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one day, two concerts
Jan. 30th, 2011 11:43 pmI keep track of the offerings of various regional orchestras that are not exactly local to me, but are within a day's or overnight trip, but I don't get to them very often. Whether I do is a factor of both distance and the attractive power of the music - and rarely, as today, the possibility of getting to two of them on one trip.
I had to get going early today, with a lot of inter-library loan books to photocopy articles from and then return to the library, but I finished that in time to drive to Oakland for a matinee by the Prometheus Symphony, a volunteer orchestra that plays free concerts in a redbrick church - with all that that implies in terms of acoustics - by Lake Merritt.
I went because they were playing the Caucasian Sketches by Ippolitov-Ivanov. This is an old pops favorite that, precisely because it is an old pops favorite, I'd never heard in concert before. But I've liked it for a long time - the second movement had me in thrall for a while when I was 15 - so it was fun to hear live, semi-rough though the performance was. I was also attracted by the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and by its soloist, Stephen Waarts. I heard him a few months ago with the Redwood Symphony, and was impressed. I wrote, "He's 14, looks about 8 and plays like he's at least 18. Rich tone, excellent senses of pitch and line, and enough maturity for a trivial little thing like a Paganini concerto." Could he translate that to the huge span of the Beethoven concerto? He could.
Then up 580 to San Rafael for an evening concert by the Marin Symphony. This is a professional orchestra of some quality whose music director, Alasdair Neale, I know from his earlier stint as an associate conductor for the San Francisco Symphony. They play in an amphitheatre hall disturbingly reminiscent of the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, which I'd rather it wasn't.
On the program, Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, one of the best of his sturm und drang monsters, and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, the former with a lean and hungry look, like Cassius; the latter powerful and calculating, like Brutus. Satisfying, both of them, and both best in the finale movements. In between them, Mozart's Piano Concerto K.503, with Robin Sutherland (SFS's orchestral keyboardist), was not so successful. It's a stuffy concerto and received a stuffy performance. At one point in the first movement recap, the pianist lost his place and had to stop and consult with the conductor's score. That's an embarrassment it'd have been better not to have.
With insufficient time to allow for a proper dinner between concerts, I'd headed for the food court at a mall near the Marin auditorium. These can sometimes have good offerings. Not this one. There were only a few stands and were all either closed, unappetizing, or both. Wound up with Chinese steam-table that didn't taste quite as vile as it looked.
I had to get going early today, with a lot of inter-library loan books to photocopy articles from and then return to the library, but I finished that in time to drive to Oakland for a matinee by the Prometheus Symphony, a volunteer orchestra that plays free concerts in a redbrick church - with all that that implies in terms of acoustics - by Lake Merritt.
I went because they were playing the Caucasian Sketches by Ippolitov-Ivanov. This is an old pops favorite that, precisely because it is an old pops favorite, I'd never heard in concert before. But I've liked it for a long time - the second movement had me in thrall for a while when I was 15 - so it was fun to hear live, semi-rough though the performance was. I was also attracted by the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and by its soloist, Stephen Waarts. I heard him a few months ago with the Redwood Symphony, and was impressed. I wrote, "He's 14, looks about 8 and plays like he's at least 18. Rich tone, excellent senses of pitch and line, and enough maturity for a trivial little thing like a Paganini concerto." Could he translate that to the huge span of the Beethoven concerto? He could.
Then up 580 to San Rafael for an evening concert by the Marin Symphony. This is a professional orchestra of some quality whose music director, Alasdair Neale, I know from his earlier stint as an associate conductor for the San Francisco Symphony. They play in an amphitheatre hall disturbingly reminiscent of the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, which I'd rather it wasn't.
On the program, Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, one of the best of his sturm und drang monsters, and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, the former with a lean and hungry look, like Cassius; the latter powerful and calculating, like Brutus. Satisfying, both of them, and both best in the finale movements. In between them, Mozart's Piano Concerto K.503, with Robin Sutherland (SFS's orchestral keyboardist), was not so successful. It's a stuffy concerto and received a stuffy performance. At one point in the first movement recap, the pianist lost his place and had to stop and consult with the conductor's score. That's an embarrassment it'd have been better not to have.
With insufficient time to allow for a proper dinner between concerts, I'd headed for the food court at a mall near the Marin auditorium. These can sometimes have good offerings. Not this one. There were only a few stands and were all either closed, unappetizing, or both. Wound up with Chinese steam-table that didn't taste quite as vile as it looked.
