review links

[calimac]

Full review of Saturday's Symphony Silicon Valley concert, expanded on considerably from the one I posted here.

Also there's three letters responding to my Shostakovich stuff, as well as another one last week. Letters to the editor, good idea. It's like LJ comments: neat!

Comments

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

Way cool, love!

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Maybe as an intermediate step to Ionisation, they could program Bartok's First Piano Concerto, with that second-movement colloquy between the percussive piano and the piano percussion. Depending on the mood you're in, it can be profound or creepy.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Not your responsibility, of course, but what in dag-nabbed tarnation is Hewell Tircuit doing still reviewing concerts? Does he actually bother to attend them these days?

Add me to the list of those who appreciated your Shostakovich essays. You could have guessed from our conversation at Worldcon that I'd be sympathetic. I discovered his music c. 1969 and never lost faith, as it were, even clinching my B.Mus. (San Francisco State University, 1979) with a term paper on his five instrumental sonatas. This was before the torso of The Gamblers became known, so I wasn't aware that it supplied some music to the Violin Sonata. And there had at that time only ever been one recording of the Piano Sonata #1, by Vladimir Pleshakov on an Orion LP....

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Or how about Bernstein's Symphony #2, "The Age of Anxiety," the "Masque" movement of which is a jazzy romp for the piano and the percussion section? Kind of like the emotional flip side of the Bartok work you cite.

I've only recently bought the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "Symphony Hall Centenary Celebration," a big boxed set with many goodies, live performances by the BSO from 1943-2000. It includes among other treasures a 1949 performance of the abovenamed work, Serge Koussevitzky conducting, and Bernstein himself at the piano. Zowie.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

My only relevant datum on Mr Tircuit is that one time when he couldn't attend a concert, I was called to fill in. And as it was the Takacs Quartet doing Beethoven, I was very happy.

One recording on an LP ... of course in those days all recordings were on LPs (except for tapes). It seems a very long time ago.