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

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

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 4 Guests are viewing this topic.

Guido

LSO Gerghiev doing Mahler 6 and Tischenko cello concerto played by Tim Hugh
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on June 07, 2007, 05:04:30 PM
I will. They are great fun to watch - actually the best part of an otherwise forgettable performance from 2 years ago. The hammerblower holds that big mallet up in the air for a few seconds before slamming it down full tilt. The whole thing is visually more impressive than the actual sound produced.

Yes, I agree. A few of us in the old forum came to that conclusion: it works better live; it's more a theatrical and dramatic device than a purely musical one and I think it's very effective. Mahler really hammers home his point  ;D  I saw Segerstam conduct the 6th and he added the third blow. Fantastic!

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Bogey

#102
Quote from: George on June 10, 2007, 06:12:21 AM

...... (and your signature).  :)

Well, with just having discovered coffee at 42 (in the past couple of weeks) and Sarge posting all the viewing he has done of Twin Peaks, the signature was inevitable.  And as for being drowsy?  Not a chance.  I had a cup before, during, and after dinner.....add LvB to the mix and I was as alert as a fox hearing the horn and the hounds.

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Lilas Pastia

#103
Yesterday night  was the closing concert of Montreal's Orchestre métropolitain and they chose the Mahler 6th to end their season. Young maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin gave a short but highly informative comment on the work. They played it without any filler and it lasted about 80 minutes. First movement exposition repeat was observed, and the andante was placed second. This was a very interesting departure from the usual movement order. Although I'm familiar with it (can be programmed that way on any recording), hearing it live brought a different slant on the work's architecture and tonal/emotional picture.  Now that I've heard it, I must say I prefer  the standard order (Scherzo-Andante).

Overall I'd say it was a truly magnificent presentation. Some sections of the orchestra (brass esp.) clearly outclass the more famous MSO band. Both conductor and orchestra play as men and women possessed, in total contrast with the boring and lackluster Nagano-MSO concerts. The orchestra's tonal palette is much more european than the clearer, more refined MSO. They play with plenty of warmth and colour, and a compactness of ensemble sound that  makes it sound a lot like the BSO. Nézet-Séguin has interesting ideas about the work. He presents a supercharged yet clear-headed view of the "Tragic", with no eccentricities.  Cellos and esp. double basses dig into their lines with a ferocity that brought a startling clarity and depth to the tonal foundation of the work. Yes, the hammerblows were powerfully done, but more importantly, the whole orchestra erupted with startling power at the crucial moments (end of I, climax of the Andante, and the whole second part of the Finale). I've heard the 6th about a hundred times on records and yet Mahler's punches to the solar plexus still came out of nowhere with tremendous power.

Some scrambling and confusion in the fugal portions of the last movement was noticeable, but better that shortlived blot than a whole evening of soulless professionalism. Clearly the OMGM is edging out the MSO in excitment and visceral commitment, and they're not far behind in corporate excellence. Nézet-Séguin is a real dynamo on the podium. Barely 30 years old, his charming and unassuming demeanor (he's barely 5'3") conceal a bundle of energy and a startling sense of hitting a work's 'hot buttons' with unerring precision and flair. If he's guest conducting in your area, don't miss him!

not edward

From what I've heard of Yannick Nézet-Séguin (not enough, that's for sure) I think he's going to be a remarkable conductor. I'm envious. ;)
"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

bhodges

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on June 12, 2007, 05:09:23 AM
Nézet-Séguin is a real dynamo on the podium. Barely 30 years old, his charming and unassuming demeanor (he's barely 5'3") conceal a bundle of energy and a startling sense of hitting a work's 'hot buttons' with unerring precision and flair. If he's guest conducting in your area, don't miss him!

Many thanks for this good write-up of a conductor completely off my radar, not to mention this excellent-sounding Montreal orchestra.  (I didn't realize that the city had a second one.)  He definitely sounds like someone to watch, especially if he's already tackling the Mahler Sixth.

This Saturday, I'm hearing Riccardo Muti again with the New York Philharmonic.  If the program isn't quite as interesting as last week's (Cherubini Overture in G major, Beethoven "Emperor" with Lang Lang, and Hindemith Sancta Susanna in concert) I'm still looking forward to it.

Rossini: Semiramide Overture     
Schubert: Symphony No. 3     
Dvorák: Symphony No. 5

--Bruce

Lilas Pastia

#106
You might see him in New York. NYPO General Manager Zarin Mehta was in the audience at the concert

bhodges

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on June 12, 2007, 11:31:22 AM
You might see him in New York. NYPO General Manager Zarin Mehta was in the audience at the concert.

Thank you, "Eagle Eyes!"  ;D  That does bode well...

--Bruce

Lilas Pastia

It's not me, but the local La Presse critic who spotted him :D. He's the brother of conductor Zubin and formerly GM of the MSO. He's kept solid ties with our cultural scene. Someone must have tipped him of a promising concert 250 miles up north!

Solitary Wanderer

#109
This Friday night:

NZSO

PROGRAMME
DVORÁK Cello Concerto
NIELSEN Helios Overture
NIELSEN Symphony No 4 The Inextinguishable

FEATURED ARTISTS
ARVO VOLMER Conductor
GAUTIER CAPUÇON Cello

PERFORMANCE INFO
Dvorák's Cello Concerto, written in America in the mid-1890s, has an underlying mood of elegiac yearning, speaking of deep feelings for a dying sister-in-law.  Her favourite Dvorák song is movingly quoted in both the adagio and the finale's revised coda.  Nielsen, the major Danish twentieth-century symphonist, is doubly represented by his Helios Overture and the Fourth Symphony.  The Inextinguishable, composed in 1915, a continuous span of four movements, affirms the craving for life against a background of menacing violence.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS
GAUTIER CAPUÇON

Gautier Capuçon was born in Chambery, France in 1981 and began playing the cello at the age of five. He studied at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris and in 1999 was awarded first prize by the Maurice Ravel Music Academy of Saint-Jean-de Luz, and First Prize in the Andre Navarra Competition in Toulouse.

ARVO VOLMER
Arvo Volmer is from Estonia.  In 2003 he was appointed Music Director of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn.  He was the prize winner at the international Nikolai Malko competition in Copenhagen.

I promise a review :)

'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

Mark

This one:

BBC Prom 7

Ticket arrived this morning. Choir stalls - so, overlooking the orchestra.

Can't wait. :)

Choo Choo

Quote from: Mark on June 12, 2007, 01:13:25 PM
This one:

BBC Prom 7

Ticket arrived this morning. Choir stalls - so, overlooking the orchestra.

Can't wait. :)

I thought about that one, but decided not (can't go to everything ::).)  I hope you'll post a review.  I'll be listening to (and recording) the broadcast.

Choo Choo

Meanwhile I have just booked for the Kronos Quartet at end July, performing:

Henryk Gorecki String Quartet No 3 Piesni Spiewaja (..songs are sung)

Terry Riley The Cusp of Magic

Both UK premieres.

Solitary Wanderer

Quote from: Choo Choo on June 12, 2007, 02:52:00 PM
I thought about that one, but decided not (can't go to everything ::).)  I hope you'll post a review.  I'll be listening to (and recording) the broadcast.

True, but its fun trying ;)
'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

Mark

Quote from: Choo Choo on June 12, 2007, 02:52:00 PM
I thought about that one, but decided not (can't go to everything ::).)  I hope you'll post a review.  I'll be listening to (and recording) the broadcast.

I'll certainly try to write up my thoughts. :)

Is it being broadcast on radio or TV?

Choo Choo

Quote from: Mark on June 12, 2007, 03:05:35 PM
I'll certainly try to write up my thoughts. :)

Is it being broadcast on radio or TV?

Radio 3.  Last year the broadcast quality was, to say the least, "variable" (apparently, they'd just got new digital signal processing equipment, and - according to the press release at the time - "hadn't quite worked out how to use it yet."  That's for damn sure.)  I'm hoping they'll have ironed out the bugs by this time.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: bhodges on June 12, 2007, 11:28:22 AM
This Saturday, I'm hearing Riccardo Muti again with the New York Philharmonic.  If the program isn't quite as interesting as last week's...I'm still looking forward to it.

Rossini: Semiramide Overture     
Schubert: Symphony No. 3     
Dvorák: Symphony No. 5

--Bruce

i don't know Bruce. Looks damn interesting to me. I mean, how often is that Schubert and that Dvorak symphony programmed? Fifty years ago, a hundred, Rossini kicked off a lot of concerts but how often do we hear him today? He's become a rarity and thé few times I have heard him in concert, it was absolutely delightful. This is a concert I wouldn't mind seeing myself.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Lilas Pastia

Bruce, I totally agree with sarge. It sure looks like an interesting evening to me. Better this than, say yet another Schubert 8 and Dvorak 9.

Wanderer, this looks like a mighty good program. Let us know how good (presumably) Capuçon was. And how the timpani battle in the Nielsen "looks" like in concert!

Solitary Wanderer

Quote from: Lilas Pastia on June 12, 2007, 05:03:53 PM
Wanderer, this looks like a mighty good program. Let us know how good (presumably) Capuçon was. And how the timpani battle in the Nielsen "looks" like in concert!

Will do. The Timpani battle will be interesting to 'see'. And the NZSO reports they have been getting numorous requests for large photos of Capuçon  ;D

'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

Lilas Pastia

Yeah, he's a hottie. The Capuçon brothers should play in the Brahms Double. That would be quite interesting. I wonder if any concert agency has thought of that?