Three Concerts
Sunday, February 1st, 2009 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthIt has been a good week for Culture.
Thursday 29th: Berlioz, Le Corsaire / Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto #1 and Symphony #5: cond. Tugan Sokhiev, violin James Ehnes: Philharmonia, RFH
It took me a while to get into this concert: I'm not sure why.
Random observations: Berlioz's corsair is Byron's, not Errol Flynn. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto sweetly bucolic until the orchestra jolts the soloist into disjointed, indignant life. Drunken wallowing and peasant dances. (Bach's Gigue, Partita #2 for solo encore.) Tchaikovsky Symphony #5: the one that sounds like 'Annie's Song' in the second movement. There's so much going on in this piece of music: perhaps I didn't engage fully because I found it confusing or overwhelming? Because I don't know it well? But there are beautiful passages, measured and elegant and happy.
Friday 30th: Monteverdi, Orfeo: Fitzwilliam Chamber Opera and Cambridge University Baroque Ensemble: ADC Theatre
The birth of true opera (1607). This version sung in English and, I think, trimmed for performance: I'm sure I remember it being far longer. They kept all the good bits, all the catchy tunes, that I remember, though. Voices generally very good, though they cast a tenor rather than a countertenor in the lead role. Costumes ... distracting. (Who knew nymphs wore leggings?) Period instruments tending to fall out of tune at the drop of a shepherd's garter. (The woodwind and percussion were installed mid-audience, which gave many people a bit of a shock when they started playing. And at one point Eurydice's friend was lamenting right next to me in the aisle. Where does one look?) Charon, with face-paint and insectile body-language and smouldery bass, very nice indeed. And despite what I said about the costumes, the finale (departing from myth-canon by having Orpheus taken up to Olympus in the sun-god's chariot) looked gorgeous.
Saturday 31st: R. Strauss, Festmusik der Stadt Wien / Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition: Prime Brass, cond. Stephen Cleobury: King's College Chapel
King's College Chapel seating is unraked, so couldn't see very much at all. At least of Prime Brass: I feasted my eyes on the stonework, the angels (thank you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musique_monkey, for your proto-Doctor Who plot ... it occupied me during the Strauss!) and the indoor scaffolding. Strauss left me cold as usual tho' the acoustics and the fanfares v. impressive. Stephen Cleobury appeared intermittently over the heads of the audience: he is sprightly. Pictures at an Exhibition, arranged for brass and percussion, was marvellous: I'd never imagined you could get such texture, subtlety, sounds from a brass ensemble. (Enquiries post-concert indicated that the eerie, ethereal, glissando sound was probably a 'weird mute' in a piccolo trumpet. Fairly sure the vibraphone was the other strange, choral noise.) Definitely a version worth looking out for.
Thursday 29th: Berlioz, Le Corsaire / Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto #1 and Symphony #5: cond. Tugan Sokhiev, violin James Ehnes: Philharmonia, RFH
It took me a while to get into this concert: I'm not sure why.
Random observations: Berlioz's corsair is Byron's, not Errol Flynn. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto sweetly bucolic until the orchestra jolts the soloist into disjointed, indignant life. Drunken wallowing and peasant dances. (Bach's Gigue, Partita #2 for solo encore.) Tchaikovsky Symphony #5: the one that sounds like 'Annie's Song' in the second movement. There's so much going on in this piece of music: perhaps I didn't engage fully because I found it confusing or overwhelming? Because I don't know it well? But there are beautiful passages, measured and elegant and happy.
Friday 30th: Monteverdi, Orfeo: Fitzwilliam Chamber Opera and Cambridge University Baroque Ensemble: ADC Theatre
The birth of true opera (1607). This version sung in English and, I think, trimmed for performance: I'm sure I remember it being far longer. They kept all the good bits, all the catchy tunes, that I remember, though. Voices generally very good, though they cast a tenor rather than a countertenor in the lead role. Costumes ... distracting. (Who knew nymphs wore leggings?) Period instruments tending to fall out of tune at the drop of a shepherd's garter. (The woodwind and percussion were installed mid-audience, which gave many people a bit of a shock when they started playing. And at one point Eurydice's friend was lamenting right next to me in the aisle. Where does one look?) Charon, with face-paint and insectile body-language and smouldery bass, very nice indeed. And despite what I said about the costumes, the finale (departing from myth-canon by having Orpheus taken up to Olympus in the sun-god's chariot) looked gorgeous.
Saturday 31st: R. Strauss, Festmusik der Stadt Wien / Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition: Prime Brass, cond. Stephen Cleobury: King's College Chapel
King's College Chapel seating is unraked, so couldn't see very much at all. At least of Prime Brass: I feasted my eyes on the stonework, the angels (thank you,
musique_monkey, for your proto-Doctor Who plot ... it occupied me during the Strauss!) and the indoor scaffolding. Strauss left me cold as usual tho' the acoustics and the fanfares v. impressive. Stephen Cleobury appeared intermittently over the heads of the audience: he is sprightly. Pictures at an Exhibition, arranged for brass and percussion, was marvellous: I'd never imagined you could get such texture, subtlety, sounds from a brass ensemble. (Enquiries post-concert indicated that the eerie, ethereal, glissando sound was probably a 'weird mute' in a piccolo trumpet. Fairly sure the vibraphone was the other strange, choral noise.) Definitely a version worth looking out for.
