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

[Brian]

By the way, I've just come back from this:

Liszt | Mazeppa
Gliere | Concerto for Coloratura Soprano
Rachmaninov | Symphony No 2
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Ailish Tynan, soprano | Kirill Karabits

The Liszt was rip-roaring good fun and the over-the-top ending made me grin; the Gliere was a weird combination of completely bonkers idea and remarkably intelligent execution, well sung except for a final high F (!) which sounded a bit like a cat with a foot on its tail, and the Rachmaninov allowed the Bournemouth SO to strut its very, very formidable stuff. Obviously a great orchestra and a conductor who knows how to be exciting as hell. Sure, nothing on the program is subtle, but being exciting as hell is a rarer trait than you'd think these days. Yannick Nezet-Seguin could use a class in it.

[Brahmsian]

By the way, I've just come back from this:

Liszt | Mazeppa
Gliere | Concerto for Coloratura Soprano
Rachmaninov | Symphony No 2
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Ailish Tynan, soprano | Kirill Karabits

The Liszt was rip-roaring good fun and the over-the-top ending made me grin; the Gliere was a weird combination of completely bonkers idea and remarkably intelligent execution, well sung except for a final high F (!) which sounded a bit like a cat with a foot on its tail, and the Rachmaninov allowed the Bournemouth SO to strut its very, very formidable stuff. Obviously a great orchestra and a conductor who knows how to be exciting as hell. Sure, nothing on the program is subtle, but being exciting as hell is a rarer trait than you'd think these days. Yannick Nezet-Seguin could use a class in it.

Brian, I just finished listening to the Shostakovich 11th (live recording) of Bournemouth SO and Karabits.  It's a BBC Music magazine disc recording, that I actually love and listen to, because the performance is so great!   

[jlaurson]

Received today from London Southbank Centre, in re the concert in the RFH on 10th October (Abbado+Lucerne Festival Orchestra: Schumann Piano Concerto in Am, Bruckner Symphony No.5) :

I wonder what that's all about?

Who cares. You just got a considerable Mozart upgrade for free!!!

[Brian]

Who cares. You just got a considerable Mozart upgrade for free!!!

Yeah, Uchida in London and Lupu in Lucerne both seem to be upgrades!

[Sergeant Rock]

"Hélène Grimaud, an intense but popular French musician"

Hah. I think I would have (sorry, Sarge) used the word "boring" rather than "intense."

When did you see her? in a concerto or rectial? If in the last few years, you know she was suffering from cancer which had to affect her playing. I haven't seen her in four years but before that her Beethoven PC 4 with P.Järvi and Cinncinati, Beethoven PC 5 with Cambreling and SWR Baden-Baden, and Ravel G Major with Luisi and Dresden, were all memorable. I agree though that hearing Uchida in Mozart, a known quantity, might be the better deal. I'd still rather see Grimaud, though, intense or not 

Sarge

[Brian]

When did you see her? in a concerto or rectial? If in the last few years, you know she was suffering from cancer which had to affect her playing. I haven't seen her in four year but before that her Beethoven PC 4 with P.Järvi and Cinncinati, Beethoven PC 5 with Cambreling and SWR Baden-Baden, and Ravel G Major with Luisi and Dresden, were all memorable. I agree though that hearing Uchida in Mozart, a known quantity, might be the better deal. I'd still rather see Grimaud, though, intense or not 

Sarge

Heh, I'll concede the last point! I think the Grimaud showings were in 2008/2009 or 2010 in Houston - once Beethoven PC 4 and once she filled in at the last moment for somebody else with Brahms PC 1, which already slightly prejudiced me against her because - same story as Brahms Symphony No 1 - I really liked that piece as a teenager but now, not so much. And the concerto and symphony were originally something else; they revamped the entire program to accommodate the fact that she was touring Brahms PC 1.

[jlaurson]

"Hélène Grimaud, an intense but popular French musician"

Hah. I think I would have (sorry, Sarge) used the word "boring" rather than "intense." I've seen Grimaud live at least twice and neither time did she do much to catch my attention. Her post-concert Q&A for Rice students in Houston was more compelling than her playing.

The whole article is inane in it's patronizing, nonsensical way... but this line is the kicker. "Intense but popular"... as if that was inherently, or even just suggestively a contradiction. She's popular because she looks good and has a story and occasionally makes interesting CDs. I wouldn't call her intense. (Intensely popular, perhaps.) I've heard her so many times now, in Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel , Bartok (concertos, and pretty much exhausting her painfully limited repertoire), and Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Brahms (recitals) and although I think "boring" is unkind, it pretty much hits the mark. In Munich / Beethoven I might allow for sickness as an explanation (if not excuse; if it had been the reason, she ought to have cancelled)... because it was outright awful. At other times it was pleasant or enjoyable, occasionally impressive, without digging deep, without moving... surprisingly one-dimensional piano playing.

Dame Uchida [not saying that just because she complimented me on my Lederhosen a couple hours ago] in Mozart (Cto. or Sonatas), or for that matter in Schoenberg or Beethoven, is a whole different ballpark of a musician. And Lupu, although I tend to always expect a little more from him than I get out of his very matter-of-factly playing, is a more sensitive player than Grimaud, too, with much more Mozart experience.

To suggest that Grimaud is somehow all wowzers in Mozart, but Uchida not even worth turning up at the Southbank, betrays curious listening-preferences. Perhaps more (understandable) visual preferences.

[jlaurson]

Schumann.  Not Mozart.

That, assuming Grimaud's very best, might be a more even playing field...

Incidentally: One more story on Grimaud (this has nothing to do with her fine work decades ago, but with lazy journalists) that mentions those fucking wolves, and I will hurl.

...Hélène Grimaud's best quality is perhaps the absence of pretentiousness. Last heard in London, she's never really excited me in her painfully limited concerto repertoire, but she's certainly never disappointed me. I find her playing a bit too clunky and too one-dimensional to compare her with the understated no-nonsense greats à la Wilhelm Backhaus or Clifford Curzon—but I'd rather hear a Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto played straight than with too much perfume and bells and whistles and ego super-glued to every second bar. [Not that I don't make exceptions...] And in Mme. Grimaud there is something—although I can't quite put my finger on what it is—that stands between her monochromatic renditions and the tediousness that a lesser, if similar straight-forward, bland pianist would evoke...

[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 7 )

The Fifth Continent • Continū, Salzburg Media Productions


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-2011-salzburg-festival-7.html

[Brian]

This will probably be the last concert I see in England this year! And it ends with the most appropriate of all "goodbye, England" music!

Bridge | Rebus overture
Brahms | Violin Concerto - arranged for piano by Dejan Lazic
Holst | Invocation
Elgar | Enigma Variations
Dejan Lazic, piano; Julian Lloyd-Webber, cello
BBC Philharmonic
Vassily Sinaisky

[Brahmsian]

This will probably be the last concert I see in England this year! And it ends with the most appropriate of all "goodbye, England" music!


Brahms | Violin Concerto - arranged for piano by Dejan Lazic

I'd so love to hear this live - but the actual Violin Concerto itself.

[TheGSMoeller]

WHERE Jay Pritzker Pavilion
WHO Grant Park Orchestra/Carlos Kalmar, Conductor

WHAT Adams: The Chairman Dances (from the opera Nixon in China) 
          Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10, Op.93

Just as I always do, I will probably start a thread about this later, but this concert will be streaming live on WFMT 98.7 in Chicago, also available through the WFMT website.


Edit: A date would be nice, Wednesday, August 17. 6:30pm Central, 7:30 Eastern

[Brian]

I'd so love to hear this live - but the actual Violin Concerto itself.

It turned out to work fairly well as a piano concerto. The melody never went to the left hand or below the middle of the instrument, which is a fairly clear bit of fakery, and the very prettiest moments in the slow movement didn't work, but I was genuinely surprised at how not-awful it was. And the finale was genuinely exciting.

That said, the Enigma - with the optional organ included in the finale! - was the undoubted highlight and a totally thrilling way to end my year of concert-going in London.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

That said, the Enigma - with the optional organ included in the finale! - was the undoubted highlight and a totally thrilling way to end my year of concert-going in London.

And what a year it has been for you. Enjoy the sweet melancholy that is sure to come...

[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 8 )

Mahler Scenes • Mahler, Strauss, Schnittke


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-2011-salzburg-festival-8.html

[Papy Oli]

Incidentally: One more story on Grimaud (this has nothing to do with her fine work decades ago, but with lazy journalists) that mentions those fucking wolves, and I will hurl.

At your err...Service...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2011/aug/15/lucerne-festival-lupu-brahms

What a difference a day makes. After Hélène Grimaud and Claudio Abbado had a creative falling out before this year's Lucerne festival, Romanian piano-guru Radu Lupu stepped into Grimaud's lupine shoes to take over as the soloist in Brahms' First Piano Concerto with Abbado's Lucerne Festival Orchestra. (Mitsuko Uchida replaces Grimaud in the Schumann Concerto that Abbado and the orchestra will play in London in October, along with Bruckner's Fifth Symphony.

it even gave a link on the word lupine....

[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 9 )

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia • Haydn, Rossini


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-2011-salzburg-festival-9.html




Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 10 )

Chamber Concert 3 • Schubert, Schumann, Schoenberg


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-2011-salzburg-festival-10.html

[Lethevich]

The Smetana Trio might be coming to my town early next year, which I think should be enough to push me out of my social-phobic concert-going embargo

My recent Schubert obsession means that this one in October is looking increasingly likely:

Atrium Quartet - St Petersburg
HAYDN - Quartet in B flat Op.76 No.4 "Sunrise"
SCHUBERT - Quartet in G D.887
TCHAIKOVSKY - Quartet in F Op.22

[jlaurson]

Notes from the 2011 Salzburg Festival ( 11 )

Recital • Mullova & Bezuidenhout


http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/notes-from-2011-salzburg-festival-11.html

[bhodges]

Tonight, this piano recital at Le Poisson Rouge:

Taka Kigawa, Piano

Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 2
Saariaho: Prelude and Ballade
Stockhausen: Klavierstück X

--Bruce