Culture: Rachmaninoff / Stravinsky, RFH, Philharmonia Orchestra
Friday, October 1st, 2004 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthLast night's concert really revived me. Or perhaps it was the expensive glass of indifferent wine. No, on reflection I think it was Rachmaninoff. We were in the front row of the choir, up close and personal with the double basses (who smiled at us nervously, presumably in the hope that this would prevent us leaning over and pointing out any bits they played wrong). There is something quite seductive about the curved neck of a suitably antique double-bass, especially when it's close enough to touch. ... Our position meant a slightly distorted sound, but if I want perfect balanced sound I'll go for a CD (or at least for dismissing the rest of the audience, with their breathing and rustling and soaking up the sound).
I'm not keen on Stravinsky, so The Firebird was to be endured rather than enjoyed -- not as unpleasant as other Stravinsky, and very loud in the right places. Then Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (familiar to British readers as the theme tune of The south Bank Show), which is a remarkably cheerful bit of music -- just what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymoonray and I needed yesterday. It's playful and ebullient and witty -- and there's still that sense of space that I get from a lot of Rachmaninoff's music.
Pag Rhap, as the programme insisted on calling it, quotes from the Dies Iræ -- mass for the Dead -- and so does Symphonic Dances, written 6 years later in 1940. Rachmaninoff was beginning the slow decline towards his death of cancer: but there is so much joie de vivre here, despite the Deus Irae and the melodramatic strings. Defying death: subverting the Dies Irae by transposing it to a major key and giving it a boisterous rhythm, bringing in transcendent chords and glorious sweeping strings and the like. It's usually Beethoven whose music is called life-affirming, triumphant (despite blindness), exuberant etc: but it works, for me, with Rachmaninoff.
I'm not keen on Stravinsky, so The Firebird was to be endured rather than enjoyed -- not as unpleasant as other Stravinsky, and very loud in the right places. Then Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (familiar to British readers as the theme tune of The south Bank Show), which is a remarkably cheerful bit of music -- just what
ladymoonray and I needed yesterday. It's playful and ebullient and witty -- and there's still that sense of space that I get from a lot of Rachmaninoff's music.Pag Rhap, as the programme insisted on calling it, quotes from the Dies Iræ -- mass for the Dead -- and so does Symphonic Dances, written 6 years later in 1940. Rachmaninoff was beginning the slow decline towards his death of cancer: but there is so much joie de vivre here, despite the Deus Irae and the melodramatic strings. Defying death: subverting the Dies Irae by transposing it to a major key and giving it a boisterous rhythm, bringing in transcendent chords and glorious sweeping strings and the like. It's usually Beethoven whose music is called life-affirming, triumphant (despite blindness), exuberant etc: but it works, for me, with Rachmaninoff.
