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

[bhodges]

Tonight at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, an hour-long recital with a world premiere by Magnus Lindberg,who's also playing piano:

Magnus Lindberg, piano
Jennifer Koh, violin
Anssi Karttunen, cello

Lindberg: Sonatas for violin and piano (1979)
Selections from The Mystery Variations on Giuseppe Colombi's "Chiacona" for solo cello:
- Giuseppe Colombi: Chiacona
- Kaija Saariaho: Dreaming Chaconne (US Premiere)
- Steven Stucky: Partite sopra un basso, per Anssi (US Premiere)
- Marc Neikrug: Tiny Colombi for Anssi (US Premiere)
- Magnus Lindberg: Duello (US Premiere)
- Tan Dun: Chiacona - after Colombi (US Premiere)
Schulhoff: Duo for violin and cello
Lindberg: Trio for violin, cello and piano (2009/2011, world premiere)

--Bruce

[Sid]

Went to this concert with a friend last night:

AUSTRALIA ENSEMBLE @ University of New South Wales, Sydney
(Incorporating the Goldner String Quartet)
Dene Olding, first violin
Dimity Hall, second violin
Irina Morozova, viola
Julian Smiles, cello
Ian Munro, piano
Geoffrey Collins, flute
Catherine McCorkill, clarinet
Daryl Pratt, percussion; David Stanhope, conductor (both guests, in Incredible Floridas only)
(Prof. Roger Covell, director of programming)

Ferenc (Franz) LISZT (1811-1886)
- At Wagner's Grave (Am Grabe Richard Wagners) S202 for string quartet and piano (1883) – 200th anniversary of Liszt's birth

Richard MEALE (1932-2009)
- String Quartet No. 2 "Cantilena Pacifica" - 5th movement
- Incredible Floridas (Homage to Rimbaud) for flute/alto flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin/viola, cello, piano and percussion (1971)

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
- String Quartet in A minor, Opus 132 (1825)

This was a great program which we both enjoyed. I knew the last two works from recordings, the first two were completely unknown to me.

The first two pieces were in memory of friends of the respective composers who had died. Liszt's piece was in memory of his friend and son in law Wagner. It was very brief and had a lightness which reminded both my friend and I of chamber music by Debussy and Ravel. I'm not sure who Australian composer Richard Meale dedicated Cantilena Pacifia to, but the violinist Dene Olding announced it from the stage and talked about it briefly (it wasn't in the program). Olding said that this group played this work at Meale's funeral service in 2009. It had a flowing and sinuous violin solo backed up by gentle repetitive waves from the other strings. It kind of reminded me of Philip Glass' Facades. These two works were poignant for my friend, as the day before was the anniversary of his brother's death in an accident 6 years ago. He said it bought back the memories.

Then a longer half hour piece by Meale, from his earlier avant-garde phase (like Penderecki, Meale went tonal after initially being more experimental). Incredible Floridas is a sextet that was written in 1971 to mark the 100th anniversary of French visionary poet Arthur Rimbaud's poem "The Drunken Boat." This was quite a complex work, requiring a conductor and everyone except the pianist to play multiple instruments. There's quite a bit of fragmentation in this work to begin with, the first movement dominated by a flute solo upon which much of the rest of the work is based. A lot of it was quite intense and percussive. The 4th movement is my favourite part, throughout it the piano plays this chord which kind of comes across to me something like Satie or Rachmaninov slowed down to the nth degree. Everything is suspended in time. In the 5th movement, the two string players each have a solo, the music moving towards their top registers, a bit like in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Funnily enough, these two solos kind of passed me by in the recording, which I'd listened to several times. The flute is always there, but it has a solo in the concluding 6th movement where the earlier fragmentary material is unified and more coherent. Like Rimbaud's poem, which is like both a physical and mental voyage (to where, who knows?), Meale's work has a dreamlike quality to it. It begins with the players quietly reciting sentences from the poem in French, and in the end it dissolves into nothingness. All of the players were soloists in their own right in this work. The music of Varese, Messiaen, Boulez and Takemitsu comes strongly to mind & as my friend pointed out, Balinese gamelan. Incredible Floridas is considered by many pundits to be Meale's masterwork, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in c20th chamber music. Meale could very well be Australia's finest composer so far, not least because he had such a huge stylistic range. To see this work played live was a real treat. My friend has been familiar with Meale's opera Voss since he got it on disc in the 1980's & I made this composer's acquaintance more recently.

After a nice cuppa & a bit of chocolate during the interval, we headed back to the auditorium to hear Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. This work is just sublime, from the solemn opening theme that opens it, right through to concluding dance like movement which brings back that theme, totally changing it's mood. This is music at it's very best, it's most sublime and passionate. Words are not really adequate to describe this sort of thing. I was interested to read in the program notes that the harmonies of the pivotal third slow movement, the famous "Hymn of Thanksgiving," may well have been inspired by the music of Renaissance composer Palestrina. I'm not surprised by this, it definitely has the radiance and purity of Palestrina's style. I thought that the Goldner String Quartet played this work slower than what I've heard on recordings, but this was just a hunch (I didn't check the time, listening to music for me isn't a matter of doing things like that). It was a very detailed performance, full of nuance. I loved watching how they played those complex cross rhythms, it looked very very difficult. An odd thing that I noticed was that from left to right, it was the two violins, cello then viola. Usually the viola is before the cello. I don't know why they played in this order?

After the concert, we both headed to the city for a nightcap before calling it a night. We both enjoyed the concert & felt we got a lot out of it, and one couldn't really ask for more...

[Brian]

Just booked tickets to, and trains/flights for, this tripleheader. Note: I have never heard ANY of this music. Not a single work on any of the three programs!

-
Friday 10 June - 1:05 pm - Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Poulenc Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon
Ibert Cinq Pièces Brèves
Françaix Divertissement for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon

Members of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

-
Friday 10 June - 7:30 pm - Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Elgar 3 Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands
Guilmant Symphony No.1 for Organ and Orchestra
Elgar Symphony No.2

Vasily Petrenko, conductor
Ian Tracey, organ
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

-
Saturday 11 June - 18:00 - Concert Hall, Warsaw
Mahler Symphony No 3

Antoni Wit, conductor
Ewa Wolak, alto
Warsaw Boys' Choir
Warsaw Philharmonic

[Christo]

Not looking forward, but back: a concert I heard in St Martin-in-the-Fields last Friday, May 13, during a short stay in London. Peter G Dyson conducting the Belmont Ensemble of London in a Mozart and Händel programme, with symphonies 10 and 29, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the Water Music Suite.

A genuine attempt to play them `contemporary', downplaying any possible suggestion of romanticism, even a bit too much to my taste. But the highlight was a gorgeous voice: soprano Elizabeth Weisberg receiving standing ovations for her Händel arias and Mozart's Exultate Jubilate.

So, for the record here: what a voice! 

[MishaK]

Tomorrow:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Christopher Martin, trumpet
Ludovic Morlot, conductor

Dutilleux  Symphony No. 2 (Le double) 
Jolivet   Concertino for Trumpet
Tomasi  Trumpet Concerto
Roussel  Suite No. 2 from Bacchus and Ariadne

Been looking forward to this one all season. 

[Sid]

Looking forward to this one on the weekend -

Music In May – Macquarie University Sydney
The Occasional Performing Sinfonia (TOPS)
Sally-Anne Russell, mezzo soprano (from Opera Australia)

Mahler
- Songs of a Wayfarer
- Symphony No. 4 in G major

TOPS is a Sydney-based orchestra that presents large symphonic works rarely tackled by amateur orchestras. TOPS plays in venues such as Sydney Town Hall and occasionally tours regional NSW. Last year they played a program which included Shostakovich's 5th symphony, which was excellent, and I suspect that this year's Mahler 100th anniversary tribute will be no less enjoyable. These are two of my favourite works by Mahler. A good friend of mine is planning to come along as well...

[JerryS]

Tonight:

San Antonio Symphony, Sebastian Lang-Lessing conducting
Alban Gerhardt, Cello

Mozart: Symphony No. 31, "Paris"
Schumann: Cello Concerto
Schumann: Manfred Overture
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8

I'm especially looking forward to the concerto.

[bbrip]

Tonight at the Semperoper Dresden:

New York Philharmonic / Gilbert Kaplan

Siblius Violin Concerto (with Lisa Bathiasvili)
Beethoven Smyphonie No. 3

Met Alan this morning at brekafast (he's staying at the same hotel has we) and I told him I'm looking forward to the concert. He immediately started chatting around, was amazed he got recognized in such far-away places    What a nice and easy guy 

[Sid]

As noted above, I just went to this one on the weekend with a good friend -

Music In May – Macquarie University Sydney
Mahler Tribute (Family Concert)
The Occasional Performing Sinfonia (TOPS)
Sally-Anne Russell, mezzo soprano - in all works (from Opera Australia)
Sarah Berkelman, soprano (in Humperdinck only)
Mal Hewitt, conductor (in Humperdinck & Mahler songs)
Steve Hillinger, conductor (in Mahler symphony)

Humperdinck
- Sandman's song, evening prayer & forest music (Hansel & Gretel, Act 2)
Mahler
- Songs of a Wayfarer
- Symphony No. 4 in G major

TOPS is a Sydney-based orchestra that presents large symphonic works rarely tackled by amateur orchestras. TOPS plays in venues such as Sydney Town Hall and occasionally tours regional NSW. Last year they played a program which included Shostakovich's 5th symphony, which was excellent, and this year's Mahler 100th anniversary tribute was no less enjoyable. These are two of my favourite works by Mahler.

Neither my friend and I are greatly familiar with Humperdinck's music (the "original" Englebert Humperdinck, as conductor Mal Hewitt joked!). He was a major operatic and vocal composer at the end of the c19th, and Hansel & Gretel is his only big hit. He also assisted Wagner in the orchestration of his late operas, and Humperdinck's orchestration was very rich and Wagnerian indeed. The two vocalists sang this lovely song and left the stage, while the orchestra carried on and played a marvellous elaboration of the tunes. Soprano Sarah Berkelman is a high school student who is currently working in the Sydney production of the musical Fame. It was great to hear the blending of the soprano and mezzo soprano's voices.

Next was Mahler's set of four Wayfarer Songs, which is one of my favourite works by him. This work is pure genius and mezzo soprano Sally-Anne Russell gave a knockout performance. All emotions under the sun are encapsulated in this work, both in words and music. I especially like how Mahler wrote for the woodwinds. The last stanza of the final song titled "The Two Blue Eyes of my Beloved" is the part which just floors me every time, and this performance was no exception. The poet is reminiscing about his love and loss, sitting under a linden tree which "snowed its blossoms over me." This is captured by the music with this sense of floating tonality, time is suspended. I kind of hear Schubert in this as well. My words cannot adequately describe the very ending, so I'll simply give you the words "All, love and sorrow and world and dream!"

After a good cuppa at interval (what can be better than that, apart from the music?) we headed back to the 500 packed seater hall to hear Mahler's 4th symphony. This is my favourite of all of his symphonies which I'm familiar with, because for the most part, it is light and happy (though there are dark undertones and shadows there, but they quickly dissipate). I feel that the orchestra didn't get off the ground as much as they could have in the first two movements, but their performance of the last two were basically as good as any I've heard. Like the Wayfarer Songs, the slow movement contains so many emotions and contrasts. The two climaxes put me on the edge of tears, but the optimistic last movement with vocals "The heavenly life" cheered me up a bit. The song upon which the finale was based was written about a decade before Mahler began this symphony. The last movement came first, and formed the thematic basis of the whole work. It's no wonder that some scholars say this is his most unified and holistic symphony. This is a child's view of heaven, which is full of many delights, particularly food. There are the sounds of cattle and oxen, animals which will be sent to slaughter to provide a wholesome feast. As conductor Steve Hillinger said, a lot of the children in Mahler's time were malnourished, and he himself had a childhood of poverty, by today's Western standards anyway.

All in all, this concert was great, we both enjoyed it. The orchestra played with commitment and passion, adding refinement and balance in the last two movements of the symphony. The vocalists were excellent. There were many children at this family concert, who were not always quiet, but I was so absorbed in the music that I hardly noticed them. I may well go to a concert in September at Sydney Town Hall of this orchestra, who will be joined by combined Sydney choirs in a program featuring Carl Jenkins' music (another composer I'm unfamiliar with)...

[Sid]

A friend & I aim to take in both these concerts on the coming weekend here in Sydney -

Macquarie University Singers
Haydn - The Creation

The 120 strong choristers will be led by the highly talented young conductor Anthony Pasquill and accompanied by a full orchestra and top soloists.

Music in May series - "Orchestra 143"

The Program:

The first Orchestra 143 programme for 2011 presents eight soloists performing a quartet of double concertos. The works encompass the sublime slow movement and invigorating outer movements of the Bach double violin concerto and the classical freshness of the Cimarosa, together with two of Vivaldi's always sparkling and engaging concertos. The Haydn symphony which rounds out the programme has surprises of its own.

* Johann Sebastian Bach, Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV1043 (Alastair Duff-Forbes and Tracy Wan, violins).
* Domenico Cimarosa, Concerto for Two Flutes in G major (Meghan
FitzGerald and Angus McPherson, flutes).
* Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto for Two Cellos in G minor, RV531 (Steve
Meyer and Susan Blake, cellos).
* Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto for Two Oboes in D minor, RV535 (Josef
Hanic and Ennes Mehmedbasic, oboes).
* Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No.23 in G major.

Devoted to the music of the baroque, classical and early romantic period - specifically, from 1685, Orchestra 143 seeks not only to perform works by the great composers of this period - Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert - but also to acquaint its audiences with interesting music by lesser known composers such as C.P.E. Bach, Corelli, Arriaga, Bellini, Boyce, Stamitz and Wassenaer.

[Sergeant Rock]

Tonight at the Semperoper Dresden:

New York Philharmonic / Gilbert Kaplan

You must mean Alan Gilbert, right?

Sarge

[JerryS]

Tonight we have Camerata San Antonio playing "Great String Quintets"

Rautavaara: String Quintet "Unknown Heavens"
Schubert: Cello Quintet in C Major, Op. 163

The Schubert has been a favorite from the first time I heard it and hearing it live is a rare treat.

I'll give the Rautavaara a good listen but a recent audition of the recording by the Jean Sibelius SQ on Ondine didn't leave much of an impression. I need to take a good look at the Rautavaara composer thread.

[Sid]

This weekend, going to the two concerts below, was a revelation to me in bringing me the highest appreciation for music of the classical/baroque realm that I have had so far. It was my "road to Damascus." A few days after, I still feel like I'm in another universe, it's like I've had a massive "head trip." There have been many "signposts" leading to this breakthrough, some of them like hearing my friend's disc of Handel's Messiah a number of years ago and attending a performance last year. Others have been kind of "left field" - I kind of started in more recent eras and went back - even works like Eliot Carter's 1st string quartet made me understand many relevant things about music in general which I applied later. But I think the most important was realising - as this friend has said, who also joined me for these two concerts - that composers are emotional people, they are innovators, they are visionaries. Many years after he first told this to me, these two concerts have made me realise that he was 110 per cent spot on all along.

I'll write about The Creation concert first, then the other one in my following post which I'll do later when given the chance -

Macquarie University Singers & Orchestra
Haydn - The Creation (Sung in ENGLISH)

The 120 strong choristers will be led by the highly talented young conductor Anthony Pasquill and accompanied by a full orchestra and top soloists.

I think the choir was more like 200, but I'm guessing. Here are the vocal soloists and other important people:

Erika Simons, soprano
Marcus Bortolotti, tenor
Javier Vilarino, bass-baritone
Peter Ellis, assistant conductor (on harpsichord)
Joy Lachlere, rehearsal pianist (accompanist in preparation)
Anthony Pasquill, conductor

Haydn's The Creation is just about the highest level that I've reached into musical appreciation on all levels of the spectrum, but especially in understanding how composers shape emotions from the most basic materials. I have a quirky view - I don't think this is strictly just a sacred choral work. Being an oratorio, I see it as a fusion of many genres - in the opera, concerto, chamber, solo instrumental/vocal, art-song realms. I see it the same way as I see say Monteverdi's Vespers or Mahler's symphonies. They are not restricted to just a small niche, they all "embrace the whole world" as Mahler said. I was able to connect with the "vibe" of this piece on many levels.

Compared to the recorded version I've heard on Naxos under Andreas Spering, the conductor on Saturday night, Anthony Pasquill had a very different take on this masterpiece. One of the big differences, I thought, was having the first two parts - the creation part - come out as more lyrical and kind of gentler - and then leaving more intensity and finality to the final third part, the scene with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Spering kind of did the opposite. But I enjoyed both interpretations.

As I said, this piece seems to encompass so much with much smaller resources than composers would have available later. Unlike Shostakovich's 10th symphony, which I saw last year, which had maybe 3 or 4 percussionists/timpanists and about 8-10 double basses, this work had one of each. But they were really occupied by this piece, what Haydn asked of them was akin to them being soloists at concerto level. That brings me to Haydn's masterful sensitivity to the text. I was reading along to the lyrics provided in the programme, and I could hear that virtually every phrase, especially those with the most prominence in the story, was illustrated that matched up with the words exactly as one would have thought, but it was far from cliched. Eg. take one of the final parts towards the end of part one, which describes God looking over the universe to admire his creation of the planets. The harmonies coming from the small orchestra were out of this world! It was like a mini version or prediction of the vibe of Holst's Planets Suite. Then one of my favourite songs in the second part, for bass-baritone "And God Created Great Whales." The singer's deep and rich tones were perfectly mirrored by the deep strings only - violas, cellos, & particularly the single double bass which kind of took a "star turn" here. The text imaging all of those wonderful, majestic, slow moving creatures of the deep was not only vividly illustrated, it was brought to life in words and music. These are only a few examples, there are countless others.

This was a performance put together with great care, dedication and skill. The soprano sang with coloratura, I'm not sure if this style was Haydn's era, but I'm not a stickler for "authenticity" because it means different things to different people (even the top experts). In any case, the soprano and the two male soloists as well as the choir and orchestra brought this work to life with a sense of drama and flair. They were all highly qualified and sang with great feeling, but I must mention the tenor's diction, which came off to me as perfect. By the end of it, both my friend and I where in the "vibe" or that "special space." My appreciation of Haydn's genius was already at a high level, now it's out there way up in the heavens, which is exactly where the man said that all of his inspiration for this masterpiece came from!

[listener]

The Vancouver Symphony gets to Mahler in June:
June 4 6  MAHLER  Das Lied von der Erde  + LIADOV  The Enchanted Lake  BRITTEN Peter Grimes 4 Sea Interludes  (Allyson McHardy msop; John McMaster tenor)
June11, 13  MAHLER  Symphony 1, TCHAIKOWSKY Violin Concerto  (James Ehnes)
Bramwell Tovey conducting both

[The new erato]

Kissin playing Liszt in Bergen this evening!

[bhodges]

Tonight, an interesting chamber music concert by Angela and Jennifer Chun (violins) and Frederic Chiu (piano):

Bartók: selections from 44 Violin Duos (c. 1931)
Ligeti: Ballad and Dance (1950)
Isang Yun: Sonatina for Two Violins (1983)
Prokofiev: Fugitive Visions (1915-1917)
Gao Ping: Two Soviet Love Songs for Vocalizing Pianist (2003, NY Premiere)
Shostakovich: Three Duets for Two Violins and Piano (1955)
Martinů: Sonata for Two Violins and Piano (1932)

--Bruce

[karlhenning]

The Martinů is a charmer, Bruce, and a fine choice to close off the program!

[bhodges]

Great, glad to hear that - I don't think I know that piece at all. (Actually I'm unfamiliar with everything else, too, except the Bartók and Prokofiev.)

--Bruce

[Sid]

Went to this one last Sunday at Macquarie University in Sydney -

Orchestra 143
Concert Master: Emlyn Lewis-Jones
Conductor: David Angell

Program (soloists in brackets)
A. Vivaldi
- Concerto for two cellos in G minor, RV531 (Steve Meyer, Susan Blake)
- Concerto for two oboes in D minor, RV535 (ca 1715) (Josef Hanic, Ennes Mehmedbasic)
J. Haydn, Symphony No.23 in G major, H.I:23 (1764)
-interval-
Domenico Cimarosa, Concerto for two flutes in G major (1793) (Meghan FitzGerald, Angus McPherson)
J.S.Bach, Concerto for two violins in D minor, BWV 1043 (ca 1731) (Alastair Duff, Tracy Wan)

This Sydney-based chamber orchestra specialised in music from the periods 1685 to 1828, the years between the births of J.S. Bach and Handel and the death of Schubert. They seek not only to perform works by the great composers of this period - Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert - but also to acquaint its audiences with interesting music by lesser known composers such as C.P.E. Bach, Corelli, Arriaga, Bellini, Boyce, Stamitz and Wassenaer.

A friend and I who went really enjoyed this concert, both in terms of the performances and the unique programs (as conductor David Angell said, this kind of thing is quite rare in his many years in the classical music industry). Anyway, the high points for me were as follows.

The first was the slow movement of the Vivaldi cello concerto, the two soloists playing a duo with continuo accompaniment. It had exactly the kind of depth of emotion and "vibes" as say the famous opening of Elgar's concerto.

Maestro Angell explained the Haydn symphony in depth, and I agreed with the underlying premise of his analysis - Haydn was anything but a "cookie cutter" composer (this opinion is without any logical foundation, at least not according to my experience, which is not even 1 per cent as this conductor's is!). The little known 23rd symphony had many features, the final movement having some of the humour that Prokofiev was to revisit in his 1st symphony. This movement had the strings and winds playing slightly out of sync, in different rhythms, it's as if they were doing their own things, snubbing their noses at, ignoring eachother completely. Many in the audience, including both of us, just laughed at the last note - all the strings plucked at once! I guess you just had to kind of "be there" to get the "joke."

Another friend of mine had seen this same program the previous week, and she thought that the second half of the program was much better than the first. We had not heard any work by Cimarosa before. This flute concerto definitely had a strong Mozartian feel overall, but for me the solo cadenzas for the two flutes were totally unique, like nothing I had heard before. Nothing cookie cutter about this guy's music either, at least in terms of those cadenzas.

The concluding Bach concerto bought tears to my eyes, tears of joy (as I said to my friend at the final applause). An older guy in front of me was also wiping his eyes. After the concert, we went and talked to David, and I told him that their Bach performance touched me more deeply more than any other performance of his music than that I had ever heard. I said that before this, I had sometimes kind of seen Bach as kind of boring. He was so gracious, as they all are. "I'm glad that our performance did that for you" he said...

[Lisz]

Johannes Somary Memorial Concert

The Creation, Franz Joseph Haydn

Stephen Somary, Steven Fox, and Daniel Curtis, Conductors

Chorus includes Singers from

Amor Artis Chamber Choir
Fairfield County Chorale
Great Neck Choral Society
Horace Mann Glee Club
Taghakani Chorale

Orchestra

Professional Colleagues and Friends of Johannes Somary
Sunday, June 5, 2011, at 4:00  p.m.

The Great Hall
The Cooper Union
41 Cooper Square
New York City

Admission is free of charge

Feel Welcome if you are in the NY Metro Area