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three concerts
Oct. 21st, 2008 03:46 pm1. Shostakovich quartets - late ones, very late ones - last Wednesday. Theoretically I could have watched most of the debate and still had time to dash over to Stanford, but the desire to have my mind rested to review it was the excuse I needed to ditch the windbags and be there early. The pleasure of this concert was in the deep thought and care the Emerson Quartet put into considering every note of the music. But while I could hear this, in writing about it I felt myself smacking up against the glass wall of my inability to describe it adequately. The specific examples I give - all derived from illegible notes I scribbled on the score - feel like a collection of trivia. I want to snap at myself that I missed the point. Maybe had I a couple more days to write it would have fallen into place in my mind. But this is a review, not high art, and others seem to have liked it.
2. Friday, purely on a whim, to the San Francisco Symphony's local excursion. Almost empty hall, and considering that they charge more than at their home hall, no wonder. Guest pianist, Leon Fleischer, who's been around for a while. Made his debut in 1943, it says here, and recorded with George Szell. He played Beethoven's Emperor, my favorite of all piano concertos. The local excuse for a classical station likes to play the finale of this concerto, but it only works after the gorgeous slow movement, the way dessert tastes best after a good dinner. Also on tap under Marek Janowski, Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Schumann's Second Symphony, both clear and emphatic.
3. Saturday, George Cleve conducts Symphony Silicon Valley. Beethoven's First Symphony, with all the pauses so you get all of Beethoven's jokes. No, really, it worked fine. Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, with the local associate concertmaster, not ready for prime time. After intermission, they played Respighi's Fountains of Rome. No they didn't, they played Debussy's La Mer. But it sure didn't sound like it. Debussy is an Impressionist, right? Well, this wasn't Monet, it was Matisse. Or, in musical terms, Respighi. Bright sparkling emphasis, no gentle wash of sound. Respighi's musical palette is similar to Debussy's, he just uses it differently; and this was different in just that way. On the occasions where Debussy's harmonic vocabulary was more advanced than Respighi's, it felt like receiving interjections from Bartók.
2. Friday, purely on a whim, to the San Francisco Symphony's local excursion. Almost empty hall, and considering that they charge more than at their home hall, no wonder. Guest pianist, Leon Fleischer, who's been around for a while. Made his debut in 1943, it says here, and recorded with George Szell. He played Beethoven's Emperor, my favorite of all piano concertos. The local excuse for a classical station likes to play the finale of this concerto, but it only works after the gorgeous slow movement, the way dessert tastes best after a good dinner. Also on tap under Marek Janowski, Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Schumann's Second Symphony, both clear and emphatic.
3. Saturday, George Cleve conducts Symphony Silicon Valley. Beethoven's First Symphony, with all the pauses so you get all of Beethoven's jokes. No, really, it worked fine. Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, with the local associate concertmaster, not ready for prime time. After intermission, they played Respighi's Fountains of Rome. No they didn't, they played Debussy's La Mer. But it sure didn't sound like it. Debussy is an Impressionist, right? Well, this wasn't Monet, it was Matisse. Or, in musical terms, Respighi. Bright sparkling emphasis, no gentle wash of sound. Respighi's musical palette is similar to Debussy's, he just uses it differently; and this was different in just that way. On the occasions where Debussy's harmonic vocabulary was more advanced than Respighi's, it felt like receiving interjections from Bartók.
