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Still a music nerd
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squirrel_magnet is out of town, sanada came with me to Thursday evening's Baltimore Symphony concert instead. She did not regret the absence of a tuba in the entire performance the way spouse would have. (Hey, they had a double-valve bass trombone and a contrabassoon in all three pieces, that should be enough, but no, Spouse would want tuba in everything.)
The concert program was wonderful; it was all melody. Started with Korngold's Violin Concerto, which is Korngold at his most Dvorak-like, then on to Dvorak's Symphonic Variations, which is Dvorak at his most Brahms-like, and then the second half was Brahms 4, which is, well, wonderful.
More specifically: the Korngold was played by the concertmaster, Carney, who did an excellent job, with a lot of enthusiasm - the body language of a much younger person, too. He had great moves. Originally, the Dvorak was supposed to be first, then the concerto, but because Carney wanted to play in the Dvorak also, since they were recording it - their first recording for Naxos, BTW - they switched the order. That actually made things more impressive, to me, because the last movement of the Korngold has that super melody, strongly in the brass especially, and having it followed shortly by the theme of the Symphonic Variations made it easier to see how they compared. The Korngold isn't my absolute favorite violin concerto, but it's up there, and it does have a lot of melody. One of the things I like is the way Korngold threw that third-movement melody all around the orchestra, including giving the contra-bassoon a couple of solo shots at it. One doesn't see many contra-bassoons in violin concertos at all. This concert marked, by the way, the contra-bassoonist's 25th anniversary with the orchestra, along with 4 other players. There were also two people retiring as of the end of this weekend, one of the horns and one of the bassoons, and they had a nice speech and presentation for them after intermission, before the Brahms.
The Dvorak went well, and should make a good recording, although there were a couple of minutely rough edges on the horns. In my opinion, although there's nothing wrong with the brass section of the orchestra, the woodwind section of the Baltimore Symphony is a superior one, and better than the brass, and I think that's part of why I feel that the Brahms came out fantastic, while the Dvorak was only quite good - because Dvorak throws his melodies mainly at the brass, while Brahms throws them far more to the woodwinds than to the brass. I wouldn't change a single note of Alsop's interpretation of the Brahms; as far as I'm concerned, that was as close to perfect as I'm ever likely to hear.
Re dinner: we ate dessert first!
squirrel_magnet is out of town, sanada came with me to Thursday evening's Baltimore Symphony concert instead. She did not regret the absence of a tuba in the entire performance the way spouse would have. (Hey, they had a double-valve bass trombone and a contrabassoon in all three pieces, that should be enough, but no, Spouse would want tuba in everything.)The concert program was wonderful; it was all melody. Started with Korngold's Violin Concerto, which is Korngold at his most Dvorak-like, then on to Dvorak's Symphonic Variations, which is Dvorak at his most Brahms-like, and then the second half was Brahms 4, which is, well, wonderful.
More specifically: the Korngold was played by the concertmaster, Carney, who did an excellent job, with a lot of enthusiasm - the body language of a much younger person, too. He had great moves. Originally, the Dvorak was supposed to be first, then the concerto, but because Carney wanted to play in the Dvorak also, since they were recording it - their first recording for Naxos, BTW - they switched the order. That actually made things more impressive, to me, because the last movement of the Korngold has that super melody, strongly in the brass especially, and having it followed shortly by the theme of the Symphonic Variations made it easier to see how they compared. The Korngold isn't my absolute favorite violin concerto, but it's up there, and it does have a lot of melody. One of the things I like is the way Korngold threw that third-movement melody all around the orchestra, including giving the contra-bassoon a couple of solo shots at it. One doesn't see many contra-bassoons in violin concertos at all. This concert marked, by the way, the contra-bassoonist's 25th anniversary with the orchestra, along with 4 other players. There were also two people retiring as of the end of this weekend, one of the horns and one of the bassoons, and they had a nice speech and presentation for them after intermission, before the Brahms.
The Dvorak went well, and should make a good recording, although there were a couple of minutely rough edges on the horns. In my opinion, although there's nothing wrong with the brass section of the orchestra, the woodwind section of the Baltimore Symphony is a superior one, and better than the brass, and I think that's part of why I feel that the Brahms came out fantastic, while the Dvorak was only quite good - because Dvorak throws his melodies mainly at the brass, while Brahms throws them far more to the woodwinds than to the brass. I wouldn't change a single note of Alsop's interpretation of the Brahms; as far as I'm concerned, that was as close to perfect as I'm ever likely to hear.
Re dinner: we ate dessert first!