3 concerts
May. 19th, 2014 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacConcerts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday of last week.
Monday was the last concert in this year's series at Oshman, which my mother and I had been going to together since it started up a few years ago, since it was so conveniently located for her. But she had been too ill to go even to the two this year that occurred before she died. This one was a scrappy Baroque ensemble, which had good players but evidently wasn't all of the sum of its parts, playing the usual run of composers. I just didn't get much out of it, and I'm not going to renew, even though next year's concerts look scrumptious. It's not so conveniently located for me, especially now as I have no other reason to go there; the acoustics are just too deficient for me to enjoy the music; and I'm getting tired of the series director's inevitable pre-concert talks telling you how wonderful the concert is about to be and constantly reminding you to renew your subscription. Like Robert Greenberg, he's somebody I've just heard enough of.
Wednesday was SFS. MTT conducted. Christian Tetzlaff, the violinist I heard playing Dvorak in Chicago, was back to play Bartok. Pretty good; less boring than the Dvorak, certainly. Equally vigorous and upbeat Sibelius tone poem to go with it, followed by Brahms's most melancholy symphony, the Fourth, which really didn't fit in at all.
Friday was SSV. This one I reviewed. One thing I didn't bother to mention in the review is how much less cute and more Serious Businesswoman the conductor looks like in person than in her publicity photo, especially with her helmet hair on. Imagine Hillary Clinton, two or three decades younger, as a conductor, and that would be about it. I hope my mixed feelings about the conducting style came through in the review. If you aspire to be George Szell, which evidently she does, you have to be really good at it, and she's not there, not yet anyway.
Monday was the last concert in this year's series at Oshman, which my mother and I had been going to together since it started up a few years ago, since it was so conveniently located for her. But she had been too ill to go even to the two this year that occurred before she died. This one was a scrappy Baroque ensemble, which had good players but evidently wasn't all of the sum of its parts, playing the usual run of composers. I just didn't get much out of it, and I'm not going to renew, even though next year's concerts look scrumptious. It's not so conveniently located for me, especially now as I have no other reason to go there; the acoustics are just too deficient for me to enjoy the music; and I'm getting tired of the series director's inevitable pre-concert talks telling you how wonderful the concert is about to be and constantly reminding you to renew your subscription. Like Robert Greenberg, he's somebody I've just heard enough of.
Wednesday was SFS. MTT conducted. Christian Tetzlaff, the violinist I heard playing Dvorak in Chicago, was back to play Bartok. Pretty good; less boring than the Dvorak, certainly. Equally vigorous and upbeat Sibelius tone poem to go with it, followed by Brahms's most melancholy symphony, the Fourth, which really didn't fit in at all.
Friday was SSV. This one I reviewed. One thing I didn't bother to mention in the review is how much less cute and more Serious Businesswoman the conductor looks like in person than in her publicity photo, especially with her helmet hair on. Imagine Hillary Clinton, two or three decades younger, as a conductor, and that would be about it. I hope my mixed feelings about the conducting style came through in the review. If you aspire to be George Szell, which evidently she does, you have to be really good at it, and she's not there, not yet anyway.
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Date: 2014-05-20 06:28 am (UTC)