The Last Symphony Concert of the Season

[MSFixR]

Friday was our last symphony concert for this season. I must say that it was a particularly enjoyable season with a good mix of familiar and new works. Before I get into a description of the playbill, I would like to say that the reason I am posting these synopses is that they may entice one or more fanhost members to experience classical music in the concert setting.

The concert was a sell out. The only such sell out of the year as far as I am aware. There was one other concert which could have been a sell out had not the weather intervened but this was the only one I am aware of. Part of the reason for the large attendance was the featured soloist, Deborah Voigt, considered to be the finest soprano in the US today. Certainly a contributing factor was the three busloads of high school aged students in attendance.

The program began with an old favorite, Richard Wagner's Overture and Bacchanale from Tannhauser. Conductor David Robertson paced the piece a bit slower than I am used to but the almost overpowering horns and lush strings made up for the lack of speed. The second piece was a premier for this orchestra, Bela Bartok's Cantata profana (The Nine Splendid Stags) and featured tenor, baritone, and chorus with brief solos by two chorus members. The piece was sung in Hungarian with English super titles projected on a screen above the orchestra. Bartok was famous for exploring the folk music of his native Hungary as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Albania, and North Africa. This piece is based on the Romanian story of "The Hunting Boys Turned Into Stags". Various interpretations of the work have been advances. One such interpretation is that the tale is ultimately concerned with the tragic gesture of breaking away, specifically breaking away from the comforts of home, family, and human society, which inevitably entail compromise and loss of freedom. Only by sacrificing such comforts can one return to the natural state, a state of Dionysian spirituality.

After the intermission, Ms Voigt took the stage dressed in a demure white gown to sing the first of two selections from Richard Strauss, "Ich kann nicht sitzen" ("I can not sit") from Elektra. This is Elektra's sister Chrysothemis proclaiming that she "cannot sit and stare into darkness like you" in opposition to Elektra who can think of nothing but revenge for the murder of her father Agamemnon by her mother and her mother's lover. Ms Voigt's first piece was followed by the instrumental "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Salome, also by Strauss. In this dance, Salome dances for her father King Herod. In return Herod has promised to grant her one wish. That wish is for the head of John the Baptist. The dance music is quite sensual and a joy to listen to. In Ms Voigt's final appearance, she sang the final scene in the opera Salome. The scene tracks her descent into madness after John the Baptist's head is brought to her. For this final selection, Ms Voigt changed into a sumptuous red gown with a plunging neckline. As with the Bartok piece, these vocals were sung in German with English super titles.

[Captain Beefheart]

As a reluctant classic music student I was raised as, I have to say that the only classical music I like is from the romantic and Modern peroids. Even then, I find classical music so limiting in a structural setting. The whole point of it's to recreate what someone's vision of the music is. Directors will alow very little personal expression outside what the composer originally intended. That bugs me to no end. No embellishments, harmonious escapades, modulations/vartion, chord changes/sbustitutions, rhythmic elements, pick-up notes at the start of arias.

A certain amount of individualism and improvisation is not only a good thing but IMHO is to some extent neccesary. On that note it must be said that it does take a lot of skill to actually give a composition life, and it takes the player ability to enterpret the mood that the composer intended on the paper. The combination of the conductor and the musicians both have to have meticulous control over the orchestra, and their instrument. Listening to yourself in relation to your section, to the rest of the orchestra, making sure you are in tune, playing the same stylistically, and making sure your dynamics are balanced with the rest of the orchestra.

My two cents.

[SilverSpoon]

I'd say it's a lot more constricting in a large work like a symphony or opera, but you can have a bit more freedom in a concerto or sonata since there is a lot of focus on a single instrument.

[Ophelia]

FixR, I am really interested in some solo piano and solo violin cd's. I have no idea where to start. If it helps, I really dig the melancholy stuff.