concert review: Mozart or the moon

[calimac]

I missed the entire bleedin' eclipse.

I was out walking in the City for much of the hour of totality, 19:00+ our time, and I kept looking around the sky, but whether it was behind a building or a cloud or something else, they hadn't got a Moon, not anywhere there!

I'd gone up for an SFS concert. An all-Mozart concert. Listen, I have had so much Mozart stuffed at me over the past few years that the only all-Mozart concert that would excite me today would be a triple-decker of his entire final symphonic trilogy. (Which I have gotten, a couple of times.) I only went to this one because I already had a ticket anyway, and because Herbert Blomstedt, who's always good, was conducting.

For my pains I got one of Mozart's more tedious divertimenti (K. 251), one of his less interesting piano concerti (K. 482), and - at least - one of his better symphonies (the Prague, K. 504 - if it'd been the Haffner I'd have split). Blomstedt took all the repeats in the symphony.

The divertimento was telling. This performance included the final march that's usually omitted, and the audience hadn't read the program book saying so, but they sure did know the piece, so they started giving their final applause after the previous movement even though Blomstedt hadn't lowered his arms.

Before the concert I'd eaten at a restaurant in the upper Tenderloin, of all places, whose gourmet pho I'd seen touted somewhere. It was gourmet pho, all right, but I think I'll stick to regular pho. The meat in pho shouldn't be too thick and rich, and the broth - I've had better.

Comments

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I missed the eclipse too, because I forgot all about it -- I was too busy watching episode 3 of the terrific HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon!

As for an all-Mozart concert, I'd only be interested if the three works featured came from the following list: the string trio K. 563, the first two of the "Haydn" quartets, the last five string quintets, the oboe quartet, the "Kagelstatt" trio, or the clarinet quintet. The late piano trios don't cut it (too boring), and though I like the piano quartets okay, I've heard them live and have trouble getting fired up about them. But as far as I'm concerned, that list of eleven works are where Mozart's greatest instrumental masterpieces are to be found. That said, I did once write a program note about the last symphony for Northwest Sinfonietta, of which I am still proud.