tamaranth | [concert] Beethoven / Rachmaninoff: CBSO at Cambridge Corn Exchange, 9.12.10

woolymonkey and her household -- the younger (ape) members of whom attended this masterclass at half term --

anef and I accompanied Monkeys to the Corn Exchange last night for an embarrassingly cheap £5 / ticket: third row of the stalls, too, which is ever so close when the CBSO are doing a heavyweight Russian symphony.

First half was Beethoven's fifth piano concerto (Emperor), which has been in my Top Five Classical Pieces for a couple of decades: I know it pretty much by heart. Louis Lortie is marvellous: he played with just enough hesitation to make the notes seem inevitable, forced out by gravity. And he was enjoying himself immensely: no posturing, no Romantic Piano Hero stuff, just sheer cheer and happiness. Would see again, for sure. (Unusually for my recent concert-going, I could see his face but not his hands. Piano sounds much better from the front though!)

The CBSO (cond. Thomas Dausgaard) played with restraint, subtlety, smoothness, delicacy, and sharpness (I don't mean pitch) where needed. (Possibly saving their strength for second half.) Was very lovely.

Interval (you can take your drinks back in!): then Rachmaninoff Symphony #2, which I missed in London recently due to lack of stamina for late-late train. It's an hour long and there are a lot of notes. I don't know this piece very well at all and found it overwhelming, though fascinating: some passages echoing Rachmaninoff's piano concertos, some reminding me of Romantic Russians: Tchaikovsky barges head-first into the Jazz Age and slips in some folk tunes. Packed with texture and colour: Dausgaard was much more into this and looked quite drained by the end of the third movement. It was spectacular but frankly anything would have been an anticlimax for me after the Beethoven.

And I walked home, mostly in company, and was in by 10:10.