a meeting and a concert
Apr. 8th, 2011 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacYesterday afternoon there was an SFCV staff meeting in the City, and as such events are infrequent I thought I should go, even though I'd have to leave early - ironically, in order to attend an SFS concert down here in their South Bay series, as I'd earlier bought tickets to this performance in order not to have to go up to the City to hear this program. Oh well.
So I took the train, which reduced wear and tear on me, as well as on my car, and was probably a lot faster at getting out of town at rush hour when my schedule was tight.
The meeting was partly to show off our new offices -- yes, we're a web site that now has offices, and they are ... well, they're on the top floor of a 12-story building, let's say that. Besides meeting and greeting, I was able to hand my editor the printed announcement (it's not up on their web site yet, I don't think) of next year's Stanford Lively Arts season, which their PR manager had been most concerned to pass on at the last concert of theirs I reviewed. For the rest, our operations manager urged us to increase SFCV's traffic by passing on links to our own articles to our friends. Well, I thought, I do that.
Make my apologies and leave in the middle of this. Walk across Moscone Center to catch the bus, then rush into the CalTrain station just in time to board the "baby bullet". Listen to Shostakovich on my ipod and read a book about postmodernism. Decide the reason I don't understand postmodern theory is that its theorists don't understand it either. Then: Dinner. Concert.
Osmo Vänskä guest-conducted, and he was somewhat more palatable, if not much less eccentric, than last time. I was glad to hear Vaughan Williams's London Symphony, his gloriously atmospheric, bustling portrait of the city, but why must Vänskä put all the emphasis on the misty side? The introduction and epilogue hung heavy in the air, while what should have been the brasher parts mumbled.
On the other hand, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto was entirely straightforward, with the same kind of exquisite orchestral playing that distinguished Sibelius under Blomstedt last week. Principal concertmaster Alexander Barantschik was soloist, playing what was possibly the same instrument the concerto was premiered on in 1845. (Original dedicatee Ferdinand David owned several Guarneris, including this one, and we're not sure which one he used.) Barantschik didn't look very happy, but he performed with sweet, simple grace, as if the instrument were saying, "Ah, yes, I remember it well," and playing the concerto by itself.
Also on the program, Red and Green by Thomas Larcher. A commissioned premiere, composed last fall. The program note writer buried his nose in the score in a desperate attempt to divine the nature of the music without having heard it. Frankly, I could have described it as well as that by studying the score myself, and I'd have expected someone who can presumably read music better than I can to have done a better job at it than I could. What we got in the hearing was extremely consonant soundscape, with washes of varied color, sometimes (these were the best parts) over soft steady rhythms. There were a lot of beautiful sounds here; the problem was that, as with the Christopher Rouse string quartet I recently heard, it was ten minutes of content in a twenty-minute bag. It just rattled around and lasted far too long for its worth.
So I took the train, which reduced wear and tear on me, as well as on my car, and was probably a lot faster at getting out of town at rush hour when my schedule was tight.
The meeting was partly to show off our new offices -- yes, we're a web site that now has offices, and they are ... well, they're on the top floor of a 12-story building, let's say that. Besides meeting and greeting, I was able to hand my editor the printed announcement (it's not up on their web site yet, I don't think) of next year's Stanford Lively Arts season, which their PR manager had been most concerned to pass on at the last concert of theirs I reviewed. For the rest, our operations manager urged us to increase SFCV's traffic by passing on links to our own articles to our friends. Well, I thought, I do that.
Make my apologies and leave in the middle of this. Walk across Moscone Center to catch the bus, then rush into the CalTrain station just in time to board the "baby bullet". Listen to Shostakovich on my ipod and read a book about postmodernism. Decide the reason I don't understand postmodern theory is that its theorists don't understand it either. Then: Dinner. Concert.
Osmo Vänskä guest-conducted, and he was somewhat more palatable, if not much less eccentric, than last time. I was glad to hear Vaughan Williams's London Symphony, his gloriously atmospheric, bustling portrait of the city, but why must Vänskä put all the emphasis on the misty side? The introduction and epilogue hung heavy in the air, while what should have been the brasher parts mumbled.
On the other hand, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto was entirely straightforward, with the same kind of exquisite orchestral playing that distinguished Sibelius under Blomstedt last week. Principal concertmaster Alexander Barantschik was soloist, playing what was possibly the same instrument the concerto was premiered on in 1845. (Original dedicatee Ferdinand David owned several Guarneris, including this one, and we're not sure which one he used.) Barantschik didn't look very happy, but he performed with sweet, simple grace, as if the instrument were saying, "Ah, yes, I remember it well," and playing the concerto by itself.
Also on the program, Red and Green by Thomas Larcher. A commissioned premiere, composed last fall. The program note writer buried his nose in the score in a desperate attempt to divine the nature of the music without having heard it. Frankly, I could have described it as well as that by studying the score myself, and I'd have expected someone who can presumably read music better than I can to have done a better job at it than I could. What we got in the hearing was extremely consonant soundscape, with washes of varied color, sometimes (these were the best parts) over soft steady rhythms. There were a lot of beautiful sounds here; the problem was that, as with the Christopher Rouse string quartet I recently heard, it was ten minutes of content in a twenty-minute bag. It just rattled around and lasted far too long for its worth.
