New York Law School’s Spring Break period this year was March 8-16. I ended it with a real bang, attending concerts on five consecutive days (overlapping the beginning of classes): Thursday, March 13 – Vienna Philharmonic led by Andris Nelsons at Carnegie Hall; Friday, March 21 – Les Delices, Five Boroughs Music Festival, at the King Manor Museum in Jamaica, Queens; Saturday, March 14; Saturday, March 15 – New York Philharmonic led by Alan Gilbert … <Read More>
Johannes Brahms
A Concert Diary for the First Half of March 2014 – Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Peoples’s Symphony Concerts, Houston Symphony
The first two weeks of March have been quite busy, and again I’ve fallen behind in posting about my concert-going experiences. So here is a quick catch-up.
I had a double-header on Saturday, March 1, attending the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Prince Igor in the afternoon, and a piano recital by Alexandre Tharaud at Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in the evening.
The Met’s new production of Prince Igor, produced an designed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, takes a … <Read More>
Weekend Report: Massenet’s Werther at the Metropolitan Opera & Brahms’s Cello Sonatas at Carnegie Hall
I was mired in the 19th century for my musical weekend. On Saturday afternoon, I attended a performance of Jules Massenet’s opera, “Werther,” at the Metropolitan Opera, and on Sunday afternoon, the first Isaac Stern Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall, a recital of music for cello and piano by Johannes Brahms, performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax.
Massenet’s opera, inspired by Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, is not a first-rate piece in … <Read More>
Barati & Wurtz at Peoples’ Symphony Concerts
This afternoon Peoples’ Symphony Concerts presented a recital by Hungarian-born musicians, Kristof Barati (violinist) and Klara Wurtz (pianist), at New York’s Town Hall. They presented a conservative program that could have been presented more than a century ago without raising an eyebrow: Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 4 & 9, Op. 23 and Op. 47 (the “Kreutzer Sonata”), and Brahms’ Sonata No. 1, Op. 78. These are all masterpieces and I have no objection to their presentation, … <Read More>
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Launches 2013-14 Carnegie Series with Dynamite Beethoven Eroica
Last night I attended the first concert for this season’s Orpheus Chamber Orchestra series at Carnegie Hall. The OCO, which operates without a conductor, performed nine of Johannes Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, originally written for vocal quartet and piano duo but orchestrated by the composer, a set of variations for piano and orchestra by jazzman Brad Mehldau, and Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The juxtaposition of works on this program was a bit unfair to Mehldau, putting him … <Read More>
David Afkham Debut at Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center
Last night I attended my second (and last) Mostly Mozart Festival Concert for this summer. The big news, as far as I am concerned, is the New York conducting debut of David Afkham, a young (b. 1983) German conductor, who led the orchestra in an all-Brahms concert.
Mr. Afkham, born in Freiburg and educated there and in Weimar, has had some prominent mentors: Bernard Haitink and Valery Gergiev (with whom Afkham served two years as … <Read More>
NYC Musical Diary – More May Concerts – Detroit SO, Alarm Will Sound, Musicians From Marlboro
Being busy with final exams and grading, I haven’t been to as many concerts as usual over the past few weeks, but I wanted to comment about a few:
May 10 in Carnegie Hall I attended one of their “Spring for Music” concerts, a presentation of the four symphonies of Charles Ives by Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. I’ve been an Ives fan since high school days, when I performed the double bass … <Read More>
Phantasmata (Etc.) at the Philharmonic
Thursday night’s performance by the New York Philharmonic included the local premiere of the complete “Phantasmata” by Christopher Rouse, followed by Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo: A Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra” with soloist Jan Vogler, and concluding with Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 68. Music Director Alan Gilbert conducted, and Mr. Rouse, the Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence, was present for the festivities.
“Phantasmata” is a three-movement suite. The second movement, “The Infernal Machine,” was completed several … <Read More>
Orchestral Weekend: NYP/Nelsons and ASO/Botstein
Two concerts attended this weekend: On Saturday night, the New York Philharmonic with guest conductor Andris Nelsons and violin soloist Christian Tetzlaff. On Sunday afternoon, the American Symphony Orchestra with conductor Leon Bostein. My experience was a combination of the memorable and the forgettable.
First, the memorable. For the second half of the NY Philharmonic concert, Nelsons led the orchestra in Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. I thought this was probably the best performance that … <Read More>
American Symphony Explores Works of the 1880s at Carnegie Hall
Leon Botstein, the music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra for the past twenty years, has emphasized thematic programming in constructing the orchestra’s concert schedule. There is always a thematic link of some sort between the pieces presented in a multi-piece program, and most of the orchestra’s annual Vanguard Series in New York City consists of such programs. Last night at Carnegie Hall, the theme was “What Makes a Masterpiece.” Botstein offered performances … <Read More>