Czech Philharmonic Monday 12/2/18 Manchester - with Alisa Weilerstein

[richardfinegold]

I really wish Czech orchestras didn't feel so obliged to play Dvorak when on tour!

I left a quote in the Mahler section. Bychkov and Weilerstein and the Orchestra here in the Dvorak New World and Cello Concerto in November 2019.
I just read a review of an Eloquence 3 CD issue of Karen Ancerl conducting the...Vienna Symphony! I have all of the Supraphon Gold Ancerl/Czech PO and there is some repertoire overlap but also a fair amount of Tchaikovsky. It should be interesting because the sonority of the Czech PO under Ancerl is pretty different from the Austrian Orchestras.

[Conchis]

In Nottingham they are playing the Enigma and two movements from Ma Vlast , Basingstoke gets the Shostakovich 1 and the Symphonic Variations - Dublin gets the whole of Ma Vlast on Sunday - Spacek joined them to play the Dvorak Violin Concerto in Leeds.

Aha! I thought you meant Shostakovich SYMPHONY 1! Not so: it's the First Cello Concerto, with the main part of the evening being the 'New World'.


So much for Basingstoke being sophisticated, eh? The thought! :)

[Barbirollians]

See my account of the Shostakovich CC No 1 that Weilerstein played with the Halle in Sheffield - the fact that the largely elderly audience found it " difficult " was palpable.

[Barbirollians]

I'm toying with the idea of Nottingham but a Czech Orchestra playing Elgar (and the Engima at that?)? It's very hard not to call Coals to Newcastle.

Presumably Basingtoke gets the most adventurous programming because that is felt to be the most sophisticated audience?

I would go Weilerstein is not to be missed in the Dvorak.

[Conchis]

See my account of the Shostakovich CC No 1 that Weilerstein played with the Halle in Sheffield - the fact that the largely elderly audience found it " difficult " was palpable.

By 'difficult', do you mean 'unfamiliar'? Like everything this composer wrote, it's eminently approachable.

I'll never forget hearing two old ladies leaving an RFH concert of Elgar's Cello Concerto and 2nd Symphony:

1st OL: 'I didn't like that at all! Far too discordant! But I liked the Cello thing....'

2nd OL: 'Yes, nice young man (Truls Mork, as he then was) playing that.'

[Barbirollians]

Sadly not - they clearly found it too rebarbative for them.