kleine konzerten
May. 16th, 2005 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacHeard a couple small student-ensemble concerts at Stanford over the weekend.
The Stanford Wind Ensemble did well enough with some marches by Smetana and folk dances by Percy Grainger, but the highlight of the concert was a few 1920s solo-sax-and-ensemble pieces by a 1920s virtuoso sax player and pops composer named Rudy Wiedoeft, of whom I'd never previously heard, finely played by a senior named Joe Yu. Wiedoeft predated the jazz-sax era, so his music was tuneful and enjoyable. Also pretty good, a quintet (2 trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba) playing a medly consisting of 3 parts "The Saints Go Marching In" and one part "The Hallelujah Chorus".
The next day, a more serious concert consisting of various student groups playing assorted movements from classical chamber masterworks. This one included the entirety of the Franck Sonata [it is said that an unworldly classical violinist was once introduced to Frank Sinatra, and said, "I know the Franck Sonata, but who is this man?"], the first half in the canonical arrangement for violin and piano, the second half in the most common alternative of cello and piano. A great work in either arrangement. Also bits of Faure, Schumann, Dvorak, also enjoyable; a horribly out of tune Purcell trio sonata; and - unusually for one of these concerts - some vocal music, Ned Rorem's settings of Sylvia Plath. Plath's poems are horribly anguished, right? Well, so were Rorem's settings. It sounded like a parody of bad modernist art-song to me. Well sung by soprano Georgia Duan, though.
The Stanford Wind Ensemble did well enough with some marches by Smetana and folk dances by Percy Grainger, but the highlight of the concert was a few 1920s solo-sax-and-ensemble pieces by a 1920s virtuoso sax player and pops composer named Rudy Wiedoeft, of whom I'd never previously heard, finely played by a senior named Joe Yu. Wiedoeft predated the jazz-sax era, so his music was tuneful and enjoyable. Also pretty good, a quintet (2 trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba) playing a medly consisting of 3 parts "The Saints Go Marching In" and one part "The Hallelujah Chorus".
The next day, a more serious concert consisting of various student groups playing assorted movements from classical chamber masterworks. This one included the entirety of the Franck Sonata [it is said that an unworldly classical violinist was once introduced to Frank Sinatra, and said, "I know the Franck Sonata, but who is this man?"], the first half in the canonical arrangement for violin and piano, the second half in the most common alternative of cello and piano. A great work in either arrangement. Also bits of Faure, Schumann, Dvorak, also enjoyable; a horribly out of tune Purcell trio sonata; and - unusually for one of these concerts - some vocal music, Ned Rorem's settings of Sylvia Plath. Plath's poems are horribly anguished, right? Well, so were Rorem's settings. It sounded like a parody of bad modernist art-song to me. Well sung by soprano Georgia Duan, though.
