What was your last concert?

[Stanfordian]

The BBC Philharmonic last night at the Bridgewater giving a dramatic performance of Shostakovich Symphony No. 10. Wonderful playing from this splendid orchestra!

[EdgeleyRob]

Thursday 27/10
Bridgewater Hall

Copland,Fanfare for the Common Man
Britten,Sinfonia da Requiem
Tippett,A Child of Our Time

Sophie Bevan soprano
Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano
Mark Padmore tenor
Matthew Brook bass-baritone
Hallé Orchestra and Choir

Andrew Gourlay,conductor

Don't know much about the conductor,he was a late replacement for Ryan Wigglesworth,who was taken ill.
Anyway he certainly nailed these three works.
For some reason people were still being let in during the Copland which was a bit naughty.
The Britten and Tippett were top class performances,A Child of our Time was especially moving.
Perhaps some of the text is still appropriate nowadays.
Soloists,orchestra and choir faultless IMVHO

[Stanfordian]

Thursday 27/10
Bridgewater Hall

Copland,Fanfare for the Common Man
Britten,Sinfonia da Requiem
Tippett,A Child of Our Time

Sophie Bevan soprano
Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano
Mark Padmore tenor
Matthew Brook bass-baritone
Hallé Orchestra and Choir

Andrew Gourlay,conductor

Don't know much about the conductor,he was a late replacement for Ryan Wigglesworth,who was taken ill.
Anyway he certainly nailed these three works.
For some reason people were still being let in during the Copland which was a bit naughty.
The Britten and Tippett were top class performances,A Child of our Time was especially moving.
Perhaps some of the text is still appropriate nowadays.
Soloists,orchestra and choir faultless IMVHO

Hiya EdgeleyRob,

I enjoyed the concert too. My sentiments are similar to your's. Gourlay has conducted the Halle many times and is a fine conducter.

[EdgeleyRob]

Hiya EdgeleyRob,

I enjoyed the concert too. My sentiments are similar to your's. Gourlay has conducted the Halle many times and is a fine conducter.

Most certainly judging by this concert Stan

[Richard Barrett]

My last concert was last Wednesday at my place of work, where a group of undergraduate students tackled Varèse's Octandre and Déserts. They played excellently (better no doubt than the professionals who played the first performances of those works) but I was struck by several other things too: the distance in style between these two pieces, where Déserts has finally distilled out the traditionally motivic features of the earlier work (in the instrumental sections I mean; the tape sections are even more radical in that regard); and my ambiguous feelings about the brevity of Octandre - on one hand its concentration of so much material into such a small space is nothing short of amazing, while on the other it's over far too soon.

[subcontrabass]

http://www.music.ox.ac.uk/event/fanny-hensel-clara-schumann-trios-and-songs/

Programme:

Fanny Hensel:

Piano Trio in D minor, Op 11
6 songs to texts by Heinrich Heine
"November", from Das Jahr: 12 Character Pieces for the Forte-Piano

Clara Schumann:
Songs to texts by Friedrich Rückert (one by Robert Schumann (Op 25, No 1) and two in reply by Clara)
Two more songs written for Robert as a Christmas present in 1840 (one text by Heine and one by Robert Burns)
Trio in G minor, Op 17

All beautifully performed for a small but enthusiastic audience. The two Piano Trios deserve to be much better known (as do the young Trio performing them).

[Beef Oven!]

Morton Subotnick - St John At Hackney. London. 01/11/16

Dig the £5 ikea desk-lamp!

Fascinating gig and a very personable Mr Subotnick patiently answered all our questions after the gig. He really doesn’t look anything like 83 years old! I even got to shake the maestro’s hand!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Coull S4tet; Victoria Hall, Ilkley

Part of the Ilkley Concert Club new season - a full house for the event (about 500 people).

Something of a lacklustre first "half" - a blancmange performance of Mozart's Eb Quartet (K428/421b) which wouldn't have done anything for those who don't like Mozart, and thoroughly bored this enthusiast. Some unpleasant intonation issues from both violinists, too, which also marred the selection of four of Dvorak's Cypresses which followed - resulting in a mildly Hindemithian chord sustained throughout the opening of the first. Some rhythmic uncertainty, too. All rather underpowered and anonymous; tepid, rather than Coull - which didn't bode well for the second half: the Beethoven Bb Quartet Opus 130, with the Grosse Fuge as Finale.

But - this was obviously what the ensemble had spent most of their rehearsals concentrating on. They weren't up to it, of course - the intonation problems cruelly exposed, and the Viola reticent in/cowed by so much of the Music - but no shame there: it's Music almost guaranteed to defeat its performers. What came across in this performance was the sense of struggle to reach an impossible goal - a willingness to brave "failure" in the quest to discover what the struggle will reveal. The complexity of the Music, amongst the most multi-faceted works anybody has ever had the the imagination and technique to create, becomes apparent even (?especially?) in performances as flawed as was this - a quite magnificent near-miss that gave a unique understanding of the Music that a more perfect performance would have missed.

My words make no sense - but that's the nature of this Music: in the Beginning was the Word - at the end, there will be Beethoven.

[EdgeleyRob]

I was present at yesterday's Afternoon on 3 live broadcast from Salford.

Never been to one of these studio thingies before,amazing some of the detail you can hear when close to the action.

Grieg,Lyric Suite....very nice.
Some strange overtones (is that the right word ?)were apparent when the strings were playing quieter passages,sounded a bit like a subdued mobile ringtone or alarm,which it certainly wasn't,very odd.
Not an issue when I listened again on I player.

RVW 6
OK performance,didn't seem aggressive enough to me.
1st movt a bit too deliberate,2nd a bit rushed,3rd a bit untidy in places,4th was perfect.
But again on relistening it sounded much better,not sure why.

I'd be interested in the views of anyone who listened.

[Barbirollians]

A surprisingly different programme from the Halle tonight in Sheffield but no doubt it will sadly be half full

Bax Tintagel
Elgar - The Spirit of England
Barber Knoxville 1915
VW Towards the Unknown Region

[Cockney Sparrow]

A surprisingly different programme from the Halle tonight in Sheffield but no doubt it will sadly be half full

Bax Tintagel
Elgar - The Spirit of England
Barber Knoxville 1915
VW Towards the Unknown Region

If only it didn't take 3 hours to drive to Sheffield from where I live ....

[Barbirollians]

It was an excellent concert although the hall was indeed only about two-thirds full. They decided to invert the published programme .

The Sheffield Philharmonic chorus were in excellent voice and Jamie Burton is a fine conductor of choral works . It was lovely to hear Tintagel in concert even if the interpretation lacked the last romantic sweep of Barbirolli.

The highlights were the two items with Elizabeth Atherton - what a glorious soprano voice I was amazed she has made so few recordings though she is of course highly rated by Birtwhistle . A wonderfully inflected and dreamy performance of Knoxville 1915 that betters any I have heard on record and so clear in her diction both there and in Spirit of England .

It is a surprise that the Elgar is apparently so little known and recorded . For all its one very famous verse the Binyon text is rather sentimental and dated and the second and third parts of the work came across as much stronger than the first - the last For the Fallen of which Britten was said by Muchael Kennedy's programme note to be an admirer deserves to be heard far more often . It is very moving .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ian Buckle; CCCH, 4/11/16

This was excellent - a free event (something I'm going to have to make more use of, given recent purchases!) in a packed Clothworkers' Centenary Concert Hall at the University of Leeds. Chopin's posthumous Prelude in C# minor prefaced the First Book of Preludes by Debussy. Exactly how I like to hear them played; with a fine blend of clarity and "blur" - and full of character - the pianist using his considerable skills to focus attention on the Music rather than himself. Superb stuff.

The Hall (which holds about 500 people) was almost full - before the concert, everyone under the age of fifty was glued to their smartphones, but the only audience sound once the Music began was the rustle of one of the older listener's Werther's Derivative wrapping paper!


( Noticeable, too, was the huge disproportion of female to male students: about five or six to one. Is this representative of all University Music courses, I wonder? )

[teamsaint]

Morton Subotnick - St John At Hackney. London. 01/11/16

Dig the £5 ikea desk-lamp!

Fascinating gig and a very personable Mr Subotnick patiently answered all our questions after the gig. He really doesn’t look anything like 83 years old! I even got to shake the maestro’s hand!

And

biggrin:

Some great snaps there Beefy !! Glad you got to meet the great man.

Loved reading all the other reviews from Ferney x 2 , ER, Barbi.

Excellent stuff.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

On 16th October, I took part in a concert with a Norwegian theme. In the first half, five choirs (including one from Norway) performed Norwegian partings.

Part two was a new choral work with orchestra: "Battle Cantata" by Stuart Nettleship, commemorating the 950th Anniversary of the Battle of Stamford Bridge - the one King Harold won.

A remarkable work, which may never be performed again, as is so often the case.