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

[bhodges]

In about 2 hours, hearing the big finale of the Tune-In Festival at the Armory:

John Luther Adams: Inuksuit (2009, NY Premiere) - Will be performed by 72 percussionists: 54 in the gigantic main space, with the other 18 in the smaller rooms in the building, and microphones adding sounds from outside (e.g., traffic, conversation, etc.). Audience members are invited to "move around freely and discover their own individual listening points."

--Bruce

This piece was quite an amazing experience in many ways. Of the videos taken that are starting to show up on YouTube, here is a good one--23 minutes out of the 85--that gives a sense of the environment and the occasion. (Haven't found me in the film yet.  )

UPDATE: Here's another, much shorter clip, with some of the climax, as well as the quieter part near the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWC9Zn5hIO4

Tonight, hearing Steve Schick conduct the International Contemporary Ensemble, in this program:

Feldman: The King of Denmark, for solo percussion
Webern: Concerto for nine instruments
Xenakis: Jalons, for chamber orchestra
Cage: Imaginary Landscape No. 4, for 12 radios
Feldman: For Samuel Beckett, for chamber orchestra

--Bruce

[mahler10th]

Event Details:
RSNO - The 10:11 Season
Neeme Järvi Conducts the Leningrad
Saturday 26th March 2011, 7.30pm
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall : Main Auditorium

http://www.glasgowconcerthalls.com/whatson/event/77915-RSNO-The-10:11-Season--Jarvi-Conducts-the-Leningrad?utm_source=newsletter&utm_agt=261163&utm_medium=email&utm_content=highlight&utm_campaign=whatson_mar

[Sid]

Went to this one on the weekend:
Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney
Organ recital by Elke Voelker
1892 Hill & Son Organ

Handel - Fireworks Music (trans. E. Power Biggs)
J. S. Bach - Air on the G string (trans. S. Karg-Elert); Fantasia & Fugue in G minor, BWV 1068
Brahms - Hungarian Dance No. 3 (trans. E. Voelker)
Mendelssohn - Prelude & Fugue in C minor, Op.37/1
Grieg - Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt Suite (trans. E.H. Lemare)
Karg-Elert - Chorale-Improvisation "Nun danket alle Gott" Op. 65 No. 59
Vierne - (ii) Aria from Symphonie VI pour orgue Op. 59
Alain - Litanies

I enjoyed this recital by Elke Voelker, a leading German organist. I liked all of the items, especially the final two French ones. It was really interesting to hear transcriptions of well-known orchestral works...

[Florestan]

UPDATE: Here's another, much shorter clip, with some of the climax, as well as the quieter part near the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWC9Zn5hIO4

Until around 0:25 I thought it was an underground shelter during one of Luftwaffe's percussive (pun intended) sessions above London. 

[bhodges]

Until around 0:25 I thought it was an underground shelter during one of Luftwaffe's percussive (pun intended) sessions above London. 

Quite understandable. And the camera movement only enhances that sensation!

--Bruce

[Brian]

Hey Ray, I saw violinist Augustin Hadelich is coming to Winnipeg in April. Don't miss him, an absolutely fantastic player!

I just snagged last-minute 5-pound tickets to this, tonight:

Philharmonia
Stephane Deneve
Piotr Anderszewski, piano

Faure | Pelleas et Mellisande, suite
Mozart | Piano Concerto No 20
Debussy | La mer
Ravel | La valse

Have never heard the Faure, and the last time I saw Anderszewski in concert was almost 10 years ago - also in Mozart, I think, though I was a preteen then!

I do wish I could see Deneve conducting Roussel.

[Sergeant Rock]

Faure | Pelleas et Mellisande, suite....Have never heard the Faure...

Ravishing music. It's been a favorite of mine ever since hearing the Sicilienne movement in 1971 during my honeymoon.

Sarge

[MishaK]

Hey Ray, I saw violinist Augustin Hadelich is coming to Winnipeg in April. Don't miss him, an absolutely fantastic player!

I just snagged last-minute 5-pound tickets to this, tonight:

Philharmonia
Stephane Deneve
Piotr Anderszewski, piano

Faure | Pelleas et Mellisande, suite
Mozart | Piano Concerto No 20
Debussy | La mer
Ravel | La valse

Have never heard the Faure, and the last time I saw Anderszewski in concert was almost 10 years ago - also in Mozart, I think, though I was a preteen then!

I do wish I could see Deneve conducting Roussel.

That's a great program and Denève will be excellent in all that French stuff. He's scheduled to do Roussel's Le festin de l'araignée for his CSO debut here next season.

[Brahmsian]

Hey Ray, I saw violinist Augustin Hadelich is coming to Winnipeg in April. Don't miss him, an absolutely fantastic player!

Hmm, really?  Do you know if is for a concert with the WSO, or chamber concert?

[bhodges]

That is a great program (and a tempting Chicago performance, too).  I haven't yet heard Denève.

Tonight, another program in the new Tully Scope Festival. Love Kurtág's Troussova, which can be very powerful with the right singer. Have never heard the Feldman pieces live.

AXIOM
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor
Lauren Snouffer, soprano
The Clarion Choir (Steven Fox, artistic director)

Kurtág: Hommage à R.Sch
Kurtág: Messages of the Late R.V. Troussova
Feldman: Rothko Chapel
Feldman: Bass Clarinet and Percussion

--Bruce

[Brian]

Philharmonia
Stephane Deneve
Piotr Anderszewski, piano

Faure | Pelleas et Mellisande, suite
Mozart | Piano Concerto No 20
Debussy | La mer
Ravel | La valse

Really terrific concert! So glad I went. The Ravel was a thrilling reading, which even got the jaded critic-man sitting behind me to acknowledge it with a "very good," and the Mozart was very well-rendered by conductor and soloist. Anderszewski has Gould-Jando Syndrome, that is, a tendency to vocalize every note he plays, and as I was in the third row this did get rather distracting. It would have been less so had he not been off-key in his noisemaking! That said, everything he did with the piano was up to his usual level of expressive prowess.

The real shocker, though was La mer. I had only heard the work once before (!), also in a live concert, way back in 2008. At the time I thought it slow, heavy, grey, and if at all sea-like then like a colorless, cold sea with thick waves. Credit the excellent Philharmonia - in peak form - or credit Denève, who looked as if whenever the brass entered he was being overcome with pure sensual joy, but one way or another this was a bright, richly hued mer and I was blown away. It was more "like hearing something for the first time" than nearly any time I've ever thought a performance was "like...first time etc". Totally spectacular. Part of the key was that things moved along at a brisk pace, at times very brisk, but without any sacrifices to clarity or sheer French gorgeousness. Come to think of it, a lot like Denève's way with Roussel! And at the very end of the third movement - as at the very end of the Ravel - the Philharmonia really dialed it up to 11.

In other words, a total pleasure. As for Denève, I would seriously consider taking a weekend's holiday in Scotland just to hear him again before going back to the USA (or accepting free plane tickets to see him do Roussel in Chicago). Terrific program, playing with lots of conviction, energy, enthusiasm. Oh, and when he takes a bow, he's perfected a move wherein he rises up extremely fast and snaps his head back - to get his gigantic plume of curly hair out of his eyes without having to brush any of it aside. 

[Brian]

Looks like my best chance to see Denève again is April 28-30, when they're doing this up in Scotland:

Ravel | Alborada del gracioso
Lieberson | Neruda Songs (2005)
Ravel | Rapsodie espagnole
Falla | Three-Cornered Hat, Suites 1 and 2

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Kelley O'Connor, mezzo
Stéphane Denève

[MishaK]

In other words, a total pleasure. As for Denève, I would seriously consider taking a weekend's holiday in Scotland just to hear him again before going back to the USA (or accepting free plane tickets to see him do Roussel in Chicago).

He's slated to take over the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart next season. Tickets to Stuttgart should be a bit cheaper for you than Chicago and you'd have a wider range of programs and dates to choose from. 

[Chaszz]

I am going to see Gluck's Iphigenia en Tauride at the Met next Wednesday evening. Several years back I was gainfully well employed and used to sit in the better seats at the Met, for instance spending $1000 for a Ring cycle. Now I'm retired and eking out a dedicated sculptor's exsitence on soc sec, and for the first time will be sitting in the stratosphere near the ceiling. We'll see how that works out.

But greatly looking forward to Gluck, whom I love. In keeping with my sometime approach to opera, where I just jump in and enjoy while knowing nothing about it, and not having heard a recording of it, I may or may not read the synopsis. I do know from my interest in Greek culture that Iphigenia was Agamemnon's daughter whom he planned to sacrifice to the gods to get a good wind in order to sail to Troy and bring home his brother's wife the troublemaker Helen. And that sacrifice of her daughter incensed Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, and led to her murdering him after the Trojan War. But I don't know what this has to do with Gluck's libretto. I also know little about Gluck, who I actually like more consistently than Mozart and Haydn -- he never seems to do pretty fillips like those two do. Nothing but serious solid great music from him -- no rococo cake decoration. But whether he comes before or after them, and who influenced whom or vice versa, if at all -- I have no idea. This is opera by ignorance, but the music trumps that.  And hopefully the story also. And the wonderful, almost domed, architectural space of the Met, filled with light from the stage and with glorious music -- that is the best thing of all.

[mahler10th]

Looks like my best chance to see Denève again is April 28-30, when they're doing this up in Scotland:
Ravel | Alborada del gracioso
Lieberson | Neruda Songs (2005)
Ravel | Rapsodie espagnole
Falla | Three-Cornered Hat, Suites 1 and 2
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Kelley O'Connor, mezzo
Stéphane Denève

Please let me know if you're going to make it so we can meet up if the opportunity permits.

[bhodges]

Looks like my best chance to see Denève again is April 28-30, when they're doing this up in Scotland:

Ravel | Alborada del gracioso
Lieberson | Neruda Songs (2005)
Ravel | Rapsodie espagnole
Falla | Three-Cornered Hat, Suites 1 and 2

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Kelley O'Connor, mezzo
Stéphane Denève

Another great program! The Lieberson songs are marvelous on their own, but O'Connor lends them something very special. I heard her do them here a couple of years ago, with Haitink and Chicago--a very emotional concert, here.

And thanks for the write-up of the other concert! La Mer is just great in person...

I am going to see Gluck's Iphigenia en Tauride at the Met next Wednesday evening. Several years back I was gainfully well employed and used to sit in the better seats at the Met, for instance spending $1000 for a Ring cycle. Now I'm retired and eking out a dedicated sculptor's exsitence on soc sec, and for the first time will be sitting in the stratosphere near the ceiling. We'll see how that works out.

For what it's worth, the seats in the Met Balcony and Family Circle have the best sound in the house (IMHO). Yes, a pair of binoculars will be welcome if you have them, but as far as the sound goes, I think you'll be very happy.

--Bruce

[springrite]

Going to attend a recital by Andreas Schiff. I was told that on the long program are: Bach WTC (book one) plus two Beethoven sonatas. Now that is a program and a half!

I am pretty sure it will be selections from Book One, not the whole thing. But still a good program. I will be going with several friends.

[karlhenning]

Oh, that will be a treat, Paul!

[Kontrapunctus]

At the top of the list is pianist Denis Matsuev (1998 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition winner) in San Francisco May 15.

Program:
Schubert, Sonata A Minor, op. 143
Beethoven, Sonata F Minor #23, op. 57 (Appasionata)
Liszt, Mephisto Waltz #1, S.514
Rachmaninoff, Sonata B-flat Minor #2, op.36 Second Edition

Wow...

Tomorrow night (2/27) I'm hearing Zubin Mehta/Israel Phil perform Mahler 5--should be excellent.

[Szykneij]

I just got excellent seats for this one:

March 25 2011, Friday 7:00 PM
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall
Boston, MA
  Thomas Adès, conductor

Anthony Marwood, violin
Hila Plitmann, soprano
Kate Royal, soprano
Toby Spence, tenor
Christopher Maltman, baritone

TCHAIKOVSKY - The Tempest
ADÈS- Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths
SIBELIUS - Prelude and Suite No. 1 from The Tempest
ADÈS - Scenes from The Tempest