What was your last concert?

[Pulcinella]

Here you go:

https://www.for3.org/forums/forum/classical-forum/talking-about-music/8126-future-concerts-you-re-excited-to-have-tickets-for

Thanks!
I'd better contribute to it now.

[LMcD]

This afternoon at our local church:' Music for Mother's Day'

Dvorak: Tales My Mother Told Me
Bach: Ricercare a 6-part fugue from A Musical Offering
Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht (preceded by a reading of Dehmel's poem)
Brahms: Sextet Opus 18

Quartetto Familia and Friends

[Ian Thumwood]

I'm with Boulez on this work. It would be fine had the composer just kept the opening movement and the ones numbered Turangalila and ditched the rest, especially the godawful Song of Love.

WTF!

SA

This is one of my favourite pieces of Classical Music. I particularly love this slow music and think the transcribe blackbird song is one of the most evocative pieces of 20th century composition. I have this on record and have heard the Turangalila performed live in concert. Messaien's orchestral voicings are incredible.

For what it is wirth, my Mum was very much into composers like Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert and I was forever trying to get her taste to broaden after she had been put off 20th century music by her familiarity with Stavinsky where she learned the piano transcription of Right of Spring when she was a teenager. I took her to hear the Messaien symphony and was absolutely loved it. To hear the music performed live is a spectacular experience which I feel is hard to beat when it comes to large scale classical works.

If you are a birdwatcher like me, I think the appeal is enahnced even more.

After reading your post, I am worried that you might be turning into Jeremy Clarkson! ??

[LMcD]

WTF!

SA

This is one of my favourite pieces of Classical Music. I particularly love this slow music and think the transcribe blackbird song is one of the most evocative pieces of 20th century composition. I have this on record and have heard the Turangalila performed live in concert. Messaien's orchestral voicings are incredible.

For what it is wirth, my Mum was very much into composers like Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert and I was forever trying to get her taste to broaden after she had been put off 20th century music by her familiarity with Stavinsky where she learned the piano transcription of Right of Spring when she was a teenager. I took her to hear the Messaien symphony and was absolutely loved it. To hear the music performed live is a spectacular experience which I feel is hard to beat when it comes to large scale classical works.

If you are a birdwatcher like me, I think the appeal is enahnced even more.

After reading your post, I am worried that you might be turning into Jeremy Clarkson! ??

The Right of Spring is, of course, to follow Winter and precede Summer. I'm not sure what Autumn is or isn't entitled to do.

[rauschwerk]

At Snape last night: The Sixteen with Robert Quinney (organ) in the Duruflé Requiem and Gregorian motets, together with other French and Swiss sacred music. Having read a mixed review in the Guardian of this programme given at St Martin-in-the-Fields, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I found the whole concert most satisfying, without any of the shortcomings described by Flora Willson. (Perhaps the digital organ didn't have any of the 'gritty' sounds she disliked.) That said, I do prefer the orchestral version of the Duruflé.

[rauschwerk]

A great pleasure to return to the Sheffield Crucible Studio in the company of old friends, for the opening concert in a series marking 40 years of Music in the Round. Last night we had Ensemble 360 in Fauré's first piano quartet and Louise Farrenc' s Nonet. The playing of Tim Horton reminded us all of what an excellent chamber musician he is. I hadn't heard the Farrenc before. A conservative piece for sure but so beautifully written, and one could see how much pleasure it gave the musicians.

[kuligin]

The Halle last Wednesday afternoon, a last chance to see Elder as I can not attend his swan song in June being away.

Dvorak Scherzo Capricioso, Butterfield Shropshire Lad, Elgar Enigma, all pieces that are at the centre of Elder’s repertoire and all wonderfully played by the Halle, he is leaving the orchestra in the best condition I have heard it and I go back to Barbirolli’s 70th birthday concert ( Introduction and Allegro, V W 6, Beethoven 7).

In between Stephen Hough played his own piano concerto. It sounded like film music. In the notes he said all pianists used to write concertos in the past. I think most composers then were superb pianists and many wrote concertos which is a different matter.

[Pulcinella]

The Halle last Wednesday afternoon, a last chance to see Elder as I can not attend his swan song in June being away.

Dvorak Scherzo Capricioso, Butterfield Shropshire Lad, Elgar Enigma, all pieces that are at the centre of Elder’s repertoire and all wonderfully played by the Halle, he is leaving the orchestra in the best condition I have heard it and I go back to Barbirolli’s 70th birthday concert ( Introduction and Allegro, V W 6, Beethoven 7).

In between Stephen Hough played his own piano concerto. It sounded like film music. In the notes he said all pianists used to write concertos in the past. I think most composers then were superb pianists and many wrote concertos which is a different matter.

Times review (Friday) of that concert:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2bb0f5c2-0254-4989-a8ea-9437ddfc07d7?shareToken=f7971b567ad7e71d1c20369c1d1142b7

[Roger Webb]

Times review (Friday) of that concert:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2bb0f5c2-0254-4989-a8ea-9437ddfc07d7?shareToken=f7971b567ad7e71d1c20369c1d 1142b7

The T Service just played a bit as Sir Stephen was his guest. I had sent a message to Tom asking whether he would question his guest about the brevity (just one movt of S-S 5th Pc) of his appearance on the LNotP......he didn't!

Edit. The above concert is down for Evening Concert on Wed 22nd next week.

[kuligin]

My ears are clearly not in tune with current taste. Yes the audience reaction was warm, as it was a few weeks ago for Arnold’s Peterloo which in my view is just as banal.

if that Concerto is taken up by other pianists and is being played in ten years time I will be amazed.

I miss the Elder Mahler 5 as I am away to hear the Ring in Berlin,it’s far cheaper than the ROH both in ticket prices and accommodation. In fact this year I will attend 2 Opera North performances 1 at RNCM and 5 in Berlin and three at the Opera Comique which says something about opera in the UK or my odd taste of preferring Rameau to Puccini.

[rauschwerk]

I heard that same Hallé programme at Sheffield City Hall last night. Sir Stephen's concerto made very little impression on me. It was the kind of piece which needed at least one memorable tune, but lacked any. He didn't seem to give the orchestra anything interesting to do.

The rest of the programme was thoroughly memorable, fortunately, and I was extremely glad to have been there.

[bluestateprommer]

Strictly speaking, not my most recent concert, but close enough, namely this program by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra:

Dukas: Fanfare from La Peri
Takemitsu: From me flows what you call Time

Debussy: Nocturnes
Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Guest artists:
Third Coast Percussion
John Corkill

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Women of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus (Cheryl Frazes-Hill, director)
Ken-David Masur, conductor

3/4 of the program was clearly mainstream repertoire, but the Takemitsu was the reason that I made the trip, since it looked like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear the work live. All parties involved did a very good job, in a work which is not at all a percussion bash-fest, contrary to the stereotype that one might expect of percussion works. The percussion instruments were divided into several sections scattered at the front and the back of the stage. To get a sense of the set-up for the chimes out in the main hall with the long ribbons at the stage, here's something from Instagram, which also shows the percussion layout:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7Cx5GFOgmC/

This was my first time ever seeing the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra live, and a very fine orchestra it is indeed. The strings were a tad swamped by the other sections, but that seems par for the course, especially as the other sections were on risers in the back. Bradley Symphony Center is a relatively new home for the orchestra, even though the performing space is quite old, early movie-palace era, and has a nice lively acoustic, certainly livelier than Chicago's Orchestra Hall (and with choir stalls behind the orchestra that can serve as patron seats should the occasion arise and box-office demand it) Even with being a bit swamped, the strings have a warm sound. Perhaps with the acoustic in mind, K-DM took some of the quicker portions of 'Fêtes' and The Sorcerer's Apprentice a little more spaciously than usual.

The hall decor is, to state the obvious, a tad movie-palace gaudy, as you can see from the Instagram video, but no harm done acoustically. {In fact, with all the irregular surface, it may have helped.) For L'apprenti sorcier, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus ladies remained in the choir stalls behind the orchestra after their singing in the Debussy.

I doubt that life will ever take me to Milwaukee again, just speaking for myself. But if anyone is in the city for whatever reason, the Milwaukee Symphony is most definitely worth hearing live.

PS: One gentleman with his family did have a Mickey Mouse 'sorcerer's apprentice' hat.

[Old Grumpy]

Tenebrae: Victoria Requiem and Tenebrae Responses @ Beverly Minster...



...superb!

[Pulcinella]

Tenebrae: Victoria Requiem and Tenebrae Responses @ Beverly Minster...



...superb!

I was there too.
We should have met!
Journey back to York a bit grim in all that rain!

Bowled over by the purity of sound (female voices especially).

[crb11]

Academy of Ancient Music "Sons of England" with countertenor Reginald Mobley in Cambridge. An interesting compilation of well-known and less well-known English baroque music, with the goal being to showcase music by Ignatius Sancho, a former slave, and we also got the world premiere of a Roderick Williams piece commemorating Sancho. The Sancho pieces themselves were fun but rather light - I don't know whether this reflects his style, or just that only a few popular works were published (and the rest are now lost). The Williams I'm hoping gets recorded - one you want to listen to multiple times to really get.

The same programme is being repeated in Liverpool, London and Bristol this week. Recommended if you can get to it.