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

[Brian]

Sunday afternoon:

Haydn | Symphony No. 92
Mahler | Symphony No. 4

Dallas Symphony (with Sofia Fomina, soprano)
Fabio Luisi

Maybe Monday night?:

Sergei Babayan in recital (no program announced)

I just found out about the Babayan today. I think 3 days' notice is enough time to plan to see one of the world's greatest pianists.

I had actually thought to myself in years past that Haydn 92 and Mahler 4 would make a perfect concert pairing. Same key and serene, joyful, relaxed moods. This is no doubt the one and only time in life that a concert program I've imagined, in its totality, will manifest in real life!

[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

A very fine afternoon, with not one, but two encores. Lim did "Kapriznaja uprjamaja" by A. Karchevskiy, a folk song apparently in his own arrangement, and a gentle contrast after the Bartók.

After the Prokofiev, Alsop led the orchestra in the "General Dance and Apotheosis (Finale)" from Shostakovich's ballet, The Bolt. Great fun.

[brewski]

Sunday afternoon:

Haydn | Symphony No. 92
Mahler | Symphony No. 4

Dallas Symphony (with Sofia Fomina, soprano)
Fabio Luisi

Maybe Monday night?:

Sergei Babayan in recital (no program announced)

I just found out about the Babayan today. I think 3 days' notice is enough time to plan to see one of the world's greatest pianists.

I had actually thought to myself in years past that Haydn 92 and Mahler 4 would make a perfect concert pairing. Same key and serene, joyful, relaxed moods. This is no doubt the one and only time in life that a concert program I've imagined, in its totality, will manifest in real life!

Cool all around, and hope you get to hear Babayan. I've never heard him live.

[Brian]

This week I got to watch the Dallas Opera rehearse Act I of Carmen, in a production (first shown in Rouen and Versailles, via the Palazzetto Bru Zane) that recreates the original sets and costumes, and mimics the original lighting. The rehearsal process is fascinating by itself! It's especially fun to walk up to the front row and watch a full stage of singers accompanied by a lone pianist. Also interesting to see the conductor and director giving different sorts of comments and notes after each number. Our conductor, Emmanuel Villaume, was also handling pronunciation and diction, since the Dallas Opera's full-time diction coach is Italian, not French.

Later this month, a real performance, not rehearsal, all the way through:

Porgy and Bess
Michael Sumuel and Angel Blue
also starring Latonia Moore, Blake Denson, and Demetrious Sampson Jr.
with a cameo by Donnie Ray Albert as the lawyer - he sang Porgy with this same opera company 50 years ago (and recorded it with them for RCA)

Houston Grand Opera
conductor James Gaffigan

[(poco) Sforzando]

Is this thread "What concerts are you looking forward to?" or "What concerts have you recently seen"?

If the latter, three events last week in three of New York's most prestigious venues.

First at Carnegie Hall last Tuesday, the New York Youth Symphony alumni under Daniel Harding doing a very conventional progrsam of Bernstein's WSS Dances, Tchaikovsky 1 with Yuja Wang, and Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Exciting familiar fare, the main puzzlement of which was why Yuja conducted from the keyboard rather than letting Danny remain on the podium. But I was told she also played the piano part in the Stravinsky, which I couldn't tell since I was unable to see her.

Next at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center (formerly Avery Fisher Hall, formerly Philharmonic Hall), a program under Esa-Pekka Salonen consisting of the Stravinsky Octet, Bartok CfO, and Boulez's Rituel (which was also choreographed by Benjamin Millepied). The reviewers complained that the balances were off in the Stravinsky, but if a piece is scored for flute, clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, and 2 trombones, then naturally the brass will predominate somewhat. I thought it was fine. The real highlight was the Boulez (a composer whose works the always sagacious David Hurwitz tells us are "garbage"). It is such a moving work, which takes advantage of the antiphonal qualities of any hall it's played in, and I would have loved to attend twice to hear it from another location. But it's really nice to find that after the latest renovation, the hall is finally an acoustic success. It's a very bright sound compared to the warmth of Carnegie, but it was a pleasure to hear the vividness of the instrumental choirs. The audience, not knowing the work was supposed to be garbage, gave it a standing ovation.

Last, Saturday matinee at the Met, where I caught what was originally announced as the last performance of Mason Bates's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, adapted from Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. While I'm not convinced Bates is a great composer, he is certainly a capable craftsman who knows how to keep his action moving and how to shape the drama. Of newer operas at the Met, I found this far superior to Terence Blanchard's embarrasingly bad Fire Shut Up in my Bones or Kevin Puts's dull The Hours. But the best aspect of the opera was undoubtedly the production values. The Met has probably the most sophisticated stage in the whole city, and they made the most of such things as projections and the Met's huge rotating turntable. Nice to know the opera is such a hit that they're adding four performances in February, and it will be broadcast on public television and in the HD cinema series. No doubt there will be a Bluray as well. Please do see it however you can; I am also looking forward to Saariaho's Innocence coming up this spring and the new production of Tristan und Isolde.   

[brewski]

This weekend, with four wind principals from the orchestra:

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Philippe Tondre, oboe
Ricardo Morales, clarinet
Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon
Jennifer Montone, French horn

Mozart: Sinfonia concertante, for winds and orchestra
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4

[brewski]

On Sunday afternoon, this livestream by the Baroque ensemble The Sebastians with soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon.

Castello: Sonata nona
Corelli: Trio Sonata in D Major, Op. 3, No. 2
La Guerre: Sonata No. 1 For Violin and Continuo
Montéclair: La morte di Lucretia
Handel: Trio Sonata in A Major, HWV 396a
Handel: Armida abbandonata, HWV 105
Vivaldi: Sonata, Op. 1, No. 12, La Folia