Ring 

[GioCar]

Sounds amazing!!!
Wish I could see more live Grisey!

Fuck yes!!! (excuse my french). That'd be a highlight of my year!   
I'd love to get a chance to catch one of Grisey's ensemble or orchestral works live!!! 

Last night concert was really amazing!
Attending "Le noir de l'etoile" with the six percussionists all around me/the audience was a blown-away experience indeed 
And this was the venue where the concert took place. Wow!


http://www.hangarbicocca.org/en/

Anyway I'd say that all the 3 concerts I went to were exceptionally good! Now I'm looking forward to going to the last concert of the Grisey series, that one at La Scala, programming L'Icône paradoxale 

[Obradovic]

4 DEC
At the Athens Megaron

L.v. Beethoven

Coriolan op.62
Piano Concertos No.2 op.19 & No.4 op.58

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Murray Perahia, piano

[Brian]

Saturday:

Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra
Mozart - Piano Concerto No 27
Brahms - Symphony No 4

Francesco Piemontesi, piano
Ruth Reinhardt, conductor

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was originally scheduled to conduct this program, but has dropped out due to health concerns - he's 93 years old.

[MishaK]

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was originally scheduled to conduct this program, but has dropped out due to health concerns - he's 93 years old.

Oh, no! Where was this concert supposed to happen? What orchestra? I just heard Skrowaczewski in Minneapolis conduct the most incandescent Bruckner 8 I have ever heard, just a month ago. It was one of the most unforgettable musical experiences. I did notice that compared to the year before when I heard him last (Bruckner 7, same band), his scoliosis seems to be getting worse and his left shoulder is permanently drooped. I dearly hope this is just a temporary health setback that kept him from appearing at your concert. He's opbviously mentally still fullt alert. There were no slow tempos in that Bruckner 8!

[Brian]

Oh, no! Where was this concert supposed to happen? What orchestra? I just heard Skrowaczewski in Minneapolis conduct the most incandescent Bruckner 8 I have ever heard, just a month ago. It was one of the most unforgettable musical experiences. I did notice that compared to the year before when I heard him last (Bruckner 7, same band), his scoliosis seems to be getting worse and his left shoulder is permanently drooped. I dearly hope this is just a temporary health setback that kept him from appearing at your concert. He's opbviously mentally still fullt alert. There were no slow tempos in that Bruckner 8!

Oops, forgot to add that, Dallas Symphony.

Was very, very excited to see him.

[Todd]

Saturday:

Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra
Mozart - Piano Concerto No 27
Brahms - Symphony No 4

Francesco Piemontesi, piano
Ruth Reinhardt, conductor

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was originally scheduled to conduct this program, but has dropped out due to health concerns - he's 93 years old.

That's close to the same program and soloist I saw last season, though I got to hear Skrowaczewski conduct it.  And it was the Third instead of the Fourth.  I enjoyed Piemontesi quite a bit.  Skrowaczewski's conducting was just right for all three pieces, and he was quite forceful on the podium for the Lutoslawski.  I'm glad I saw him when I did.

My next concert is the Turangalila Symphonie with Steven Osborne on piano in December.  It will have an accompanying light and art show.  I saw the Oregon Symphony opener with Bluebeard's Castle with the light and art show, and it worked fantastically well, so I have high hopes for Messiaen.

[Florestan]

Tonight at Radio Concert Hall, Bucharest

RĂZVAN SUMA – cello
HORIA MIHAIL – piano

F. Schubert:    Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821
R. Schumann:  Adagio and Allegro, op. 70
R. Schumann:  Fantasiestücke, op. 73
R. Schumann:  Fünf Stücke im Volkston, op. 102

[ritter]

Saturday:

Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra
Mozart - Piano Concerto No 27
Brahms - Symphony No 4

Francesco Piemontesi, piano
Ruth Reinhardt, conductor

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski was originally scheduled to conduct this program, but has dropped out due to health concerns - he's 93 years old.

Pity about Skrowaczewski. I hope he recovers quickly.

I saw Skrowaczewski and Piemontesi with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia a couple of years ago doing Beethoven's PC No.1 and Bruckner's Fourth, and it was a memorable concert by all acounts. Music-making of the highest calibre IMHO.

[MishaK]

Skrowaczewski seems to have suffered a stroke. 

https://www.facebook.com/minnesotaorchestra/photos/a.489872228044.263644.54292558044/10154030731588045/?type=3&theater

[Florestan]

Tonight at Radio Concert Hall, Bucharest

RĂZVAN SUMA – cello
HORIA MIHAIL – piano

F. Schubert:    Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821
R. Schumann:  Adagio and Allegro, op. 70
R. Schumann:  Fantasiestücke, op. 73
R. Schumann:  Fünf Stücke im Volkston, op. 102

That was wonderful but they should have played Schubert last. After such an emotional roller coaster as the Arpeggione, the Schumann pieces sounded like salon entertainment.

Schubert is the man on the way to the gallows, unable to stop telling his friends how incomparably beautiful life is -- and how simple. - Anner Bylsma

Indeed, and this feeling is almost physical in the Arpeggione sonata.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Just want to send a personal alert to (poco) Sforzando that Leon Botstein and the American SO are doing Harold Shapero's Symphony at Carnegie Hall in mid-November.

Noted and will be there tomorrow. Followed by Shakespeare's Coriolanus in NYC on Saturday.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

In a few hours I'll be heading off to see Götterdämmerung. Once this is over I'll post some thoughts on the third ever performance of the complete Ring cycle in my city.

[Mookalafalas]

Just saw Paavo Jarvi conducting LvB PC5 and Brahms 1st Sym
  Aimard on piano.

   Very impressed.  Saw Tilson Thomas with Yujia Wang last week.  Completely eclipsed by Jarvi/Aimard.   

[king ubu]

I was at this concert last week, and enjoyed the sh*t out of it:

MO 14.11.16 – Tonhalle Zürich, Grosser Saal

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Sir John Eliot Gardiner Leitung
Kristian Bezuidenhout Hammerflügel

Johannes Brahms: Serenade Nr. 2 A-Dur op. 16
Ludwig van Beethoven: Klavierkonzert Nr. 4 G-Dur op. 58
Franz Schubert: Sinfonie Nr. 5 B-Dur D 485

The Brahms was interesting for sure, loved the effect the placement of the horns had (in pairs behind each other, and on rather steep podests) at the central back of the stage) ... but all in all I have to confess my thoughts did wander a few times during the Brahms. Then lengthy break to re-build the stage and move the fortepiano into its center (an instrument built after a Graf piano like Beethoven used to play one), and on we went with what was the main attraction, I guess: Kristian Bezuidenhout and his heroic fight against the orchestra ... he was prone to lose it quite a few times in the first movement, though the strings were relatively few (i.e. ten first violins). The Tonhalle is just too large for this kind of instrument, I'm afraid, though overall sound was pretty good and transparent that night. Anyway, Bezuidenhout played a marvelous cadenza and both he and Gardiner had me on the edge of my seat quite often. I found myself picturing Beethoven fighting with his silly little keyboard with almost no body and resonance, imagining how in the future there would be instruments suited to actually play his music ... (I know, I know). In the second movement, Bezuidenhout of course had less problems, the dialogue with the orchestra was wonderfully shaped, and they went into the final movement with lots of verve and actually to the point of exhaustion. He returned several times and then played an encore (the Largo from Beethoven's Op. 10/3 as I read below ... recognized it as LvB but couldn't place it myself). Then, after a good 90 minutes, it was high time for a break indeed. After that, the orchestra was back, all but basses and celli without chairs (and the two leads of the celli playing without an endpin, most of the others used one, I think, but I couldn't see them all), to play a highly energetic Schubert fifth that was indeed, another - unexpected - main event. Quite great a night, indeed!

There's a (german) newspaper review that's online here:
http://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/musik/john-eliot-gardiner-und-kristian-bezuidenhout-in-zuerich-stimmig-und-schockierend-ld.128595

And then I found this, via musicweb, which mentions the encore:
http://seenandheard-international.com/2016/11/gardiner-has-his-orchestra-stand-for-schuberts-fifth/

[Brian]

Ruth Reinhardt was an inadequate replacement for Skrowaczewski, who is reportedly stable after having a stroke. (Sad news, there.) But who would be a sufficient replacement? The Lutoslawski's first movement was a little cautious and under-tempo, and the finale contained a horrendous cut!! I don't know who approved this - Reinhardt, is my guess? - but the cut was inexcusable. In this video, the section the Dallas Symphony omitted runs from 26:27 to 27:37.

Piemontesi was excellent in the Mozart, though the woodwinds had balance issues (conducting hint: the melody should usually be louder than the accompanying harmony!), the Brahms 4 mediocre (much too fast, especially in the scherzo, but well-played at least). But there was a silver lining - the girlfriend, who made her first Lutoslawski encounter with trepidation about its reported dissonance, decided it was her favorite thing the DSO has played this year. Good taste!

Noted and will be there tomorrow. Followed by Shakespeare's Coriolanus in NYC on Saturday.

Hope you enjoyed both of these!

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't know who approved this - Reinhardt, is my guess?

But not Reinhart.

Hope you enjoyed both of these!

The concert was all right. Unfortunately the well-meaning Leon Botstein is not a great conductor, and the Shapero's outer movements in particular were by no means up in tempo or energy to the classic Bernstein recording. Bot is no Bern, in other words, just as -hardt is no -hart.

The weekend's revelation was the performance of Coriolanus at the Barrow Street Theater in Greenwich Village. A great play, much good and some great acting, thrilling direction, no stupid updating of the language, and for once a production of Shakespeare that was altogether modern but never at odds with the spirit of the play.