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

Started by Siedler, April 20, 2007, 05:34:10 PM

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ChamberNut

Quote from: Shrunk on April 07, 2008, 08:41:01 AM
I'm originally from Winnipeg, and as a student worked at the Centennial Concert Hall, so got to see lots of WSO shows for free.  How is the symphony doing these days?

WSO is doing fantastic!  Attendance is up, and it seems like more younger people are attending concerts.  Alexander Mickelthwate, our young conductor, has brought a lot of vigour, energy and passion to the WSO, and you can feel it anytime he is present.  There have already been 3 sell-out concerts this season, when there hadn't been any in several years.

I really think the sky is the limit for Maestro Mickelthwate.  I see him going places.  :)

Greta

#581
Seen a couple of good ones lately in Houston....and have two in May to look forward to, namely Mahler 2nd under HSO Music Director Hans Graf.

Saturday I saw:

Part: Cantus in Memoriam for Benjamin Britten
Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
(Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7

Houston Symphony
Kwame Ryan, conductor


Sidenote here: Mr. Ryan is a young Canadian/Trinidadian African-American, which is refreshing to see, and quite talented and expressive, with round sweeping arms and excellent clear technique. He excelled most in slow movements, the Part Cantus and the 2nd mvmt of LvB were outstanding, where he drew very fine musical playing from the orchestra. And Thibaudet was incredible!

The Thursday before last, a very interesting concert at the Rice University Shepherd School of Music (which our Brian also attended) in tribute to retired CSO principal trumpet Adolph 'Bud' Herseth, who was also there in attendance (resplendent in emerald green blazer and lemon colored tie!) It featured the Shepherd School Brass Choir and the Houston Symphony and Grand Opera trumpet sections in a variety of great brass music.

Two neat new pieces we heard were a world premiere of a jazzy piece for 12 trumpets by Arthur Gottschalk called fittingly "220 S. Michigan Avenue", dedicated to Herseth, and a colorful piece called "Fandango" for horn quartet that took advantage of a lot of contemporary techniques.

Most impressive were the Rice Univ students opening up with a rip-roaring DSCH "Festive Overture", the runs navigated with aplomb and antiphonal symphony/opera trumpets in the balcony, and Wagner's "Gathering of the Armies on the River Scheldt", from "Lohengrin" also with all players and offstage placement. And a piece I absolutely loved that I was not aware of before was the closer by Henri Tomasi called "Fanfares Liturgiques", a weighty and gorgeous over 20min work for 20 brass and percussion, breathtaking live!!

Lilas Pastia

The Montreal Symphony's 2008-9 season has ben unveiled and there's the usual assortment of the good, the bad and the ugly. Unfortunately the sole Bruckner (7) is entrusted to Nagano :P. Our echt-brucknerian, Franz-Paul Decker, will be conducting yet another asinine 'Viennese evening' assortment of waltzes and polkas. But he will also be conducting the other Strauss in the Bourgeois Gentillhomme suite, Burleske (Hamelin) and the Sinfonia Domestica. I'll make sure to buy tickets for that one!

Henk

Tonight I'm going to hear the North Netherlands Orchestra which will perform Bruckner 7 and a new piece by  Zuidam. I'm very curious. It's the first time I go to a concert since I've been listening classical music. I hope I'll appreciate Bruckner live more.

Novi

Quote from: Henk on April 10, 2008, 08:28:21 AM
Tonight I'm going to hear the North Netherlands Orchestra which will perform Bruckner 7 and a new piece by  Zuidam. I'm very curious. It's the first time I go to a concert since I've been listening classical music. I hope I'll appreciate Bruckner live more.

Cool! Enjoy your concert and be sure to report back :).
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

Henk

#585
Quote from: Novitiate on April 10, 2008, 12:33:46 PM
Cool! Enjoy your concert and be sure to report back :).

I was impressed by the concert. I could really feel the greatness of Bruckner's symphony. But that don't make me like Bruckner. It's great but not beautifull IMO and that gave me an unsatisfied feeling. Music should be beautifull in the first place.
Going to listen to Shostakovich 10 next. Maybe that's both great and beautifull. I know a symphony which is, Ives' 4th.

Lilas Pastia

Henk, beauty is what Bruckner's music is all about. But it's a mature kind of beauty. Beauty of what's thought, not of what's seen (heard). And Bruckner was not his own best advocate. If he had cared about popularity, he would have composed differently. I trust that if you find it great, you will find it beautiful in the long run. After 35 years of brucknerian passion, I hear so much more beauty now than at the beginning. The music's sheer greatness just obscured it.

Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich

Quote from: Henk on April 10, 2008, 01:22:31 PMI was impressed by the concert. I could really feel the greatness of Bruckner's symphony. But that don't make me like Bruckner. It's great but not beautifull IMO and that gave me an unsatisfied feeling.

Eeek! Bruckner #7? The first 2 movements are the definition of beauty! :) Honestly, for me those movements describe pretty much what beauty is. The 2nd movement, the music for the "master of all masters", is additionally an extraordinary piece of funeral music. It works. At least on the long run. BTW, has the climax in the 2nd mvmt been played with a cymbal?  8)

Henk

Ok, I think I'm wrong about it then. I think I've to be patient to appreciate Bruckner more. However another drawback to Bruckner: a guy said to me Bruckner as well as Mahler repeat the same things in their compositions, their compositions are not so different from each other. I haven't notice it myself but this guy has a lot knowledge about classical music.

Lilas Pastia

There's always two sides to a coin. Truth is just the opinion of the majority. Having a recognizable aesthetic and style is another way of saying a composer may seem to repeat himself form one work to another. That's why after a while you'll never mistake Schumann for Mendelssohn ;).  You're not 'wrong', it's just a question of keeping your options open and not jumping to conclusions.

Novi

Apparently I'm not looking forward to a Sokolov recital next month in Glasgow :'(:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-tone-deaf-807767.html

Quote
Mr Sokolov has been put off by the Home Office's new requirement that anyone applying for a UK work visa must supply their biometric data before entering the country. Mr Sokolov would prefer to stay at home than submit to this. This is Mr Sokolov's personal choice, of course. But it seems worth asking whether it makes sense for Britain to lose the opportunity to hear such a brilliant musician because of some new visa procedures?

Pity - we don't get many piano recitals and I'd been looking forward to this one.
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

M forever

You guys should cut Henk some slack here. After all, he said it was his first live concert experience - and who knows how Bruckner 7 sounds when played by the "North Netherlands Orchestra"?  :P Maybe his observation was simply correct.  0:)

However, I think that most experienced listeners will agree with the above posters that there are indeed very few more sheerly beautiful pieces of music than this. The long sweeping opening theme alone must be one of the most beautiful "melodies" ever thought up - and it gets better and better because Bruckner does so much with the material. Anyway, I am sure Henk will eventually find to that music. It is also quite a big piece to be confronted with, especially for "beginners". It is not that easy to follow, and and a lot of listeners blank out at some point.

Brian

Quote from: Greta on April 07, 2008, 05:21:59 PM
The Thursday before last, a very interesting concert at the Rice University Shepherd School of Music (which our Brian also attended)
Oh! Hello! :)
Quote from: Greta on April 07, 2008, 05:21:59 PMin tribute to retired CSO principal trumpet Adolph 'Bud' Herseth, who was also there in attendance (resplendent in emerald green blazer and lemon colored tie!) It featured the Shepherd School Brass Choir and the Houston Symphony and Grand Opera trumpet sections in a variety of great brass music. ... a piece I absolutely loved that I was not aware of before was the closer by Henri Tomasi called "Fanfares Liturgiques", a weighty and gorgeous over 20min work for 20 brass and percussion, breathtaking live!!
Got to agree with you on the Tomasi. That was a fabulous surprise all around.

Just got back from the Cuarteto Latinoamericano and guitarist Manuel Barrueco doing a couple hours of Latin American music by Revueltas, Piazzolla, and Rice University alum Gabriela Lena Frank. The highlight, in my view, was a suite by Barrios for solo guitar; the quintet's encore was the inevitable, glorious "Libertango". A good time was had by all...

Friday night it was the Houston Grand Opera's new production of La boheme. The bad news is that the Rodolfo (a certain Garrett Sorenson) was simply unforgivable; his Rodolfo was timid and lame, his voice did not project at all, and he was often washed out by the sound of the orchestra or, in duet, by Marcello's voice! A disaster. Fortunately, the supporting cast was fabulous, the sets were mighty fine, the orchestra played the pants of the piece, and Marcello and Musetta were sung terrifically. But the real news - Ana Maria Martinez as Mimi. She was impossibly beautiful - in the quietest moments, one could feel the audience leaning forward to listen to her. What a unique voice, soothing, rich and just plain gorgeous. I hope that we'll be hearing an awful lot more of her in the future, and I hope too that I'll get to see this opera again (putting up with the crap Rodolfo) to hear Ms Martinez once more.

In fact, quite frankly the largest disappointment of the night was finding out that Ana Maria is married. Now what am I going to do?

Henk

#593
Quote from: M forever on April 12, 2008, 08:28:16 PM
You guys should cut Henk some slack here. After all, he said it was his first live concert experience - and who knows how Bruckner 7 sounds when played by the "North Netherlands Orchestra"?  :P Maybe his observation was simply correct.  0:)

However, I think that most experienced listeners will agree with the above posters that there are indeed very few more sheerly beautiful pieces of music than this. The long sweeping opening theme alone must be one of the most beautiful "melodies" ever thought up - and it gets better and better because Bruckner does so much with the material. Anyway, I am sure Henk will eventually find to that music. It is also quite a big piece to be confronted with, especially for "beginners". It is not that easy to follow, and and a lot of listeners blank out at some point.

I think the performance by the NNO was fine. There was a very huge applause and I don't think all these people were wrong. The performance sounded fine to me as well. Also the conductor, Tabachnik, seemed very professional and energetic.
I think I just have to get used with this kind of music, more then it's a question of to follow it in the sense that I can follow also music which is more "difficult" then Bruckner's.

The new erato

Quote from: Brian on April 12, 2008, 08:39:36 PM

Just got back from the Cuarteto Latinoamericano and guitarist Manuel Barrueco doing a couple hours of Latin American music by Revueltas,
I've got their disc of the Revueltas quartets coming in the mail.

For me it is Bach BWV 21/31 the coming Saturday with local forces, Richard Thompson in early May as well as Gurrelieder as part of the Bergen Festival.

Haffner

Quote from: Henk on April 11, 2008, 01:03:18 AM
Ok, I think I'm wrong about it then. I think I've to be patient to appreciate Bruckner more. However another drawback to Bruckner: a guy said to me Bruckner as well as Mahler repeat the same things in their compositions, their compositions are not so different from each other. I haven't notice it myself but this guy has a lot knowledge about classical music.



There are a couple of mutual quotes, especially in the middle Symphonies of each. I believe it would have been Mahler quoting Bruckner. Also, there is a strong Tristan und Isolde vibe to the Mahler's 9th. Most would notice it right off.

That written, composers quote from each other quite alot. Takes nothing away from what they accomplished. In some ways, it enhances it, because it can be fun to "pick" familiar stuff out!

Haffner

Quote from: M forever on April 12, 2008, 08:28:16 PM
You guys should cut Henk some slack here. After all, he said it was his first live concert experience - and who knows how Bruckner 7 sounds when played by the "North Netherlands Orchestra"?  :P Maybe his observation was simply correct.  0:)

However, I think that most experienced listeners will agree with the above posters that there are indeed very few more sheerly beautiful pieces of music than this. The long sweeping opening theme alone must be one of the most beautiful "melodies" ever thought up - and it gets better and better because Bruckner does so much with the material. Anyway, I am sure Henk will eventually find to that music. It is also quite a big piece to be confronted with, especially for "beginners". It is not that easy to follow, and and a lot of listeners blank out at some point.



I was awestruck from the very first listening to Bruckner's 7th, and I agree here. The ending of the first movement makes the length of it completely transform in retrospect. As soon as I heard the violins in the last bars, behind the monumental melody, I was hitting the "repeat" button. The rest of the symphony is just as extraordinary.

toledobass

Quote from: ChamberNut on April 07, 2008, 10:15:20 AM
WSO is doing fantastic!  Attendance is up, and it seems like more younger people are attending concerts.  Alexander Mickelthwate, our young conductor, has brought a lot of vigour, energy and passion to the WSO, and you can feel it anytime he is present.  There have already been 3 sell-out concerts this season, when there hadn't been any in several years.

I really think the sky is the limit for Maestro Mickelthwate.  I see him going places.  :)

That's great to hear about Alexander.  I was in school with him and played in one of his degree recitals as well as in the orchestra that played for the conducting class.  Terrific to hear that he's doing good work.

Allan 

M forever

Quote from: Henk on April 13, 2008, 10:40:15 AM
I think the performance by the NNO was fine. There was a very huge applause and I don't think all these people were wrong.

That's the second time now within just a few posts that you go "this guy knows a lot about classical music, so he must be right" and "I don't think these people were wrong". The point of a discussion forum is to share and discuss *your* opinions, not report those of others.

ChamberNut

Quote from: toledobass on April 13, 2008, 08:18:52 PM
That's great to hear about Alexander.  I was in school with him and played in one of his degree recitals as well as in the orchestra that played for the conducting class.  Terrific to hear that he's doing good work.

Allan 

His enthuasiasm is contagious.  I enjoy listening to his pre-concert chats, great sense of humor.

Thanks for your reply Allan.  :)