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

[Mirror Image]

Tonight:

Harald Sæverud Kjempeviseslåtten
Dmitri Sjostakovitsj Violin Concerto no 1
Aaron Copland Symphony no. 3

Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester, Andrew Litton, Vadim Gluzman

Very cool program, erato.

[king ubu]

quite a schedule this week:


Tonight:

Marc Ribot's "Songs of Resistance"

--

Thursday:

Sol Gabetta, Violoncello
Kristian Bezuidenhout, Hammerklavier

Schumann, 5 Stücke im Volkston a-Moll op. 102
Schubert, Sonatine für Violine und Klavier D-Dur D 384 (bearbeitet für Violoncello)
Beethoven, Cellosonate Nr. 3 A-Dur op. 69

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Friday:

Jacques Demierre – p / Louis Schild – elb / Paul Lovens – d

--

Saturday:

Mozart's Don Giovanni at Luzerner Theater:
https://www.luzernertheater.ch/dongiovanni

[pjme]

In Antwerp, next Tuesday february 12th:

Cardillac by Paul Hindemith. New production with Simon Neal as Cardillac. Dimitri Jurowski conductor.

https://www.operaballet.be/nl/programma/2018-2019/cardillac

Blown away by the music and singing - less impressed by the direction. Cardillac clocks in at ca 1hour30. So the performance had (fortunately) no pauze.  Hindemith keeps the action going on at an(often very) brisk and relentless pace. The elegiac ending comes as a surprise and a relief.
I recently saw Jean Pierre Ponnelle's 1985 Munich version on YT. What a great director Ponnelle was!
Cardillac's libretto isnt flawless nor easy to follow. By deleting, e.g., the character of the King, Guy Joosten doesn't make things easier. Compared to that towering Munich - anno -1985 spectacle, this production looks fairly drab and cheap...but at no moment was I annoyed nor irritated.
More so, I enjoyed every minute of the music. Baroque meets the roaring twenties in a turbulent and gripping way. Excellent singers & chorus. Simon Neal is a youthfull,  Cardillac - more a silly egomaniac than a horrific monster. Due to the dry acoustic of the Antwerp operahouse, I wasn't really sure about Dimitri Jurowski's way of handling the dynamics. Much sounded fortissimo...
Congrats to Opera en Ballet Vlaanderen for this daring choice!

https://youtu.be/RJFNMGXQc1k

...with Russian subtitles....

[ritter]

Blown away by the music and singing - less impressed by the direction. Cardillac clocks in at ca 1hour30. So the performance had (fortunately) no pauze.  Hindemith keeps the action going on at an(often very) brisk and relentless pace. The elegiac ending comes as a surprise and a relief.
I recently saw Jean Pierre Ponnelle's 1985 Munich version on YT. What a great director Ponnelle was!
Cardillac's libretto isnt flawless nor easy to follow. By deleting, e.g., the character of the King, Guy Joosten doesn't make things easier. Compared to that towering Munich - anno -1985 spectacle, this production looks fairly drab and cheap...but at no moment was I annoyed nor irritated.
More so, I enjoyed every minute of the music. Baroque meets the roaring twenties in a turbulent and gripping way. Excellent singers & chorus. Simon Neal is a youthfull,  Cardillac - more a silly egomaniac than a horrific monster. Due to the dry acoustic of the Antwerp operahouse, I wasn't really sure about Dimitri Jurowski's way of handling the dynamics. Much sounded fortissimo...
Congrats to Opera en Ballet Vlaanderen for this daring choice!

https://youtu.be/RJFNMGXQc1k

...with Russian subtitles....

Great stuff, pjme! Sounds like a great night at the opera. I only have a  passing acquaintance with Cardillac,  and should revisit it soon (the recording on Wergo is the one I have ).

[The new erato]

Yesterdays very fine programme in Bergen:

Ludovic Morlot conductor
Augustin Hadelich violin
Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester

Edgard Varèse  Tuning Up
Henri Dutilleux  L'arbre des Songes, violin concerto
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony no. 3 «Eroica»

Very nice evening!

[Brahmsian]

Yesterdays very fine programme in Bergen:

Ludovic Morlot conductor
Augustin Hadelich violin
Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester

Edgard Varèse  Tuning Up
Henri Dutilleux  L'arbre des Songes, violin concerto
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony no. 3 «Eroica»

Very nice evening!

Great program!  Glad you enjoyed.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Just bought tickets for Das Rheingold at the Teatro Real here in Madrid (Friday Jan. 25th). Pablo Heras-Casado conducts, and the production (originally from Cologne) is by Robert Carsen.

Late reply but I hope you enjoyed it! That there is Wagner's greatest work (unless you count Ring as a one work) and it's what pulled me in classical music. Rheingold is coming back to Finnish National Opera this year, followed in the following years by the other operas of the cycle. It is a completely Finnish production. Tommi Hakala sings the role of Wotan and he is a really nice guy, I once had the honor to interview him.

[ritter]

Late reply but I hope you enjoyed it! That there is Wagner's greatest work (unless you count Ring as a one work) and it's what pulled me in classical music. Rheingold is coming back to Finnish National Opera this year, followed in the following years by the other operas of the cycle. It is a completely Finnish production. Tommi Hakala sings the role of Wotan and he is a really nice guy, I once had the honor to interview him.

I did enjoy it very much, Alberich, thanks.

Das Rheingold was also the work that drew to me to Wagner. I've said this story before: I saw the Karajan recording in a store as a teenager, and was intrigued the title. My dad bought the LPs for me, and now—more than 40 years later—I'm still hooked  . FWIW, I consider Parsifal Wagner's greatest achievement, followed by Die Meistersinger, and then Das Rheigold.

I actually attended two performances here in Madrid. After having had bought tickets for a proscenium box for me and my partner, a dear friend of mine called me two hours before the opening performance, telling me that his wife couldn't attend, and so I joined him (he had prime seats in the stalls). It was good to enjoy the work from two different places in the auditorium. With these performances, I'll have seen this opera 7 times live in the theatre IIRC (conducted by Boulez, Leinsdorf, Haitink, Runnicles, K. Petrenko and Heras-Casado).

The Carsen production is rather intelligent, but not visually stunning. It gives an environmental twist to the story. The cast was uniformly strong if not great, and Pablo Heras-Casado handled the score very eloquently (again, I've said this before, but it's uncanny how this man's conductorial gestures resemble those of his one-time teacher Pierre Boulez). As will be the case in Finland, the other Ring operas will be given over the next three years here in Madrid.

Please do report on the Finnish Rheingold when the time comes. 

[Mirror Image]

I did enjoy it very much, Alberich, thanks.

Das Rheingold was also the work that drew to me to Wagner. I've said this story before: I saw the Karajan recording in a store as a teenager, and was intrigued the title. My dad bought the LPs for me, and now—more than 40 years later, I'm still hooked  . FWIW, I consider Parsifal Wagner's greatest achievement, followed by Die Meistersinger, and then Das Rheigold.

I actually attended to performances here in Madrid. After having had bought tickets for a proscenium box for me and my partner, a dear friend of mine called me two hours before the opening performance, telling me that his eifrpe couldn't attend, and so I joined him (he had prime seats in the stalls). It was good to enjoy the work from two different places in the auditorium. With these performances, I'll have seen this opera 7 times live in the theatre IIRC (conducted by Boulez, Leinsdorf, Haitink, Runnicles, K. Petrenko and Heras-Casado).

The Carsen production is rather intelligent, but not visually stunning. It gives an environmental twist to the story. The cast was uniformly strong if not great, and Pablo Heras-Casado handled the score very eloquently (again, I've said this before, but it's uncanny how this man's conductorial gestures resemble those of his one-time teacher Pierre Boulez). As will be the case in Finland, the other Ring operas will be given over the next three years here in Madrid.

Please do report on the Finnish Rheingold when the time comes. 

Greetings, Rafael! This is always a great thing to read --- how the passion can come alive in a teenager and how the flame still burns to this day. You know, something similar happened to me with Bartók. About 10 years, my dad and I were shopping in a used CD store (they also sold DVDs and such) and my dad came across Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (+ Hungarian Sketches, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta) with Fritz Reiner conducting the CSO on RCA Living Stereo and my dad handed it to me and said "You mentioned Bartók many months ago. Here's a recording you might enjoy." I took it home and listened to it about 5 or 6 times in a row. The second recording of classical I heard was a Bernstein recording of Ives' Symphony No. 2, Central Park in the Dark, The Unanswered Question, etc. on Deutsche Grammophon with the New York Philharmonic. Needless to say, I was quite hooked now and I suppose you could say that Bartók and Ives (still absolute favorites of mine) were my introduction to this music and helped ignite the passion that still lasts to this day. Of course, when I discovered Debussy and Ravel, it was pretty much all over. Debussy remains such an influence on my life and I would even dare to say, that he's my numero uno composer. At first, I didn't know what to make of his music, but his music has always been in the back of my mind somehow haunting me and caressing my mind until I finally made a connection and when this happened, I began an intensive research of everything I could find about him. Love this man's music dearly and couldn't imagine my life without it!

[ritter]

That's great, John. How lifelong passions can start by chance...

As you know, Debussy is also at the very top of my own personal canon. I got to him through Boulez: I got Boulez's recording of Parsifal and was blown away. Then I saw that this guys conducted Stravinsky, Debussy, etc. and said to myself "let's give this Debussy chap a try"  . One of the many things I have to thank Boulez for. 

Cheers,

[Mirror Image]

That's great, John. How lifelong passions can start by chance...

As you know, Debussy is also at the very top of my own personal canon. I got to him through Boulez: I got Boulez's recording of Parsifal and was blown away. Then I saw that this guys conducted Stravinsky, Debussy, etc. and said to myself "let's give this Debussy chap a try"  . One of the many things I have to thank Boulez for. 

Cheers,

Yes, indeed. Always fascinating how one composer can sometimes lead to another through one common vessel: a conductor, which in your case was Boulez. Nothing wrong with that! He was one of greats.

[NikF4]

Carefully deposited through the door moments ago along with a number of CDs that came gently to rest on the carpet (I tip my postman well at xmas ) came these tickets -


For those saving bandwidth it's Leonskaja performing Brahms D minor.
Now I must decide who I'll invite to accompany me. 

[ritter]

Carefully deposited through the door moments ago along with a number of CDs that came gently to rest on the carpet (I tip my postman well at xmas ) came these tickets -


For those saving bandwidth it's Leonskaja performing Brahms D minor.
Now I must decide who I'll invite to accompany me. 

Great stuff, NikF. I'm not much of a Brahmín myself, but I'm sure you (and your still to be determined companion) will enjoy the concert. 

THREAD DUTY:

I might attend a concert at the auditorium of the Museo Reina Sofía next Monday March 4th. It's being held as a peripheral activity to the (IMHO not that interesting) exhibition "Lost, Loose and Loved", which deals with foreign painters in post-WW2 Paris, but is rather haphazardly put together. The Sinfonietta of the Reina Sofia Music School, under Jorge Rotter—who studied with Stockhausen, Kagel and Pousseur—, will perform a program that contains two all-time favourites of mine: Pierre Boulez's Mémoriale ("...explosante-fixe..." originel) and Georges Enesco's Chamber Symphony, op. 33. The rest of the program consists of Isang Yun's Distanzen (I'm not familiar with this work) and Paul Hindemith's Kammermusik nº 3, op. 36, nº 2 (which should be interesting, but I really cannot see what relation a work from 1925 bears to post-WW2 Paris  ). Admission is free, so I can decide in the last moment.

[Judith]

Wonderful concert in nearby Huddersfield at their beautiful Town Hall.

Orchestra of Opera North
Boris Giltburg
Conductor Antony Hermus

Performing

Lyadov  Kikimora
Tchaikovsky  Piano Concerto No 1
Encore  Prokofiev  Diabolical Suggestion
Prokofiev  Symphony No 5

Boris was signing autographs so bought his Liszt CD which had

Paraphrase de concert sur Rigoletti
12 Études d'execution transcendante
3 Études de concert
No 3 La leggeirezza

Had the CD autographed along with the programme (I'm greedy when it comes to autographs lol)
He was very nice to talk to.

[NikF4]

Great stuff, NikF. I'm not much of a Brahmín myself, but I'm sure you (and your still to be determined companion) will enjoy the concert. 

THREAD DUTY:

I might attend a concert at the auditorium of the Museo Reina Sofía next Monday March 4th. It's being held as a peripheral activity to the (IMHO not that interesting) exhibition "Lost, Loose and Loved", which deals with foreign painters in post-WW2 Paris, but is rather haphazardly put together. The Sinfonietta of the Reina Sofia Music School, under Jorge Rotter—who studied with Stockhausen, Kagel and Pousseur—, will perform a program that contains two all-time favourites of mine: Pierre Boulez's Mémoriale ("...explosante-fixe..." originel) and Georges Enesco's Chamber Symphony, op. 33. The rest of the program consists of Isang Yun's Distanzen (I'm not familiar with this work) and Paul Hindemith's Kammermusik nº 3, op. 36, nº 2 (which should be interesting, but I really cannot see what relation a work from 1925 bears to post-WW2 Paris  ). Admission is free, so I can decide in the last moment.

Yeah, I know you're not a fan of Brahms. Still, between your available options for concerts (and galleries - vis a vis your post about the recent Balthus exhibition) your options are rich and varied. So, continue to enjoy, mate - because that's what it's all about. 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Tomorrow, Jules Massenet's Thaïs at Finnish National Opera. I've seen this production earlier but I don't mind seeing it again, as it is a very good one.

[king ubu]

28.2. - Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" at Zurich opera, Nello Santi conducting:

details:
https://www.opernhaus.ch/en/spielplan/calendar/lucia_di_lammermoor/season_50348/

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1.3. - Seong-Jin Cho in recital

Bach, Chromatische Fantasie & Fuge d-Moll BWV 903
Schubert, Fantasie C-Dur D 760 «Wandererfantasie»
Chopin, Polonaise-Fantasie As-Dur op. 61
Mussorgsky, Bilder einer Ausstellung

[king ubu]

1.3. - Seong-Jin Cho in recital

Bach, Chromatische Fantasie & Fuge d-Moll BWV 903
Schubert, Fantasie C-Dur D 760 «Wandererfantasie»
Chopin, Polonaise-Fantasie As-Dur op. 61
Mussorgsky, Bilder einer Ausstellung

He cancelled (suddenly fell ill, or so they say) ... instead, Claire Huangci will play the following:

Domenico Scarlatti
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 443 L 418
Klaviersonate A-Dur K 208, L 238
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 29 L 461
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 435 L 361

Frédéric Chopin
Nocturne B-Dur op. 9 Nr. 3
Nocturne c-Moll op. 48 Nr. 1

Sergej Rachmaninow
Aus: "Morceaux de fantasie" op. 3, Nr. 2 Prélude cis-Moll
Aus: 10 Préludes op. 23 für Klavier, Nr. 1-7

Frédéric Chopin 24 Préludes op. 28

Was looking foward to hearing Seong-Jin Cho, whom I didn't yet know either but read/heard about a bit ... Huangci is a complete unknown to me so far.

[Brian]

He cancelled (suddenly fell ill, or so they say) ... instead, Claire Huangci will play the following:

Domenico Scarlatti
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 443 L 418
Klaviersonate A-Dur K 208, L 238
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 29 L 461
Klaviersonate D-Dur K 435 L 361

Frédéric Chopin
Nocturne B-Dur op. 9 Nr. 3
Nocturne c-Moll op. 48 Nr. 1

Sergej Rachmaninow
Aus: "Morceaux de fantasie" op. 3, Nr. 2 Prélude cis-Moll
Aus: 10 Préludes op. 23 für Klavier, Nr. 1-7

Frédéric Chopin 24 Préludes op. 28

Was looking foward to hearing Seong-Jin Cho, whom I didn't yet know either but read/heard about a bit ... Huangci is a complete unknown to me so far.

Wow, only in Europe could an artist that exciting be replaced by an artist at least as exciting. I'm a big fan of Huangci's recorded work and envious!

[king ubu]

Wow, only in Europe could an artist that exciting be replaced by an artist at least as exciting. I'm a big fan of Huangci's recorded work and envious!

I can get 1-3 free tickets but no one I asked so far wants 'em - so if you book a flight and a hotel ...