What was your last concert?

[mercia]

I will elaborate if anybody is interested.

please elaborate

[teamsaint]

please elaborate

Well. this will be descriptive , if anything.

Duncan Honeybourne has devised a programme, a lecture/recital, of Ireland's Piano music to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the composer's death in 1962.

This 1 hour lunchtime concert was an abridged version of the full show. I'm a newcomer to the music, so I won't do more than tell you what he played. The pieces played were
The Towing Path
Sarnia : An island Sequence (the three components split, Le Catioroc performed alone, In a May Morning and Song of the Springtides as the penultimate piece.)
Soho Forenoons
month's Mind
Spring sorrow.
A short talk was given, a section between each piece, just a simple biography really....perhaps the full show goes a bit deeper.

Honeybourne plays (and talks) with an obvious love for this music , and this show will bring Ireland's music more admirers. Honeybourne highlighted the composers interest in the pagan, and illustrates this nicely in the music he plays . I'll certainly investigate further, and the audience seemed impressed,well entertained, and educated.

Oh, and it was free,, being part of the Uni Monday lunchtime free concert series.I even parked for free.
A pleasure to have been there.
Sorry, can't go deeper than that, but the full show would be an enjoyable evening.

[Russ_H]

I've just returned from a concert given by members of the Northern Sinfonia:

Bartok - Contrasts
Nancarrow (arr Mikhasoff) - Player Piano Studies
Ligeti - Horn Trio

The Nancarrow was new to me. It had a mechanical quality, which is understandable, I suppose,
bearing in mind its origin. I imagine an awful lot of counting was going on.

[Old Grumpy]

Gabrieli Consort and Players:

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
“Welcome to all the Pleasures” Z. 339
Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (1683)

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Hymn to St Cecilia, Op. 27 (1942)

Henry Purcell
“Hail, bright Cecilia!” Z. 328
Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (1692)

The Sage Gateshead tonight.

Excellent, but slightly sparse attendance in the big hall.

Greatly looking forward to tomorrow's performance in Durham Cathedral:



Gabrieli Consort and players

‘A Venetian Coronation 1595’ is a musical re-creation of the Coronation Mass for the Venetian Doge Marino Grimani, evoking the grand pageantry of what would have been a truly magnificent event. A performance that is at once
theatrical and ceremonial.

Should be superb!

OG

[Russ_H]

Greatly looking forward to tomorrow's performance in Durham Cathedral:

Gabrieli Consort and players

‘A Venetian Coronation 1595’ is a musical re-creation of the Coronation Mass for the Venetian Doge Marino Grimani, evoking the grand pageantry of what would have been a truly magnificent event. A performance that is at once
theatrical and ceremonial.

Should be superb!

OG

I'm going too. As the seats are not numbered, I'm going to try to get there reasonably early.

[Russ_H]

Well OG? Did you enjoy it?

I thought it was excellent. I've never heard sackbut(t)s and natural trumpets live, so
this was a new experience for me. They are very mellow. It had great visual interest
as well, of course: the brass players processing to the accompaniment of the drummer
was good fun.

A cracking good evening.

PS I didn't realise that Palace Green is unlit. It's very dark, isn't it? I noticed one
person with a torch.

[Old Grumpy]

Well OG? Did you enjoy it?

I thought it was excellent. I've never heard sackbut(t)s and natural trumpets live, so
this was a new experience for me. They are very mellow. It had great visual interest
as well, of course: the brass players processing to the accompaniment of the drummer
was good fun.

A cracking good evening.

PS I didn't realise that Palace Green is unlit. It's very dark, isn't it? I noticed one
person with a torch.

Certainly did enjoy it Russ. Was about half way back on the North side of the nave, so good view. Edit: in the Graun

I wonder what all those marquees are for on the palace green...


OG

[teamsaint]

Well despite the dismal weather, I got out to Salisbury City Hall to see the Salisbury SO in its autumn concert.
A really Tempting programme :
Bridge : The Sea
Walton :Viola Concerto
Tchaikovsky : Symphony #1.

So, a nicely ambitious programme, I think.it was a real pleasure to hear the Bridge piece, a substantial "opener" in anybody's book. Not sure how many concert outings this gets these days. The main thing is to capture the moods, I guess....the second movement was suitably "frothy", but the real treat was the very end of the fourth Movement....as (I suppose it is) the sun breaks through at the end of the storm.... a genuinely spine tingling moment.

Rosemary Furniss was the soloist for the Walton, and a fine performance she gave . Its a work that fizzes and pops for quite substantial periods, and the orchestra made this all happen very nicely. There is also call for some quite retrained playing at times, notably at the culmination of the piece, again, well carried off.

The Tchaikovsky is a wonderful work, that has all the components of a great concert piece.It struck me listening to this performance how restrained Tckaikovsky is in the second movement. Having found sublime melodies , it would have been so easy to overdo things, but he never does.Exquisite, as was the oboe playing in this movement.

A really enjoyable evening's music, and good to see such good variety on a programme from an essentially amateur orchestra. Perhaps that's a luxury professional bands don't always have.

[kuligin]

Yesterday at the Huddersfield Festival, my first visit

Rihm Quartets 4 and 11, and Widmann Quartet 2

Minguet Quarter

Superb performances, the Rihm was very good indeed, I dont think his 60th birthday or his quartets at all have featured a great deal on R3, or if they have I have missed them!

[Russ_H]

Ensemble 360 at the Sage, Gateshead, with their guest harpist Elen Hydref.

Debussy - Syrinx
Debussy - Sonata for flute, viola & harp
Debussy - String quartet
Debussy - Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane
Ravel - Sonata for violin & cello
Ravel - Introduction & allegro

The harpist earned her fee this evening. Seen at close quarters, harps are very bulky
instruments. Travel must be challenging.

The Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane left me unmoved, but the rest of the programme
was very good.

Syrinx was dramatically performed, on a stage in darkness but for a pool of subdued
purple light.

[Bryn]

http://www.city.ac.uk/events/2012/november/kontakte

And very good it was too, though the spacial aspect of the whirling sounds on the Stockhausen could have been better handled. The balance was placed rather too far forward, so nothing seemed to get round behind me (only four rows from the front, and close to the centre of the row).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yesterday at the Huddersfield Festival, my first visit
Rihm Quartets 4 and 11, and Widmann Quartet 2
Minguet Quartet

Superb performances, the Rihm was very good indeed, I dont think his 60th birthday or his quartets at all have featured a great deal on R3, or if they have I have missed them!

Glad these were so good, kulig; family commitments meant I couldn't get to as many HCMF events as usual, so I missed this one. Rihm was also featured (Silence ... to be beaten and Sphere) in my very first Huddersfield concert (back in 1995!) - and he last attended the Festival back in 2000; a lovely man, shamefully neglected by the Beeb: nothing from any of the three concerts featuring his Music is being broadcast, and it's no more "difficult" (and, in my opinion, far more rewarding than) that of Magnus Lindberg.

[Bryn]

My first visit to an HCMF event (Feldman's For Philip Guston) was last Wednesday, as reported here. Listen out for a feature (not the whole <5 hours performance) by Robert Worby during a forthcoming Hear and Now.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My first visit to an HCMF event (Feldman's For Philip Guston) was last Wednesday, as reported here. Listen out for a feature (not the whole <5 hours performance) by Robert Worby during a forthcoming Hear and Now.

One I wouldn't've missed for worlds - I was there, too! Shame about Carla Rees' cold, and I kept losing (and regaining) focus in the last hour, but what an astonishing event .... what magical Music!!

[Ferretfancy]

A very enjoyable semi-staged performance of the Merry Widow at the RFH this afternoon, stylishly conducted by John Wilson with the Philharmonia in fine form.
It looked like a sell out, but I managed to get tickets in the upper box closest to the stage. The result was that we got plenty of orchestra and chorus, but rather less from the soloists, as they were facing away from us a large part of the time. All the same, it was well worth it.

The Irish soprano Claudia Boyle sang Hanna, and Daniel Prohaska sang Danilo. The performance was in English with surtitles, and they chose to replace spoken dialogue with an onstage narrator who doubled as Njegus, perhaps this was a mistake, but he was good.
A frosty afternoon listening to Lehar followed by a visit to the South Bank's Winter Fair was a great way to spend a Sunday.