concert reviews: two trilogies
Jan. 17th, 2006 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacFantasy authors are known for their partiality to writing trilogies. Mozart, also, wrote a trilogy. In the summer of 1788 he sat down and, for no particular reason that anyone's ever discovered, wrote three symphonies - the greatest he'd ever composed, the last he was to compose. One of them is the "Jupiter", the finest and most magnificent of all 18th-century symphonies. Another is the no-less-famous great G Minor ("This is it, this is it, this is Mozart"), whose finale contains my favorite moment in all Mozart (bars 25-28, if you care). And the thoroughly genial E-flat symphony is not far behind in renown.
Those are the three works of Mozart's trilogy. And on Sunday evening I heard all three of them, performed at Davies by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, which despite its name is British, conducted by its founder, Sir John Eliot Gardiner. The orchestra's purpose is to play music of its namesake eras on original instruments in an original style, stripped down but more intense than the usual modern full-orchestra versions. I have their recordings of the complete Beethoven and Schumann symphonies, but this was the first time I'd heard their Mozart.
There's nothing I'd rather hear than a good performance of a great symphony. I couldn't miss this, and I'm glad I went. It was magnificent: full of richness and power. I've never heard a version of the E-flat I liked more, the G Minor was equally fine, and the Jupiter (for which the players stood, those whose instruments would let them) was a revelation. Some people find its opening movement staid and pompous. Not this time. It thundered away with great passion.
The main problem with original instruments is that they're not always as controllable as modern ones, particularly the winds. The one flute, a wooden flute, could sometimes not be heard. And the two horns blasted away like wayward trumpets, even in the Jupiter where there also actually are trumpets. But what a solid meal this was: symphony after symphony after symphony. I came away thoroughly satisfied, and the homeless person on the street to whom I gave a dollar bill kissed it. Hope he finds something to satisfy him too.
Two days earlier I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athenais to hear the Emerson Quartet at the behest of my editors, and I wrote it up. This concert was a trilogy of Scandinavian composers (all right, you can argue whether Finns are really Scandinavians, and then you can argue whether Sibelius was really Finnish - did you know that his native language was Swedish?). Carl Nielsen, the only one of them who really knew how to write a string quartet, and wrote four very nice ones, was palmed off with a tiny appetizer, while Sibelius and Grieg, who were much better at other types of music, were allowed to babble with varying degrees of garrulousness and lack of inspiration at full length in their one complete mature quartet each. Still, the performers were excellent, and managed to make the Grieg Quartet sound fun, which was a revelation to me. I like sharing thoughts about concerts with musically articulate friends, and athenais's reactions this time definitely helped shape mine for the review.
Those are the three works of Mozart's trilogy. And on Sunday evening I heard all three of them, performed at Davies by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, which despite its name is British, conducted by its founder, Sir John Eliot Gardiner. The orchestra's purpose is to play music of its namesake eras on original instruments in an original style, stripped down but more intense than the usual modern full-orchestra versions. I have their recordings of the complete Beethoven and Schumann symphonies, but this was the first time I'd heard their Mozart.
There's nothing I'd rather hear than a good performance of a great symphony. I couldn't miss this, and I'm glad I went. It was magnificent: full of richness and power. I've never heard a version of the E-flat I liked more, the G Minor was equally fine, and the Jupiter (for which the players stood, those whose instruments would let them) was a revelation. Some people find its opening movement staid and pompous. Not this time. It thundered away with great passion.
The main problem with original instruments is that they're not always as controllable as modern ones, particularly the winds. The one flute, a wooden flute, could sometimes not be heard. And the two horns blasted away like wayward trumpets, even in the Jupiter where there also actually are trumpets. But what a solid meal this was: symphony after symphony after symphony. I came away thoroughly satisfied, and the homeless person on the street to whom I gave a dollar bill kissed it. Hope he finds something to satisfy him too.
Two days earlier I met
athenais to hear the Emerson Quartet at the behest of my editors, and I wrote it up. This concert was a trilogy of Scandinavian composers (all right, you can argue whether Finns are really Scandinavians, and then you can argue whether Sibelius was really Finnish - did you know that his native language was Swedish?). Carl Nielsen, the only one of them who really knew how to write a string quartet, and wrote four very nice ones, was palmed off with a tiny appetizer, while Sibelius and Grieg, who were much better at other types of music, were allowed to babble with varying degrees of garrulousness and lack of inspiration at full length in their one complete mature quartet each. Still, the performers were excellent, and managed to make the Grieg Quartet sound fun, which was a revelation to me. I like sharing thoughts about concerts with musically articulate friends, and athenais's reactions this time definitely helped shape mine for the review.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 12:08 am (UTC)Not to mention how angry I get over big, flabby orchestral versions of keyboard music, but I digress.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 06:23 am (UTC)Nowadays it's pretty easy to find recordings like that; lots of people do them. If not Gardiner or the Collegium, see if the English Concert, under Pinnock or Manze, has gone into that repertoire. (Then there's Roger you-should-excuse-the-expression Norrington, the über-authenticist, but we'll pass over him.)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 04:24 am (UTC)Yes. Also that the Swedes tend to claim him as Swedish. But then, I would.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 06:05 am (UTC)Sweden may have no composers as famous as Grieg, Sibelius, and Nielsen, but it has as many good ones as all those other guys' countries put together. In my book, Franz Berwald and Kurt Atterberg take a back seat to nobody, and Agrell, Kraus (German immigrant), Alfven, Pettersson, and Wiren wrote some good stuff too.