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concert review: Symphony Silicon Valley
Mar. 5th, 2019 03:11 amOne new work, one modern concerto, one old warhorse symphony.
If there's sarcasm in my calling the new composer "an ambassador from another world," it's a bitter one. I am so sick and disgusted with people trying to deny the existence of the serialist hegemony. I had to live through the damn thing. It was a real thing, and it's still trying to be one.
I didn't actually have any strong feelings about this performance of the Barber Violin Concerto, though I tried to disguise that. I've heard the piece many times before, I've even reviewed it before, but I don't feel as if I really know it.
Tchaikovsky's Fifth, on the other hand, I know, and I was continually fascinated by what was going on in this performance, much of my reaction to which I was able to capture in words. This was the first time with this work that I consulted the score afterwards for enlightenment on the interpretation, and what most struck me is that keeping the work (especially the finale) from sounding like an emotional breakdown requires ignoring some of the composer's explicit instructions. Which would explain why so many old performances from the ultra-literalist "everyone wants to be Toscanini" period did sound like emotional breakdowns. Not so much any more, though. Musical interpretation is an art in itself; I already knew that, but this reinforces it.
If there's sarcasm in my calling the new composer "an ambassador from another world," it's a bitter one. I am so sick and disgusted with people trying to deny the existence of the serialist hegemony. I had to live through the damn thing. It was a real thing, and it's still trying to be one.
I didn't actually have any strong feelings about this performance of the Barber Violin Concerto, though I tried to disguise that. I've heard the piece many times before, I've even reviewed it before, but I don't feel as if I really know it.
Tchaikovsky's Fifth, on the other hand, I know, and I was continually fascinated by what was going on in this performance, much of my reaction to which I was able to capture in words. This was the first time with this work that I consulted the score afterwards for enlightenment on the interpretation, and what most struck me is that keeping the work (especially the finale) from sounding like an emotional breakdown requires ignoring some of the composer's explicit instructions. Which would explain why so many old performances from the ultra-literalist "everyone wants to be Toscanini" period did sound like emotional breakdowns. Not so much any more, though. Musical interpretation is an art in itself; I already knew that, but this reinforces it.
