concert review: Master Sinfonia
Oct. 24th, 2014 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacDaniel Glover is a local pianist who plays concertos with many of the smaller orchestras hereabouts. In previous encounters, I've found him fluent but rather dull and characterless. So I'm pleased to be able to say that I liked his rendition of Dohnányi's Variations on a Nursery Song. Good thing, as I was reviewing it and could therefore show genuine enthusiasm.
I got to talk with him in a group at the post-concert reception, where he mentioned deliberately plonking out the main theme with two forefingers to make it look and sound as childlike as possible - after which, in the first variation, the piano part becomes highly challenging and exposed. He said he'd never heard the piece in concert except when playing it himself, and jokingly asked if any of us listening wanted to take on the following day's matinee for him. I said, "Well, I'll do the main theme."
(No kidding: that's about the extent of my piano skills. I play a few themes with my left hand - though I'm right-handed, my right hand isn't dextrous enough to play the piano - except for a couple (Joplin's "The Entertainer" and Tom Lehrer's "The Irish Ballad") which I play with two forefingers.)
Also got to compliment composer Jeremy Cavaterra on his Monterey Suite. Good tonal tone poem work with enough structure that it doesn't devolve into hack film music. We need more music like that.
I got to talk with him in a group at the post-concert reception, where he mentioned deliberately plonking out the main theme with two forefingers to make it look and sound as childlike as possible - after which, in the first variation, the piano part becomes highly challenging and exposed. He said he'd never heard the piece in concert except when playing it himself, and jokingly asked if any of us listening wanted to take on the following day's matinee for him. I said, "Well, I'll do the main theme."
(No kidding: that's about the extent of my piano skills. I play a few themes with my left hand - though I'm right-handed, my right hand isn't dextrous enough to play the piano - except for a couple (Joplin's "The Entertainer" and Tom Lehrer's "The Irish Ballad") which I play with two forefingers.)
Also got to compliment composer Jeremy Cavaterra on his Monterey Suite. Good tonal tone poem work with enough structure that it doesn't devolve into hack film music. We need more music like that.
