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tamaranthbelated concert review #1:
Philharmonia cond. Pletnev: Piano, Boris Lugansky
Tchaikovsky - Voyevoda Overture
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto #3
Sibelius - Symphony #2
Pletnev seemed to have rearranged the orchestra -- basses and cellos to the left not the right.
Tchaikovsky's Voyevoda Overture didn't engage me. (Hmm, my reviews often start this way. Maybe it just takes me a little while to get into the flow of a concert? Or maybe I don't engage well with pieces I don't know well? [A theory I shall disprove in my next review.])
I'd found Lugansky cool and detached in the previous concert, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #1, and was slightly worried that he wouldn't make the most of Rachmaninoff's Third. Worries unfounded: I worshipped for 40 minutes at the shrine of Rachmaninoff, shivers down the spine, tears in the eyes, the works. Lugansky much more relaxed though still very straight-backed. His hands were a blur. The palsied spasmodic movements in the 1st movement crescendo -- then the fluid roll of the solo, turning hectic and rushed and cartwheeling. And from where I was sitting I could see what was happening with the high notes at the end of the movement -- easier to make sense, then, of what I was hearing.
[Note: this piece was premiered in New York on 28th November 1909. It's almost exactly a century old.]
Lugansky made the second movement faster, more passionate, less sweetly romantic. The third movement was full of tension, especially where it slows right down to single notes: Lugansky seeming almost to falter on the build to the finale, then into his stride, showier and more melodramatic, grand gestures. (Meanwhile Pletnev is unmoved: he's a subtle conductor, careful, communicating with the flick of an eyebrow, a slight frown.)
Sibelius's Second Symphony is dedicated to his friend and patron Axel Carpelan, whose death left him bereft. It's familiarly Sibelius -- warmth and whimsy, big textures, shivery strings like wind in the pines -- though it also reminded me a lot of Brahms. Pletnev looked a little more animated during this. And the third movement is bright and bold and brassy, a folky tune, a heroic fanfare. Anything'd be an anticlimax after the Rachmaninoff but this was cheering and lovely.
Philharmonia cond. Pletnev: Piano, Boris Lugansky
Tchaikovsky - Voyevoda Overture
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto #3
Sibelius - Symphony #2
Pletnev seemed to have rearranged the orchestra -- basses and cellos to the left not the right.
Tchaikovsky's Voyevoda Overture didn't engage me. (Hmm, my reviews often start this way. Maybe it just takes me a little while to get into the flow of a concert? Or maybe I don't engage well with pieces I don't know well? [A theory I shall disprove in my next review.])
I'd found Lugansky cool and detached in the previous concert, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #1, and was slightly worried that he wouldn't make the most of Rachmaninoff's Third. Worries unfounded: I worshipped for 40 minutes at the shrine of Rachmaninoff, shivers down the spine, tears in the eyes, the works. Lugansky much more relaxed though still very straight-backed. His hands were a blur. The palsied spasmodic movements in the 1st movement crescendo -- then the fluid roll of the solo, turning hectic and rushed and cartwheeling. And from where I was sitting I could see what was happening with the high notes at the end of the movement -- easier to make sense, then, of what I was hearing.
[Note: this piece was premiered in New York on 28th November 1909. It's almost exactly a century old.]
Lugansky made the second movement faster, more passionate, less sweetly romantic. The third movement was full of tension, especially where it slows right down to single notes: Lugansky seeming almost to falter on the build to the finale, then into his stride, showier and more melodramatic, grand gestures. (Meanwhile Pletnev is unmoved: he's a subtle conductor, careful, communicating with the flick of an eyebrow, a slight frown.)
Sibelius's Second Symphony is dedicated to his friend and patron Axel Carpelan, whose death left him bereft. It's familiarly Sibelius -- warmth and whimsy, big textures, shivery strings like wind in the pines -- though it also reminded me a lot of Brahms. Pletnev looked a little more animated during this. And the third movement is bright and bold and brassy, a folky tune, a heroic fanfare. Anything'd be an anticlimax after the Rachmaninoff but this was cheering and lovely.
