Tuesday night's concert on 'Performance on 3'

[Guest]

I hope some of you listened to Performance on 3 last night. A recorded concert by the LPO under Vladimir Jurowsky. Very ambitious programming: Peter Eotvos, whose compositions are always very listenable, Liszt’s second Piano concerto expertly played by Alexander Markov and the rarely and beautifully performed and much neglected Zemlinsky, Lyric Symphony, which never ceases to engulf me in its sad, romantic, pre atonal environment. Listen to it on iTunes, if you get a chance.

A great week for Performance on 3 concerts. A live (yes, live) performance of the Mahler 6th tonight and a recording of the recent Bartok, Philharmonia Orchestra concert on Thursday where the rarely heard ‘Kossuth’ will be performed. This concert, the first in a series, was much praised in the press. Enjoy, enjoy.

[salymap]

Good try, DT, I hope you get lots of replies. I'm not too keen on last night's concert,but hope to catch up with the Mahler 6th tonight or tomorrow.

[Pianorak]

I only heard the Liszt piano concerto (although missed the first few bars) and would have liked to have been in the audience if only to see who ignored whom, the pianist the conductor or the conductor the pianist. They weren't always in harmony and shortly before the solo violin came in I thought pianist and orchestra seemed to have a bit of a struggle staying together - a case of insufficient rehearsal time, perhaps? Anyway, the audience were happy and were duly rewarded with a generous encore.

[salymap]

one little point which is probably only of interest to me.I have just listened to Mozart PC no 16 in D, which I don't know very well. I heard the Mozart Quintet for Piano and Winds, K 452 in the Mozartfest and love it.
On listening to the PC I heard an echo of it in the first movement of the PC,I thought I was imagining it until I looked at the K number of thePC, K.451.
Has anyone checked on the K numbers, in order, to see what fingerprints are carried forward? Fascinating.

[Peter Katin]

I only heard the Liszt piano concerto (although missed the first few bars) and would have liked to have been in the audience if only to see who ignored whom, the pianist the conductor or the conductor the pianist. They weren't always in harmony and shortly before the solo violin came in I thought pianist and orchestra seemed to have a bit of a struggle staying together - a case of insufficient rehearsal time, perhaps? Anyway, the audience were happy and were duly rewarded with a generous encore.

I'm inclined to agree - it didn't somehow mean anything, which tends to happen with this work; too often it falls into bits of showmanship. One of the few who avoided this was Arrau.

[ahinton]

I'm inclined to agree - it didn't somehow mean anything, which tends to happen with this work; too often it falls into bits of showmanship. One of the few who avoided this was Arrau.

We're talking here, are we not, about the second of Liszt's two piano concertos? A work vastly superior in every way to the first, surely? If it "too often...falls into bits of showmanship" that must be largely the fault of the performers, but I do agree with what you write about Arrau, none of whose performances of anything ever fell into the category "bits of showmanship" at any time during his quite lengthy career.

[Peter Katin]

We're talking here, are we not, about the second of Liszt's two piano concertos? A work vastly superior in every way to the first, surely? If it "too often...falls into bits of showmanship" that must be largely the fault of the performers

Absolutely. Mind you, I don't agree that it is superior to the E flat but they are just different and need different approaches. The E flat is tightly knit, whereas the other one spreads a lot - which sometimes is a temptation to "wallow".