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

[Mapman]

Today is the final livestream of the season from Detroit.

In about an hour, they will perform the Symphony in B Minor by LEOKADIYA KASHPEROVA. She was Stravinsky's piano teacher. I'd never heard of her before seeing the DSO season announcement.

[Wanderer]

This Friday in Naples:

Il matrimonio segreto
Dramma giocoso in due atti
Musica di Domenico Cimarosa
Libretto di Giovanni Bertati, dalla commedia The clandestine marriage di George Colman il Vecchio e David Garrick
 
Direttore | Francesco Corti
Regia e scene | Stéphane Braunschweig
Costumi | Thibault Vancraenenbroeck
Luci | Marion Hewlett
 
 
Interpreti
Geronimo | Yunho Eric Kim 
Elisetta | Anastasiia Sagaidak 
Carolina | Maria Knihnytska 
Fidalma |  Sayumi Kaneko 
Il conte Robinson | Antimo Dell'Omo
Paolino | Sun Tianxuefei 

Solisti dell'Accademia di Canto lirico del Teatro di San Carlo
Orchestra del Teatro di San Carlo
 
Nuova produzione del Teatro di San Carlo

[ritter]

This Friday in Naples:

Il matrimonio segreto
Dramma giocoso in due atti
Musica di Domenico Cimarosa
Libretto di Giovanni Bertati, dalla commedia The clandestine marriage di George Colman il Vecchio e David Garrick
Direttore | Francesco Corti
Regia e scene | Stéphane Braunschweig
Costumi | Thibault Vancraenenbroeck
Luci | Marion Hewlett
Interpreti
Geronimo | Yunho Eric Kim
Elisetta | Anastasiia Sagaidak
Carolina | Maria Knihnytska
Fidalma | Sayumi Kaneko
Il conte Robinson | Antimo Dell'Omo
Paolino | Sun Tianxuefei

Solisti dell'Accademia di Canto lirico del Teatro di San Carlo
Orchestra del Teatro di San Carlo
Nuova produzione del Teatro di San Carlo

Very nice, Tassos! In such a wonderful theatre...

Perhaps you'll you get the same encore as at the world première ....   

[Wanderer]

Very nice, Tassos! In such a wonderful theatre...

Perhaps you'll you get the same encore as at the world première ....   

Maybe I should have dinner before the performance, just in case! 

[Lisztianwagner]

Tomorrow in Milan:

Richard Wagner
Siegfried

Director: David McVicar

Siegfried Klaus Florian Vogt
Mime Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Der Wanderer/Wotan Michael Volle
Alberich Ólafur Sigurdarson
Fafner Ain Anger
Erda Anna Kissjudit
Brünnhilde Camilla Nylund
Stimme des Waldvogels Francesca Aspromonte

Simone Young & Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala

[ritter]

Tomorrow in Milan:

Richard Wagner
Siegfried

Director: David McVicar

Siegfried Klaus Florian Vogt
Mime Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Der Wanderer/Wotan Michael Volle
Alberich Ólafur Sigurdarson
Fafner Ain Anger
Erda Anna Kissjudit
Brünnhilde Camilla Nylund
Stimme des Waldvogels Francesca Aspromonte

Simone Young & Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala

Enjoy! Looks very appealing!

[Lisztianwagner]

Enjoy! Looks very appealing!

Thank you, Rafael! Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were beautiful, I hope Siegfried will be as well, it is my favourite opera of the Ring Cycle.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Tomorrow in Milan:

Richard Wagner
Siegfried

Director: David McVicar

Siegfried Klaus Florian Vogt
Mime Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Der Wanderer/Wotan Michael Volle
Alberich Ólafur Sigurdarson
Fafner Ain Anger
Erda Anna Kissjudit
Brünnhilde Camilla Nylund
Stimme des Waldvogels Francesca Aspromonte

Simone Young & Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala

I wish I was there with you --- Simone Young is an excellent conductor, especially in Germanic repertoire. Enjoy!

[Lisztianwagner]

I wish I was there with you --- Simone Young is an excellent conductor, especially in Germanic repertoire. Enjoy!

Thank you, John! She did very well both in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, I hope Siegfried will be great too.

Eheh, there's still Götterdämmerung and the entire Ring Cycle next year if you want.  

[pjme]

I'll have to wait a full year, but on june 21st 2025 the Antwerp SO will perform three Belgo/Flemish works!
Good and rare.... I'll try to be there.

Conductor is Karel Deseure.

Worldpremiere of Danses macabres by Erik Desimpelaere  after Brueghel's  The triumph of death

https://www.erikdesimpelaere.com/Partituren%20composities/Danses-macabres/Danses%20Macabres%20-%20preview.pdf

Denise Tolkowsky's (very muscular) pianoconcerto (1958). The work was written for her husband Alex De Vries (1919-1964)

https://www.svm.be/componisten/tolkowsky-denise?language=en


Daniel Sternefeld's second symphony "Brueghel"

https://www.svm.be/componisten/sternefeld-daniel?language=en (several YT videos with Sternefeld's compositions, including the second symphony).

Yesterday, Antwerp was very busy with tourists trying to survive in the scorching heat (ca 33-34 °C). In the superb queen Elisabeth concerthall is was good to stay however and a mostly elderly public enjoyed an unusual concert.

Erik Desimpelaere's (°1990) "Danses macabres" were premiered and proved to be an often virtuoso tour the force for large orchestra, with a prominent role for bells (tubular, church, glockenspiel, celesta, brake drums, metal boxes...). Desimpelaere states that Bruegels "Triumph of death" is full of movement, it is almost "a choreography of death".
Four dances are connected with slower interludes that lead to a wild finale. It is all over in ca 15 minutes, was  extremely well played and I wouldn't mind hearing it again.
In ca 1957-1958, Denise Tolkowsky (1918-1991) wrote her only pianoconcerto for her husband Alex de Vries
Her life is marked by the horrors of two worldwars, the suicide of de Vries in 1964....Alex Devries had a promissing carreer and performed with Ansermet, Masur, Blomstedt....Apparently he loved the Khatchaturian pianoconcerto (Vega recording with Charles Bruck/Paris Opera Orch.) and that is audible (at least in the first movement) in Tolkowskys work.
Both Tolkowsky and de Vries als loved the virile, expressionistic qualities of Prokofiev and Bartok , and in the fast movements a percussive-martellato style is apparent.
The first movement is an extended Allegro full of pumping, rythmical themes (deep strings + timpani), the odd jazzy wink to Gershwin and a blazing finale.
The slow movement is a very dark and somber Andante mesto - that occasionally even has a Tsjaikovskian lyricism.
The finale is an Allegro furioso "sur les rythmes d'une danse Cosaque".
Pianist Wouter Valvekens and conductor Karel Deseure clearly loved resurrecting this rare work and gave it a spectacular performance.
Deseure then conducted Daniel Sternefelds second symphony, another work inspired by Bruegel paintings. I do have the BRTPhO/Minsky recording on Phaedra , but hadn't listened to it inyears. it is a substantial (ca 35-36 minutes) workd scored for large forces (6 horns, two harps, harpsichord, marimba, xylophone, celesta, glockenspiel, wind & thundermachines)- the bas clarinet and a saxophone get extended solos .... This Bruegel symphony is stylistically very different from his first, quite traditional symphony. Late in his career (ca 1980 -1982) he had hard heard and conducted all the great masters - from Stravinsky and Bartok to Messiaen and Boulez and knew the orchestra inside out... The orchestra shines and glows...
I got the impression that all the muscians of the Antwerp orchestra loved performing even the trickiest runs, slow or fast melodies (based on old Flemish songs), rythmical wizardries ...lots of smiles and happy faces!
I dare say    that twice -I think- some sort of "eternal moment" appears....helped by the 13th century Palästina Lied (Walther von der Vogelweide) in the slow movement,  and in the last movement, when a viola solo and the alto sax play around " Een Venusdiercken heb ic uitvercoren" , a ca 1544 Antwerp lovesong.

https://youtu.be/Yma3u64ZikM?si=srrYaaF6h9c6ATGl

https://youtu.be/DgCE_3bP-K4?si=1Tg_jjW7gNPuprLR

https://youtu.be/JS7i39JfePs?si=WjWyXuR3LmhMmZgA
Still, I think that the first symphony hangs bettter together and is more of a coherent musical/artistic statement.
Anyway, I loved every minute of this (literaly) unique concert. Time passed by ....