What was your last concert?

[Pulcinella]

Dvoràk - The Noonday Witch

Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.3

Shostakovich - Symphony No.5

Gabriela Montero - piano
Tomáš Brauner - conductor

At the Anvil Basingstoke. A respectable turnout ( 60% of capacity perhaps) for an enticing programme.
the Noonday Witch was enjoyable enough , but the Prokofiev is in different league , very special, and the soloist did it full justice I thought. It set me wondering about which of the well known concertos are the hardest and easiest to play, technically speaking. We were treated to an improvised encore, based on Strangers in the Night and Happy Birthday !

The Shostakovich was terrific, and well appreciated by the audience. What a wonderful work it is, entirely deserving of its reputation.
the Orchestra looked to be enjoying its trip to the UK, and gave a wholehearted performance.

A word to the Anvil management when they see this , if you want people to make a return visit to your bars, maybe think twice before you charge them £4 for a half of London Pride.

Who was it, ts?
The Anvil's website doesn't tell me.

PS! Ah: found it.

The Prague Symphony Orchestra will perform in Basingstoke.

Sounds like a good concert.

[teamsaint]

Who was it, ts?
The Anvil's website doesn't tell me.

PS! Ah: found it.

The Prague Symphony Orchestra will perform in Basingstoke.

Sounds like a good concert.

Sorry, I copied and pasted, and didn’t notice the orchestra was missing form the listing. Yes, the Prague SO

Incidentally, a minor curiosity (?) the leader seemed to be a different person in each of the halves of the concert. I couldn’t see where the person who was in the leaders chair during the first half was during the second half.
the orchestra was surprisingly male dominated too, maybe 80/20 male / female.

[gurnemanz]

Swindon Lunchtime Recital Series at the Wyvern has had some enterprising repertoire this year. We had previously attended Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time and yesterday we had Bartok Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and Steve Reich's Quartet for Two Pianos and Two Vibraphones, expertly performed by pianists, Paul Turner and Clare Toomer and percussionists, Sacha Johnson and Alastair Marshallsay. I knew the Bartok from recordings and it was good to experience it live for the first time and to get to know the Reich.

[bluestateprommer]

Though strictly speaking not my most recently live concert experience, I attended my first concert at the Barbican Centre two weeks ago last Friday night, for a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert of Felix Mendelssohn and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. This page shows the originally scheduled program:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e8zv9r

However, things did not go according to plan on at least two levels. At the start of the concert, BBC SO general manager Bill Chandler walked on stage to announce that Marie Jacquot had suddenly taken ill, and was unable to conduct. The step-in conductor was Nicolò Umberto Foron, the new assistant conductor of the LSO, who "happened to be in the building", as Chandler quipped. From looking on social media, this happened apparently on 5 hours' notice. There is a video clip of Marie Jacquot rehearsing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Paul Huang and the BBC SO, so this must have truly been a last-minute emergency.

After Chandler finished his announcement, violinist Paul Huang and NUF (not the most mellifluous initials, perhaps) strolled on stage. This immediately indicated that the opening work, Augusta Holmès' Roland furieux, was cut from the concert, but without a word from Chandler about this omission. (One gentleman upstairs went on a bit of a mini-rant about that, saying that the original opening work was the reason that he bought a ticket to the concert.) PH and NUF, and the BBC SO, dived right away into the Mendelssohn concerto, where everyone did fine. Obviously PH was in the driver's seat, and NUF was there to be sure that the orchestra started together and finished together (to compress the Beecham quote). PH was on very strong form, and the orchestra sounded very good. PH played a generous solo encore, where I haven't the faintest idea what it was, but it sounded kind of 'pentatonic'-y 'Asian', if that doesn't offend anyone. Whatever it was, it was a treat (and obviously helped to fill in the suddenly available extra half-hour by the loss of the Holmès work).

After the interval, the EWK Sinfonietta stayed on the program. My guess is that NUF may well have been sight-reading the score, since the work is far from standard repertoire, but he didn't let it show. The work is an enjoyable wallow, very impressive for a teenager, if perhaps overstaying its welcome a bit. The orchestra again sounded on very strong form, and kindly let NUF have his moment in the sun, with warm audience applause.

The very top balcony section was closed off, and the hall was maybe half-full. From seeing past videos of the Barbican, I knew about the general "conference center" layout of the space, i.e. not a traditional European shoebox hall. But the space looked deeper and larger compared with what I've seen on video (the opposite of Vienna's Musikverein, curiously enough). I had an upstairs right balcony seat, where the one disruption was a little girl in the hall who occasionally behaved as little kids are wont to do, to the point where the dad had to take her outside the hall. (The whole family looked to have left after the first half.) I also noticed that the 'dress code' is more casual than one might see at a US concert, somewhat closer to a Proms audience.

In any case, I was glad to have heard the EWK live (first time in my life, probably also the last) and to have experienced a concert at the Barbican for the first time (but not the last time, as I'll get to in another thread, if my memories haven't shriveled by then ;) ).

[Petrushka]

Though strictly speaking not my most recently live concert experience, I attended my first concert at the Barbican Centre two weeks ago last Friday night, for a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert of Felix Mendelssohn and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. This page shows the originally scheduled program:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e8zv9r

However, things did not go according to plan on at least two levels. At the start of the concert, BBC SO general manager Bill Chandler walked on stage to announce that Marie Jacquot had suddenly taken ill, and was unable to conduct. The step-in conductor was Nicolò Umberto Foron, the new assistant conductor of the LSO, who "happened to be in the building", as Chandler quipped. From looking on social media, this happened apparently on 5 hours' notice. There is a video clip of Marie Jacquot rehearsing the Mendelsson Violin Concerto with Paul Huang and the BBC SO, so this must have truly been a last-minute emergency.

After Chandler finished his announcement, violinist Paul Huang and NUF (not the most mellifluous initials, perhaps) strolled on stage. This immediately indicated that the opening work, Augusta Holmès' Roland furieux, was cut from the concert, but without a word from Chandler about this omission. (One gentleman upstairs went on a bit of a mini-rant about that, saying that the original opening work was the reason that he bought a ticket to the concert.) PH and NUF, and the BBC SO, dived right away into the Mendelssohn concerto, where everyone did fine. Obviously PH was in the driver's seat, and NUF was there to be sure that the orchestra started together and finished together (to compress the Beecham quote). PH was on very strong form, and the orchestra sounded very good. PH played a generous solo encore, where I haven't the faintest idea what it was, but it sounded kind of 'pentatonic'-y 'Asian', if that doesn't offend anyone. Whatever it was, it was a treat (and obviously helped to fill in the suddenly available extra half-hour by the loss of the Holmès work).

After the interval, the EWK Sinfonietta stayed on the program. My guess is that NUF may well have been sight-reading the score, since but he didn't let it show. The work is an enjoyable wallow, very impressive for a teenager, if perhaps overstaying its welcome a bit. The orchestra again sounded on very strong form, and kindly let NUF have his moment in the sun, with warm audience applause.

The very top balcony section was closed off, and the hall was maybe half-full. From seeing past videos of the Barbican, I knew about the general "conference center" layout of the space, i.e. not a traditional European shoebox hall. But the space looked deeper and larger with what I've seen on video (the opposite of Vienna's Musikverein, curiously enough). I had an upstairs right balcony seat, where the one disruption was a little girl in the hall who occasionally behaved as little kids are won't to do, to the point where the dad had to take her outside the hall. (The whole family looked to have left after the first half.) I also noticed that the 'dress code' is more casual than one might see at a US concert, somewhat closer to a Proms audience.

In any case, I was glad to have heard the EWK live (first time in my life, probably also the last) and to have experienced a concert at the Barbican for the first time (but not the last time, as I'll get to in another thread, if my memories haven't shriveled by then ;) ).

As a reasonably regular Barbican attendee since the hall opened in 1982, I've found that my favourite seat is in the front row of the Circle slightly to left of centre. The infamous acoustic doesn't bother me too much, except that the brass can sometimes be much too loud. A Turangalila with the LSO and Rattle a couple of years ago had me fearing hearing damage. The big pieces like that aren't really suited to the hall, though in my experience, Bernard Haitink obtained the best balance even in something as huge as the Mahler 3.

[bluestateprommer]

As a reasonably regular Barbican attendee since the hall opened in 1982, I've found that my favourite seat is in the front row of the Circle slightly to left of centre. The infamous acoustic doesn't bother me too much, except that the brass can sometimes be much too loud. A Turangalila with the LSO and Rattle a couple of years ago had me fearing hearing damage. The big pieces like that aren't really suited to the hall, though in my experience, Bernard Haitink obtained the best balance even in something as huge as the Mahler 3.

I clearly didn't have the benefit of your experience when I bought a Barbican seat for this BBC SO concert, as I realized what you mean about the balance of the brass in the hall in particular. All the back desk sections were on standard risers, which obviously enhances their presence. For that Mahler 3 with Haitink, did the back section risers stay raised? I ask because I remember a Mahler 9 that Haitink conducted in Chicago back in 2011 where he had all the risers, except for the very back section, lowered so that virtually all the orchestra was at stage level.

Anyway, back to the nominal 'last concert' theme: again, not quite in the spirit of the thread, as this was now over 3 weeks ago, but the day after this BBC SO / Barbican concert, I checked out a concert at Bechstein Hall, just down the street from Wigmore Hall, a Shakespeare-themed recital by Susan Bullock and Stephen Higgins:

https://bechsteinhall.com/events/susan-bullock/

Given its location just down the street from Wigmore Hall, I wondered what kind of 'competition' that Bechstein Hall would offer. Based purely on the setup of the basement concert space, Wigmore Hall need not fear anything, which the WH staff probably realized pretty quickly. I don't know if any Forumites have been to Bechstein Hall, but if not, the hall in the basement has a fairly low ceiling by concert hall standards, more like a basement club venue, if still with a 'shoebox' layout. The result of this is that while the singer obviously doesn't have to worry about projecting her/his voice into a Wigmore-like (or indeed Barbican-like) space, the piano can have a hard edge if the pianist isn't careful. Higgins did endeavor to play quietly when called for, but when his part got louder, the hard edge on the ears showed. (The chairs are very comfortable, however. The basement restaurant looks pretty good as well.)

The recital overall was very enjoyable, with Susan B. having a fun time of it, including some readings, along with a few solo piano selections placed to give her vocal chords a rest. Two selections not mentioned in the program, in the 2nd half, were "The Compleat Works" of John Dankworth, and of course, the encore, the one non-English language choice, Schubert's "An Silvia". Curiously, for a nominally sold-out show, not all the seats got taken.

So if I live long enough to get back to London, I would honestly prioritize a concert at Wigmore Hall vs. Bechstein Hall, if only on acoustic grounds, unless the latter offered a real once-in-a-lifetime artist where no other opportunity existed. (That's a subject for the next concert in this thread, assuming any takers ;) .) This was why I splurged for the Susan Bullock recital, since I'd never seen her live, and I was happy to have heard this recital.

[DoctorT]

Yesterday evening
Brahms PC1
Bruckner Symphony 1
Sir Stephen Hough
Ulster Orc
Jac van Steen

Sir Stephen was magnificent