A night of musical magnificence at the ESO

This past Friday (January 27th) was our first ESO Masters series concert of 2012. It was quite the night to get back into the swing of things (not having had a concert since early November). The program's line up included Mahler, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninoff. This was just the sort of concert that suited me to a tee. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but, I love Russian composers. So, with Shostakovich's first symphony in the first half and Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto taking up the whole of the second, I found the whole night musically magnificent.

Many people (especially Canadians) are familiar with the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, although possibly without knowing it. Excerpts from this movement were used for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's Olympic winning free dance. Their interpretation of the music was exquisite and I had the pleasure of seeing them reprise their performance at the 2010 Stars on Ice show in Edmonton, where they skating an abridged version of this program. Anywho, I'm writing about the ESO concert, not figure skating (alas I missed the ESO show just a few weeks ago which involved Toller Cranston [1976 Olympic men's bronze medalist] as MC). I've been familiar with the Mahler long before Virtue and Moir skated to it, and have always loved it for its wonderfully romantic theme. It lived up to my expectations in the skilled hands of the ESO musicians. A lovely way to start the show.

Changing gears completely, next came Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Opus 10. Although, according to the program notes, the Lento movement has more than once been compared to Mahler's Adagietto, so perhaps it wasn't a complete shift. I loved this selection right from the first, highly rhythmic notes--they made me think of Wile E. Coyote, scurrying in between hiding places on tip toe. Actually, the whole symphony reminded me of movie music because it was so changeable and dramatic. It seems this might not be such an unheard of comparison as Shostakovich made ends meet by playing piano in a movie house at the time he composed this music. Sometimes when the ESO performs the slightly more unusual, less known selections the audience isn't quite sure what to make of it. There seemed to be no problems on Friday as the nearly full house clapped enthusiastically as the guest conductor ran about the orchestra queuing featured musicians to stand and take a bow (there were a lot, it took a while).

Finally, after the intermission came the biggy, the masterpiece: Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Opus 30. Wow. This is one seriously massive work, not only in terms of length (almost 40 minutes), but the skill required by the solo pianist. Known as one of the most remarkable pianist ever, Rachmaninoff wrote this work to showcase his skills for his 1909 tour of the United States. As a listener, if feels like a non-stop barrage of notes, not in an unpleasant way, of course. It's just so busy. The pianist almost never gets a break. Recordings of Rachmaninoff playing the piano still exist. I've heard them played on the CBC before. According to Wikipedia, Rachmaninoff recorded his third concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1939.

The guest pianist for Friday's performance was Alexander Korsantia. He's originally from Tbilisi Georgia, although he currently lives in Boston and teaches at the New England Conservatory. He was a rather unassuming soloist, coming out in a simple black button down shirt and black pants. Even when he finished the piece, he turned to congratulate the first and second violists, and the conductor before taking a bow. Korsantia was also simply magnificent. Sometimes I envy pianists, and wish I could play as well as them. Oddly, on Friday night I felt no envy, just awe. Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto if far beyond anything I could even hope to play (my fingers barely stretch an octave). Despite the length of the concerto, it flew by, then almost the second the final cord was struck, shouts of 'Bravo!' filled the Winspear. It didn't take long for us all to get to our feet.

Ciao (I'll try to write again soon),

Andrea

Another romantic night at the ESP...I mean, ESO

Friday night was our second concert of the 2011-2012 Masters series. Again, we're really enjoying our new seats in the loges. We walked to the Winspear (as it was probably one of the last warm nights of the year) and then took our time getting up to our seats. Had we been sitting in our old, centre of the aisle seats, we would have had to crawl over many pairs of knees before getting to our spots. Now that we're in the loges we can arrive at almost anytime (as long as it's before the first piece begins, of course). This concert comprised of three pieces, two twenty-first century compositions (one by Malcom Forsyth, the second by Peter Meechan--who was visiting Edmonton and present at the concert that night) and Rachmaninoff for the second half.

I think Andrew and I both felt a bit so-so over the Forsyth--for which a part of me thinks I should feel bad about because this was his final composition before he died. It's not that it was bad, but it was just okay. A Ballad of Canada is a combined orchestra and choral work (the voices were provided by the Richard Eaton Singers) and was co-commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. This piece was broken down into five movements, which represented different geographical areas of Canada, or different historical time periods. It started off in the North with a tribute to the Northern Lights. There's a specific sort of sound that composers create when the depict the Lights, or stars, etc with lots of tremelo strings and it was the case for this piece as well. The second section, which I remember distinctly commemorated WWI with heavy drums and brass to simulate the feeling of being at war--it certainly was effective. After that much of the rest of the piece ran into each other, with many discordant bits from the orchestra, while the lyrics sung by the choir were based on a series of poems. As I said, the Ballad was all right, but it hasn't really stuck with me three or four days later.

The second piece, Apophenia, was inspired by the idea that you can listen to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, while watching the Wizard of Oz and the music will match the action. If you think from this preliminary description that the piece was probably a bit frenetic, you're right. It was frenetic in an interesting and exciting way. The piece was highly rhythmical, and featured Edmonton native Jens Lindemann on solo trumpet--rather on four solo trumpets. Yeah. It was pretty impressive, he had to switch trumpets between movements. As a string player I can only imagine the breath and embouchure control required to successfully play this piece. It was, as the program reads in several places 'fast and furious.' As I explained to one of my co-workers, I'm not sure I so much enjoyed this music, but more appreciated the skill required to play it. The range of tones produced by the trumpet, the complex rhythms and the speed were all pretty impressive. Before I move on, I must complement the drummer. He put on a phenomenal improvised drum solo during the third movement.

Finally, Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Opus 27. According to the program notes, Rachmaninoff's first symphony was a flop, so when the second symphony premiered he decided to conducted it himself. Whether that was the charm needed or not, it seems to have worked. The second symphony is beautiful--although massive, running more than fifty minutes long. Apparently after the premier Rachmaninoff made cuts to the manuscript, which were retained for a long time. At some point (I don't know when) orchestras began playing the whole work, which is what we heard on Friday. After the lively first movement, someone from the audience shouted out 'Play it again,' which garnered a dirty look from Bill, who already seemed fatigued from the work of conducting. When we reached the third movement of the symphony, I thought to myself, this music is the sound romance, pure and simple. Not tragic romance, not Romeo and Juliet, or Healthcliff and Catherine, but successful, happy romance like Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane and Edward, or Weasley and Buttercup. It's warm and soothing, a bit dreamy, and well...romantic.

We won't have another Masters concert until the new year. In the mean time I'll have to bide my time with a couple of upcoming Canadian singer-song writer concerts.

Ciao,

Andrea

P.S. If you're reading this through Facebook, you will no longer be able to do so as of November 22nd. You will need to visit my actual blog site where you can then add it to any reader service you might use, or you can bookmark it and visit it every now and again.