What was your last concert?

[EdgeleyRob]

Yesterday.
Bridgewater Hall.
BBC Philharmonic,Vassily Sinaisky,Leonard Elschenbroich (cello).

Lyadov - Eight Russian Folk Songs

Who'da thought,some Lyadov live in concert.

A charming little set of pieces.
Apparently the composer 'did a Vaughan Williams' and collected folk songs,these are orchestrations of some of them.
Some beautiful string and woodwind playing,the centrepiece Tale of the Birds,a very simple tune with clarinet and pizzicato strings and imitations of birdsong is gorgeous.

Prokofiev - Symphony Concerto for cello and orchestra

Well what is it ?
Started life as a concerto then became a sinfonia concertante or symphony-concerto (are they one and the same?)
I've tended to struggle with this as a home listen,always thought there were too many ideas and themes and that the work never made sense as a whole.
I'm not sure how but listening live I didn't get the same impression,it really felt like a concerto.
Leonard Elschenbroich's intonation seemed spot on especially in the more lyrical moments.
That cadenza in the middle movement,crikey,the soloist certainly has to work hard to pull that off,seemed flawless to me.
Sinaisky held the orchestra together superbly which I guess is not so easy in this work.

RVW - Job

WOW,not a lot to say except this was just awesome.
Brilliantly savage Satan music.....heavenly,earthly,serene and infernal exactly where it needed to be...the magical epilogue handled very skilfully indeed......violin solo heart wrenching......just the right amount of silence before the applause.

Bravo.

Pre concert dining was a Subway meal deal......I know how to live

[Beef Oven!]

Yesterday.
Bridgewater Hall.
BBC Philharmonic,Vassily Sinaisky,Leonard Elschenbroich (cello).


Pre concert dining was a Subway meal deal......I know how to live

Totally agree about Job

[Bryn]

Prokofiev - Symphony Concerto for cello and orchestra

Well what is it ?
Started life as a concerto then became a sinfonia concertante or symphony-concerto (are they one and the same?)

It's quite definitely not a sinfonia concertante, that's just a very poor mistranslation of Симфония-концерт, not helped by the "ния" on the end of the "Симфония" of the title. The less misleading translation is indeed Symphony-Concerto.

[teamsaint]

The

Yesterday.
Bridgewater Hall.
BBC Philharmonic,Vassily Sinaisky,Leonard Elschenbroich (cello).

Lyadov - Eight Russian Folk Songs

Who'da thought,some Lyadov live in concert.

A charming little set of pieces.
Apparently the composer 'did a Vaughan Williams' and collected folk songs,these are orchestrations of some of them.
Some beautiful string and woodwind playing,the centrepiece Tale of the Birds,a very simple tune with clarinet and pizzicato strings and imitations of birdsong is gorgeous.

Prokofiev - Symphony Concerto for cello and orchestra

Well what is it ?
Started life as a concerto then became a sinfonia concertante or symphony-concerto (are they one and the same?)
I've tended to struggle with this as a home listen,always thought there were too many ideas and themes and that the work never made sense as a whole.
I'm not sure how but listening live I didn't get the same impression,it really felt like a concerto.
Leonard Elschenbroich's intonation seemed spot on especially in the more lyrical moments.
That cadenza in the middle movement,crikey,the soloist certainly has to work hard to pull that off,seemed flawless to me.
Sinaisky held the orchestra together superbly which I guess is not so easy in this work.

RVW - Job

WOW,not a lot to say except this was just awesome.
Brilliantly savage Satan music.....heavenly,earthly,serene and infernal exactly where it needed to be...the magical epilogue handled very skilfully indeed......violin solo heart wrenching......just the right amount of silence before the applause.

Bravo.

Pre concert dining was a Subway meal deal......I know how to live

Thanks for the excellent review ER. Great to hear what it was like in the hall.

listened to it on the radio , and pretty much heard what you described. Top stuff I thought. Got a lot out of it, especially the Prokofiev.


just back myself from seeing Le Vent Du Nord at the Salisbury Arts centre.

They are an absolutely top class folk act, and the audience had a great time.

catch them if you can. You wont regret it.


Subway. Great deal and free wifi. Whats not to love?

[Beef Oven!]

It's quite definitely not a sinfonia concertante, that's just a very poor mistranslation of Симфония-концерт, not helped by the "ния" on the end of the "Симфония" of the title. The less misleading translation is indeed Symphony-Concerto.

You beat me to it.

[zola]

Saturday March 21st Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev : Chout
Magnus Lindberg : 2nd piano concerto ( UK premiere )
Stravinsly : Petrushka

London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski, Yefim Bronfman.

Chout is generally regarded as the ugly duckling of the Diaghilev ballet scores but given a colourful rendition here. A pity the Radio 3 team were at the Barbican rather than here since I would like to hear the Lindberg concerto again. First impressions were favourable. Bronfman battled a beast of a part admirably with lots of clusters and runs but there were lyrical segments too. If one has to play the "sounds like" game, then I might come up with Bartok. Lindberg was present and the piece was well received.

Petrushka was a thrilling performance. I was sitting in the choir and was struck by Jurowski's very clear cueing and direction. Audience wise, the choir was pretty full, stalls about two thirds full and the balcony sparse.

After concert feast was a Cornish pasty on Waterloo station dodging the drunken rugby fans from Twickenham.

[EdgeleyRob]

It's quite definitely not a sinfonia concertante, that's just a very poor mistranslation of Симфония-концерт, not helped by the "ния" on the end of the "Симфония" of the title. The less misleading translation is indeed Symphony-Concerto.

Thanks Bryn.

[EdgeleyRob]

Saturday March 21st Royal Festival Hall

Prokofiev : Chout
Magnus Lindberg : 2nd piano concerto ( UK premiere )
Stravinsly : Petrushka

London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski, Yefim Bronfman.

Chout is generally regarded as the ugly duckling of the Diaghilev ballet scores but given a colourful rendition here. A pity the Radio 3 team were at the Barbican rather than here since I would like to hear the Lindberg concerto again. First impressions were favourable. Bronfman battled a beast of a part admirably with lots of clusters and runs but there were lyrical segments too. If one has to play the "sounds like" game, then I might come up with Bartok. Lindberg was present and the piece was well received.

Petrushka was a thrilling performance. I was sitting in the choir and was struck by Jurowski's very clear cueing and direction. Audience wise, the choir was pretty full, stalls about two thirds full and the balcony sparse.

After concert feast was a Cornish pasty on Waterloo station dodging the drunken rugby fans from Twickenham.

Super stuff Zola.

[teamsaint]

Yes thanks, Zola. Interesting programme. Lets hope Jurowski sticks around in the UK for a good while yet.

[Simon B]

Saturday March 21st Royal Festival Hall

Magnus Lindberg : 2nd piano concerto ( UK premiere )

A pity the Radio 3 team were at the Barbican rather than here since I would like to hear the Lindberg concerto again. First impressions were favourable.

There were lots of microphones in evidence though - I'd assumed a deferred R3 broadcast. But maybe for a release on the LPO's own label, or just its archive?

Regardless, for further familiarisation with Bronfman playing the Lindberg, try here:

I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ww2JC2xaKw
II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgcLknJ_3JQ
III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0m1ObYUjO0

To my considerable surprise I found it the most engaging part of the concert - being, as it sounded to me, like the Ravel LH concerto arranged for 2 hands, generously ladled with Rachmaninov and then projected through a Bartok and Szymanowski shaped hall of mirrors. I particularly enjoyed the near verbatim quotes from the Ravel and the obvious amusement of at least one member of the LPO at what I presume (dangerous word!) was deliberate and affectionate pastiche. The Steinway seemed to just about withstand the onslaught of an enormous number of often thunderously delivered notes.

On the whole this was the best LPO/Jurowski concert in some while - all in terms of entirely personal subjective barely informed opinion of course. I've found rather a lot of their RFH concerts since the autumn a bit... dull. Daphnis and Chloe the previous Saturday sounded (however well executed technically) about as sensuous and ultimately orgiastic to me as a repeat of a 1970s BBC2 OU statistics lecture. Give me memories of Y-P Tortelier and the altogether less starry 1990s BBC Phil any day. Maybe the characteristic Jurowski restraint, clarity and reluctance to play to the gallery has worn thin - too much of a good thing? It was thrilling to hear the LPO allowed instead to let rip (in the most controlled virtuosic way) in Shostakovich 4 under Petrenko in February.

[DublinJimbo]

Wednesday 25th March, National Concert Hall, Dublin

Eric Coates: Dancing Nights
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major *
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis **
Gershwin: An American in Paris

* Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, ** RTÉ ConTempo Quartet, RTÉ Concert Orchestra / John Wilson

A thoroughly delightful concert, with a nicely relaxed atmosphere in the hall. Jean-Efflam delivered an ideal performance of the Ravel. Most unusually, he refused to leave the platform after acknowledging the first round of applause and took over what is usually the conductor's job by gesturing for the different orchestra sections to rise for their own audience appreciation. Then John Wilson stayed on stage and encouraged the audience to keep up the applause, and again after a return by Jean-Efflam kept on clapping himself to encourage a demand for an encore. And what an encore it was! My companion thought it was Liszt, I fought it was Rachmaninov. Whoever the composer was, we were treated to a phenomenal display of pianism.
I'd never experienced the Vaughan Williams live before, and doubt if I'll hear it played better than it was on Wednesday. The second orchestra was tucked away in the far right corner of the platform, with the string quartet front and centre gathered around the conductor. It's a tremendous work, of course, and all the better for the live experience where the spatial relationships and both audible and visible. John Wilson stayed on the platform once again, took a microphone in hand and filled the time taken for rearrangement of the orchestral seating to explain there thinking behind the programme, which was Ravel. He told us the story about Gershwin wanting to come to Paris to study and Ravel telling him that he's perhaps be better travelling to the US since George was doing so well financially. Then there was the influence which Ravel gads on both Eric Coates and Vaughan Williams, and how the latter's music even looked different on the pages after his time with Ravel.
The Gershwin piece was astonishing well played, helped enormously by the orchestra's familiarity with 'lighter' music and John Wilson's own expertise with show music and film music. We tore the house down afterwards, and everyone (including Jean-Efflam who had joined us plebs for the second half) left with a smile on their face. All round, an absolute gem of a concert and a great evening of music-making.

Saturday 28th March, National Concert Hall, Dublin

11:00 am
Bach: Goldberg Variations (arranged for String Trio by Dmitry Sitkovetsky)

Henning Kraggerud (violin), Krzysztof Chorelski (viola), Natalie Clein (cello)

8:00 pm
Mozart: String Quintet in D major K.593
Vanbrugh Quartet with Krzysztof Chorelski (viola)

Grieg: Violin Sonata no. 3 in C minor
Henning Kraggerud (violin), Paavali Jumppanen (piano)

Schubert: String Quintet in C major D.956
Artis Quartet Vienna, Natalie Clein (cello)

10:30 pm
Henning Kraggerud: Preghiera (2012)
Schnittke: Piano Quintet (1972-76) *
Vanbrugh Quartet, * Paavali Jumppanen (piano)

The West Cork Chamber Music Festival (Bantry) celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year. As part of the celebrations, West Cork came to Dublin for the day. There were further recitals at 1:00 and 4:00 pm which I wasn't able to go to, but what I did hear was wonderful. Highlights were the Grieg, the Schubert and the Schnittke. The Bach/Sitkovetsky made a great start to the day, and was astonishingly well performed, with total commitment from all players, but it didn't affect me as much as the three I've singled out, while I found the Vanbrugh disappointing (too reserved) in the Mozart, despite coming into their own in the Schnittke). A fine experience overall, though,and it served what I suppose was part at east of its purpose: I will visit the Festival this year for the first time. Who wouldn't, with a lineup that includes the Borodin, Signum and Vanbrugh Quartets, Natalie Clein, Jonathan Cohen, Marc Coppey Brett Dean, Barry Douglas, Till Fellner, James Gilchrist, Chloë Hanslip, Alina Ibragimova, Alexander Melnikov and Dmitry Sitkovetsky? Yes indeed: Bantry, here I come at the end of June and beginning of July.

[teamsaint]

That all looks and sounds wonderful, DJ. I'd love to hear the Schnittke performed live.

For me : Saturday March 28.

Malcolm Arnold—English Dances Set 1
Parry—Symphony No 5
Beethoven—Violin Concerto in D Major

Soloist: David Le Page
Conductor: David Halls
Leader: Rosamund Bromley

There was an interesting look to the spring concert from the SSO, who have a good habit of performing works from a little outside the usual concert hall repertoire.
A Malcolm Arnold enthusiast might have liked to see something different as a concert opener, ( one of the Sinfoniettas, perhaps),but none the less these were carried off with aplomb, and made for a lively start to the evening, All the better too for being heard live rather than in BCs on playlist programmes.
The chance to hear a Parry Symphony live is one to be taken,I think. Quite a brave choice actually, but it worked well. There is lots of emotional interest to keep the listener and players engaged, and the work is full of stylish writing. The orchestra gradually warmed to their task, and most of all we were able to soak up something of the feel of the musical times ,( 1912) when the piece was written. I had only heard the piece once before the performance, but Elgar never seems far away, and Brahms seems frequently in the near background. But for all that there is an original musical voice at work here, it seems to me. Without doubt, a work to revisit, and from overheard conversations , one that few in the audience previously knew, but many will return to.

Having made substantial inroads into the house stocks of New Forest ice cream at the interval, the audience settled back to see what the soloist and the orchestra made of the ambitious choice of Concerto. Le Page is an interesting musical character, who writes, plays, promotes concerts, and is involved in a variety of musical fields.
From the very start, I thought they made a great job of this. A fine sound from the orchestra, in particular getting lovely clarity on those edgy dissonances early on, and plenty of power when needed, and subtlety when the soloist needed it. Le Page performed with a degree of restraint, and rather in the manner of somebody who plays a fair bit of Baroque music. It gave the music a rather unexpected feel of looking back rather than forward,. His tone, intonation and interaction with orchestra and audience were faultless, and he is a pleasure to watch and hear, The Rondo was a fine rousing end to a really thoroughly enjoyable evening, much appreciated by a rather thin audience, caused, my spies tell me, by some scheduling changes at the behest of higher authorities in the city. A disappointing aspect to the night, for sure.
There were lovely moments from members of the orchestra, in particular from the young looking horn section. David Halls conducted stylishly and encouragingly,with the restraint one expects from the Cathedral DoM, and Ros Bromley, led the orchestra with great enthusiasm and skill.

A lovely evening’s music. A Malcom Arnold Symphony from the orchestra sometime soon would be a good idea!

[EdgeleyRob]

Cracking reviews as ever DJ and TS.

I have a couple Vanbrugh records (Stanford),a marvellous quartet.

Parry 5,what a wonderful work that is,as are all his symphonies.
A lot of talk of Elgar 2 lately,the seeds of that work are to be found here I think.
This is where Elgar's Nobilmente comes form

[rauschwerk]

Last night, in the well appointed village hall in Lavenham: David Owen Norris playing an 1828 Broadwood (his own, I believe).

Mozart: Sonata K.576; Haydn: Sonata 62 (the last one); Mendelssohn: Rondo Capriccioso; Beethoven: Grande Sonate Pathétique; Mendelssohn: Sonata in E, Op. 6.

The first movement of the Mozart is notoriously tricky, especially to begin a recital with, but I enjoyed Norris's performance a lot. In places he gave us the kind of rubato (as described by Mozart) where the rh varies the pulse whilst the lh doesn't. Partly because he didn't overdo it, I found this very convincing.

Before the Haydn we had a brief disquisition on piano temperament. The piano was tuned to one of Young's temperaments (not sure which). Norris likes to think that Haydn might have met Young in London (no evidence, sadly) and that discussions with him might have been behind the second mvt of the sonata being in E with the outer movements in E flat - probably unprecedented.

This piano has a divided sustaining pedal, the left half controlling dampers in only the lower half of the piano, and the right half those in the upper half. Norris believes that Mendelssohn might have had access to such an instrument: passages in the sonata and the rondo suggest this. It's extraordinary that this excellent innovation never caught on.

All in all, a stimulating recital: not technically immaculate but full of fantasy (not overdone). Excellent programme notes by Peter Holman (mastermind behind the Suffolk Villages Festival, who promoted this concert).

[Beef Oven!]

Laibach. Electric Ballroom, Camden Town. Having a post concert pint.

Awesome gig. This band are on a totally different level to everyone else.

The first half of the show featured material from their latest album and the second half featured the older standards. Stonking encore too.

The first half of the show was actually better, IMV and as soon as the shops are open tomorrow, I'm straight down to Woolworths to buy their latest album.