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

[bhodges]

On the 4th of November at the Salle Pleyel in Paris a new work by Arvo Pärt (silhouette, hommage a Gustave Eiffel) will be premiered by Paavo Jarvi.

Two days later, November 6 at the same concert hall, Pierre Boulez will be premiering new works by Bruno Mantovani,
Jens Jovelik and Johannes Maria Stand.

These sound great.  Will be interested to hear your report (even though they are some months off!). 

Tomorrow afternoon, and already salivating:

The MET Orchestra
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Deborah Polaski, soprano

Bartók: The Wooden Prince
Schoenberg: Erwartung

--Bruce

This concert was sensational.  Boulez really knows the Bartók, and it should really show up on concerts more often.  Many beautiful moments, with some excellent chances for the brass and winds to shine--especially the lead trumpet. 

And Deborah Polaski, who often does Wagner and R. Strauss, has a powerhouse voice that was used very effectively in Erwartung.  I've already heard from one friend who didn't think she could be heard well over the massive orchestra, but from my seat, she was really overwhelming. 

Boulez was his typically understated self.  It was a bit amusing to me, watching the enormous MET Orchestra playing at full blast, while Boulez kept his body language to an absolute minimum. 

--Bruce

[MDL]

Just booked tickets for this at the Barbican.

Henri Dutilleux Métaboles
Messiaen Turangalila-Symphonie

London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev conductor
Joanna MacGregor piano
Cynthia Millar ondes martenot

No idea what to expect of Gergiev in either piece, but I suspect he won't be boring.

[bhodges]

Just booked tickets for this at the Barbican.

Henri Dutilleux Métaboles
Messiaen Turangalila-Symphonie

London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev conductor
Joanna MacGregor piano
Cynthia Millar ondes martenot

No idea what to expect of Gergiev in either piece, but I suspect he won't be boring.

Whoa!  So true: "boring" it won't be!  I would love to know what he does with those pieces.  The Dutilleux is marvelous...

--Bruce

[MDL]

Whoa!  So true: "boring" it won't be!  I would love to know what he does with those pieces.  The Dutilleux is marvelous...

--Bruce

Agreed; the Messiaen was the more immediate draw because it's the "big" piece, I've lost count of the recordings I've got and I've known it since my teens. But the more I hear the Dutilleux, the more I think I might prefer it. The concert is this Thursday (I missed off the date).

[bhodges]

Agreed; the Messiaen was the more immediate draw because it's the "big" piece, I've lost count of the recordings I've got and I've known it since my teens. But the more I hear the Dutilleux, the more I think I might prefer it. The concert is this Thursday (I missed off the date).

PS, you probably heard: Yvonne Loriod died yesterday.    Anyway, will look forward to your comments on this concert. 

Looking forward to this on Friday at Carnegie, especially after having seen Lulu last week.  And I haven't heard the Eroica in awhile.

The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director and Conductor
Erin Morley, Soprano

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Berg: Lulu Suite
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"

--Bruce

[MDL]

PS, you probably heard: Yvonne Loriod died yesterday.    Anyway, will look forward to your comments on this concert. 

Looking forward to this on Friday at Carnegie, especially after having seen Lulu last week.  And I haven't heard the Eroica in awhile.

The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director and Conductor
Erin Morley, Soprano

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Berg: Lulu Suite
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, "Eroica"

--Bruce

No, I didn't know about that. 86; not a bad innings. Sad news all the same.

[MDL]

Whoa!  So true: "boring" it won't be!  I would love to know what he does with those pieces.  The Dutilleux is marvelous...

--Bruce

Gergiev's Messiaen was fascinating. Unless my hearing was affected by the Barbican acoustics, I've never heard the bass cross-rhythms slashing through the textures so clearly, echoing Stravinsky's Petrushka. The LSO seemed to be on fine form. OK, there was an unfortunate guff about eight seconds into the first movement, but I was amazed by the unflagging virtuosity of the brass, who were crisp and alert until the very end.
I read an online review complaining that the ondes martenot was too loud and intrusive. Well, I'm not sure where that reviewer was sat, but from my seat (front row balcony) the ondes martenot wasn't nearly audible enough.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I went to the Concertgebouw yesterday, after more than a decade. The place felt instantly familiar. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were to play Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto (soloist: Alexander Gavrylyuk), Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead and Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, all under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev. These last two works are among my all-time favourites, and I like Prokofiev a lot, so I really had something to look forward to.


Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto was unknown to me, but its language was immediately recognizable, even if I hadn't known the name of the composer. It's in four movements, two short middle movements flanked by two meatier ones. The first movement is terrific. Its highlight is an amazing cadenza, that ruminates on the material we have heard and builds and builds, finding ever greater expressiveness and depth in the process, until a point of maximum tension is reached where the whole orchestra crashes in. Tremendous. Gavrylyuk was faultless here, though I can't compare him, of course. But he took me with him completely, and that counts too. The middle movements are in Prokofiev's well-known satirical and fantastic vein, but didn't leave much of an impression after that great first movement. The final movement is weightier. It has powerful moments. But for me Prokofiev really scales the heights in the opening movement. If I only had heard that, I would have been perfectly happy.
(to be continued...)

[purephase]

Gergiev's Messiaen was fascinating. Unless my hearing was affected by the Barbican acoustics, I've never heard the bass cross-rhythms slashing through the textures so clearly, echoing Stravinsky's Petrushka. The LSO seemed to be on fine form. OK, there was an unfortunate guff about eight seconds into the first movement, but I was amazed by the unflagging virtuosity of the brass, who were crisp and alert until the very end.
I read an online review complaining that the ondes martenot was too loud and intrusive. Well, I'm not sure where that reviewer was sat, but from my seat (front row balcony) the ondes martenot wasn't nearly audible enough.

I was in the circle and likewise have no idea what that reviewer was on about.  Given his sneering tone about the ondes martenot in general, I have a difficult time believing he even liked the piece very much before the performance.

[bhodges]

This weekend:

Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre (Alan Gilbert/New York Philharmonic, semi-staged by Douglas Fitch) - The hype surrounding this production is enormous, but somehow I suspect Gilbert will do a great job with it.

--Bruce

[The new erato]

Tonight: Minkowski and Les musiciens de Louvre plays all 6 Brandenburg concertoes.
Tomorrow night: Ashkenazy and the Faust quartet in Sallinen, Mozart and Beethoven (op 132).
Sunday: Jaap ter Linden plays all 6 cello suites of Bach.

[Christo]

(to be continued...)

We're, errr ...

[jlaurson]

Christian Thielemann, Radu Lupu
Munich Phil.

Detlev Glanert
"Insomnium" (World Premiere, after Gerhaher had to cancel last year)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto in B-flat KV 595

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Symphony No. 3, op. 56
"Scottish"

[jlaurson]

Which concerts to look forward to in the Washington DC area.

Friday, 5.28.10, 11:00 am

June in Music
http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=2049

[secondwind]

I'm looking forward to the National Symphony Orchestra's Rite od Spring and Scheherazade this Friday.

[jlaurson]

One of the best concerts of the year so far, despite 'questionable' Mendelssohn.

2.6.10

Ionarts-at-Large: World Premiere of Glanert's "Insomnium" with Thielemann

Glanert, Mozart, Mendelssohn: Radu Lupu (piano), Munich Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann (conductor), Gasteig, Munich 27/28/29.05.2010

Glanert: "Insomnium"
Mozart: Piano Concerto in B-flat, K595
Mendelssohn: Symphony No.3, "Scottish"

[MDL]

This weekend:

Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre (Alan Gilbert/New York Philharmonic, semi-staged by Douglas Fitch) - The hype surrounding this production is enormous, but somehow I suspect Gilbert will do a great job with it.

--Bruce

Hey, Bruce... (Pardon me if you've posted elsewhere; my broadband's been on the blink for a bit) ..how was it? Le Grand Macabre at the ENO was probably the highlight of last year's concerts for me. How was it for you?

[Elgarian]

Returned a few days ago after two evenings of the Beverley Early Music Festival. On Saturday Julia Doyle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Matthew Truscott performed excerpts from The Fairy Queen, the Bach D minor double concerto, and a collection of Handel arias, all sandwiched between a couple of Handel's concerto grossi. We got to hear a lot of it twice, because they were rehearsing in the afternoon in Beverley Minster. Sunday evening was the Dunedin Consort, brilliantly performing Handel's Acis and Galatea.

It was all so good, so very very good, and the whole trip, as we soaked in the music and enjoyed the sheer exhilarating commitment of the performers, was so ... inspiring? - that any attempt to describe it would inevitably fail to convey anything to the purpose. I'm still in some strange rarefied place, high up, unwilling to come down; not even wanting much to talk about it. Very strange. Very wonderful.

[bhodges]

Hey, Bruce... (Pardon me if you've posted elsewhere; my broadband's been on the blink for a bit) ..how was it? Le Grand Macabre at the ENO was probably the highlight of last year's concerts for me. How was it for you?

It was just terrific; I wish I had gone to all 3 nights.  If you start with this post in the Ligeti thread, you'll see a link to the Times review, some excellent comments by Sforzando, and a few from me.  (I'm writing a longer review, to come.)

Alan Gilbert is really the hero of the thing, but Doug Fitch's design work and direction were often astounding. 

--Bruce

[jlaurson]

Ionarts-at-Large: Britten vs. Purcell, Champions League

The overlap of Britten- and Football fans seems to be bigger than you might expect... the many empty seats in the Philharmonic hall of the Gasteig more likely due to the football match of Bayern Munich vs. Internationale Milano that evening, rather than Purcell-Britten. (Although for the Munich Philharmonic's audience, Britten does constitute risqué programming.)