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

[king ubu]

and...did you enjoyed it? Was it love at first sight? 
I had a very hot Brucknerian phase in my life - Haitink was to blame...

Well, let's say I was pretty flashed at the end ... one of the guys working at the CD store I frequented most often (despite their sometimes hilarious pricing policy) and that will close after x-mas (they will keep selling vinyl, but that's for hipsters with beards and fixies, not for classical listeners, and even in jazz there's so much that those silly high-end boutique labels will never, ever bother about) ... anyway, that guy was on the same tram as me, and I had told him a few days ago (when buying my own x-mas present, the "Great Moments at Carnegie Hall" box) that this will be my first Bruckner ever ... I was at a total loss of words when he asked me how I found it.

Let's start at the beginning though, as it really pieced itself together neatly in my head, at the end - which does not imply I understood much of what went on in Bruckner - the programm was this:

FR 09.12.16 - ORCHESTERMAGIE - 19:30 Uhr, Grosser Saal

Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Bernard Haitink Leitung
Sir András Schiff Klavier

Ludwig van Beethoven: Klavierkonzert Nr. 5 Es-Dur op. 73
Anton Bruckner: Sinfonie Nr. 9 d-Moll

Schiff played a Bösendorfer (as usual from the Bachmann piano house in Wetzikon, near Zurich, where I went to high school) that was somewhat shrill in the high and somewhat dull in the low register. The effect this had on the opening took a moment to get used to, but it proved a contrast to the orchestra, turning the entire concerto into more of a dialogue between, rather than a gathering of piano and orchestra. I must have mentioned it before that so far I don't really know Schiff all that much, have had his "Diabelli" double disc on ECM and just happened to receive the new box of his ECM sonatas cycle (nice presentation btw, and spending around 50€ on another Beethoven cycle wasn't all that bad, I guess, after all I love these sonatas and am curious to hear yet another stab at them). I have played the first volume (spread onto two discs) on Thursday evening and enjoyed it a lot, so I was in positive moods about Schiff. What I found most interesting, beyond the flash of his virtuoso performance, was how freely he treated the piano part, almost dissolving it into pieces at various moments - having notes and whole runs that would usually be played synchronously expanded and fanned out to stay next to each other, by just split seconds of course. The slow movement was treated pretty freely as well, sometimes you got the impression it was all a casual improvisation. It really all came together for me in the final movement, where I kind of got a grasp of what Schiff was aiming at (at least I thought so) and where in hindsight, the opening and all that followed really fell in place and made sense.

Similarly with the Bruckner: it starts with a bang (at least to my perception), and it was intensely loud in the Tonhalle which I guess is somewhat too small for this kind of huge orchestra (60 strings the newspaper said - I counted 8 basses and 12 celli for starters, then I think there were 14 violas, which would leave us with 26 violins, not sure these numbers make sense, maybe it was 62 in the end but I couldn't see all violins and the newspaper said 60), and plenty of woodwinds and brass of course ... and the timpani was fun, for Beethoven it looked as if they had two "baby timpanis" on stage, for Brucker they had prepared the real deal already in the corner of the stage. This all sounded like waves to me, waves of attack, waves of sonic beauty and of harsh overwhelming intensity interchanging. I found it pretty overwhelming to say the least, but interesting as well. And how Haitink was able to conjure all of this with merely more than a few gestures of the left, while the right was more or less just giving the beat ... amazing! But the Tonhalle Orchestra are his boys, I saw them do Brahms' Requiem about a year ago, and there it was even more impressive, seems his sheer presence already lets everything drop into its proper place. Anyway, I was of course anticipating the Adagio, even more so as the Scherzo was one more rollercoaster ride. And that Adagio then totally grabbed me, and as with Schiff before, things seemed to fell into place, it seemed to me that everything made sense now (though frankly I don't understand a bit why, this was just my spontaneous reaction).

So yeah, great night - and for those that get the joke, I guess for my "Entbrucknerung", I couldn't have wished any better than experienced maestro Haitink to take care of it!

Now I started lined up my Bruckner recordings, including some single ones by Haitink. Guess I'll go with Jochum/Dresden for starters, just playing Jochum's Brahms (a first, too - all from his EMI Icon box) now to warm up 

[king ubu]

Having my own private Opera festival, it seems ... got tickets for the controversely discussed "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" (had a ticket in October but fell ill), for "Alcina" (with no less than Bartoli and Jaroussky!), and my mom just phoned me to ask if she should get me a ticket for Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" (first category seat for comparatively little money - in between the two cheapest categories, which are otherwise the only two I'll ever consider anyway - they call that "Volksvorstellung" and they usually sell out very fast). So, with "Don Carlo" on Wednesday and at La Scala in a few weeks, that makes five operas in two months, add "Anna Karenina" to that, Christoph Spuck's ballet after Tolstoi (music by Rachmaninov and Lutoslawski, as well as by two unknown to me composers: Sulkhan Tsintsadze und Josef Bardanashvili).

Add to that "Medée" by Charpentier, conducted by Christie, at Zurich opera ... can't leave out that one, got a cheap ticket again this time, but I hope it's a decent seat, should be.
And as I was nosing around the Zurich Opera calendar, I also bought a ticket for two days before, Julie Fuchs singing, La Scintilla playing, Rafaël Pichon conducting works by Rameau and Gluck. Fuchs is also part of the cast for "Alcina".

[bhodges]

King ubu, loved the Bruckner report, thank you, and you are right: Haitink is about as good as it gets for Bruckner these days. And though he seems in good health, at his age, his performances should be treasured. It's going to make me very sad when he leaves us.

Looking forward to this in October, at the enormous Park Avenue Armory:

Boulez: Répons

Ensemble intercontemporain
Matthias Pintscher, Conductor
Samuel Favre, Gilles Durot, Percussion
Dmitri Vassilakis, Hidéki Nagano, Piano
Frédérique Cambreling, Harp
Luigi Gaggero, Cymbalum
Andrew Gerzso, IRCAM Computer Music Design
Gilbert Nouno,IRCAM Computer Music Production
Jérémie Henrot,IRCAM Computer Engineer
Pierre Audi, mise-en-space
Urs Schönebaum, lighting designer

--Bruce

[king ubu]

King ubu, loved the Bruckner report, thank you, and you are right: Haitink is about as good as it gets for Bruckner these days. And though he seems in good health, at his age, his performances should be treasured. It's going to make me very sad when he leaves us.

Thanks! I've started delving into my (pretty large by now - I've been building my own private library for over four years by now) Bruckner collection, checking out his first symphony all day long ... fascinating, and from what I heard of the ninth, a pretty long trip to go, too. Looking forward to exploring it!

As for Haitink, saw him in January already, conducting the Tonhalle forces in Brahms Requiem - and that was easily one of the most impressive concerts of this, and of every other year (though Christian Gerhaher had a large part in that, next to Haitink). I will go and catch him again if he returns. Seems his agreement with Tonhalle is that he will come whenever they call him, so there's hope he will be back in the 2017/18 season ... and there's hope music will keep him young ... I have a ticket for Blomstedt conducting at Tonhalle as well, and he's two years Haitink's senior, guess music does work wonders sometimes.

[SimonNZ]

Boulez: Répons

Ensemble intercontemporain
Matthias Pintscher, Conductor

Green with envy.

[GioCar]

^^^
The same here.

Pierre Audi, mise-en-space

Looks very intriguing indeed.

[ritter]

Looking forward to this in October, at the enormous Park Avenue Armory:

Boulez: Répons

Ensemble intercontemporain
Matthias Pintscher, Conductor
Samuel Favre, Gilles Durot, Percussion
Dmitri Vassilakis, Hidéki Nagano, Piano
Frédérique Cambreling, Harp
Luigi Gaggero, Cymbalum
Andrew Gerzso, IRCAM Computer Music Design
Gilbert Nouno,IRCAM Computer Music Production
Jérémie Henrot,IRCAM Computer Engineer
Pierre Audi, mise-en-space
Urs Schönebaum, lighting designer

--Bruce

Fantastic! Seeing Répons live here at the Palacio de los Deportes here in Madrid in 1992, conducted by the composer, is one of the highligts of my conecrtgoing life...experiencing the piece live is simply breathtaking...

[Mirror Image]

I'm definitely considering this upcoming Atlanta SO concert:

https://www.atlantasymphony.org/ConcertsAndTickets/Calendar/2016-2017/CS10-Tchaikovsky-Shostakovich

This concert will occur while on vacation, so it'd be a perfect opportunity to see one of my favorite pieces of music live. Runnicles is a pretty good conductor the best I can remember.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Green with envy.

I seem to have also developed these chromatophores!

[NikF]

Programme:
Daugherty, Michael (b. 1954) Diamond in the Rough
Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957) Piano quartet in D minor
Strauss, Richard (1864-1949) Piano quartet in C minor, Op.13
Performers:
Members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra

[king ubu]

FR 16.12.16 - ORCHESTERMAGIE - 19:30 Uhr, Grosser Saal

Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Paavo Järvi Leitung
Steven Isserlis Violoncello

Sergej Prokofjew: Cellokonzert e-Moll op. 58
György Kurtág: Aus: "Signs, Games and Messages" für Violoncello solo

Robert Schumann: Sinfonie Nr. 3 Es-Dur op. 97 "Rheinische"

This was last night ... loved the Schumann, played with loads of fire and energy. The Prokofiev was a first (I just received my so far only recording, part of the Starker Icon box), and I can't really say I understood what happens in that piece. Seems like a huge pasticchio, glueing together a thousand small fragments and idea, without much sense for a larger whole, and without real consequence. Also, I wasn't quite sure the orchestra was up to its task ... Isserlis also once stopped, mid-flight "sorry!" - a quick moment of tuning his instrument followed, and on they went - the whole concerto otherwise played without pauses after movements (with the Schumann after the break, there were two interruptions I think, so half of it was again played seemlessly).

Any advocates of the Prok cello concerto around here that can try and explain what I'm missing? I was fascinated enough (also by Isserlis' decidedly pathos-lacking, scratchy yet intense delivery), but I really didn't understand it at any level.

The Kurtág, btw, was wonderful indeed, but some of it at too low volume for the large hall. Props to Isserlis for playing ten minutes of this in concert!

[king ubu]

Caught the final evening of the new staging of Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Zurich Opera last week - and enjoyed it very much. Thought the approach was pretty interesting, and musically it was wonderful. First time I heard opera in HIP (with La Scintilla, Zurich opera's in-house HIP ensemble) and Maxim Emelyanychev (who jumped in for Currentzis) did a fine job. Seems the orchestra was a bit rough on earlier nights, but I heard none of that. The singing was fine, hearing (and seeing) Olga Peretyatko (as Konstanze) on stage was pretty great, but the others were just as good, Pavol Breslik (Belmonte), Claire de Sévigné (Blonde), and Spencer Lang (Pedrillo). Nahuel Di Pierro lacked some of the immense depth and volume that Osmin part requires (I think ... Gottlob Frick sang the part as it should be, to me all others are rather a letdown by comparison, I'm afraid).

The central idea of the setting was to stage the whole play from Belmonte's view, as a drama of jealousy, with Pedrillo/Blonde being "doppelgänger" out of Belmonte's imagination, rather than real characters. The opening scene was recurring as kind of a nightmarish loop, in between you kinda got into Belmonte's mind and witnessed his feverish dreams and fears (of his wife giving herself to Bassa Selim etc.) - no spoken dialogue between the numbers, but some ambience noise (blood pulsing through Belmonte's head, I guess, and such) in between some of the numbers. Worked nicely I found, and theatrically speaking, none of this is really new at all, I'm sure. But the main thing was that I loved it musically.

Now, on tonight: Lady Macbeth Mtsensk - none of the singers familiar, but it seems to be a great production that they are bringing back one last time for four shows only. Details:
http://www.opernhaus.ch/en/activity/detail/lady-macbeth-von-mzensk-27-12-2016-18547/

[king ubu]

Now, on tonight: Lady Macbeth Mtsensk - none of the singers familiar, but it seems to be a great production that they are bringing back one last time for four shows only. Details:
http://www.opernhaus.ch/en/activity/detail/lady-macbeth-von-mzensk-27-12-2016-18547/

Wow! I'm pretty wowed indeed. That was a great night at the opera ... Vasily Petrenko and the orchestra were amazing, and so was the cast, headed by Gun-Brit Barkmin (who sang the part when this production was initially played in 2013 under Currentzis' baton). Loved every bit of it - and I'm not sure I'll ever listen to the recording I have (Rostropovich on EMI) as it will never, ever be able to compete with what I witnessed tonight in flesh and blood.

[Spineur]

Just got tickets to
1) Jeanne d'arc au Bucher, Arthur Honegger Oratorio, Opera de Lyon
2) Lohengrin, Richard Wagner, Opera de Paris in February.

I am going to buy some recordings of these works to do my preparation.

 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I am very much looking forward to the next concert in Melbourne of world premieres given by the wonderful Plexus ensemble, this time featuring new compositions by Australian composers including Stefan Cassomenos (the pianist of the ensemble), Gordon Kerry and myself. The soprano Merlyn Quaife is a guest artist with the usual lineup of clarinet, violin and piano. It's on the 9th of February if there is anyone in this part of the world who could come along too!

[SimonNZ]

I am very much looking forward to the next concert in Melbourne of world premieres given by the wonderful Plexus ensemble, this time featuring new compositions by Australian composers including Stefan Cassomenos (the pianist of the ensemble), Gordon Kerry and myself. The soprano Merlyn Quaife is a guest artist with the usual lineup of clarinet, violin and piano. It's on the 9th of February if there is anyone in this part of the world who could come along too!

Any chance it will be broadcast?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Any chance it will be broadcast?

I doubt it, but if I will see if I can get hold of some kind of recording.

[NikF]

Dvorak - Cello Concerto in B minor
Elgar - Symphony No 1 in A flat major
 
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra 
Steven Isserlis cello
Thomas Dausgaard conductor

[André]

I'll be around, but maybe not able to attend: time the wife will tell  :

http://www.koelner-philharmonie.de/veranstaltung/116894/

Obviously, Trifonov and Gergiev in Rach 3  will be big attractions. If last minute tickets and transportation are available, I'll be there.

[Todd]

Seattle Opera has released its 2017/2018 season, and included is Béatrice et Bénédict in February and March 2018.  Why, that's one of my three favorite completed Berlioz operas.  It may be hard to resist attending.