![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a symphony concert and then some
Jan. 13th, 2006 12:55 amWell, we went to the Baltimore Symphony performance Thursday evening, Marin Alsop's first full concert conducting the symphony. The program was a mix - Christopher Rouse's first symphony, a Mozart piano concerto, and Dvorak's 7th symphony. From a very modern piece that was almost just noise, to a piece so classical it was almost Baroque, and then finally a happy medium smack in the high melodic Romantic - S says "the first two were just ranging shots, then they acquired the target."
Alsop gave us a few verbal program notes about the Rouse before they started, which was good because otherwise it would be difficult to appreciate. She was quite funny. The piece itself is dissonant and depressing. After the concert, Alsop, Rouse, and the piano soloist for the Mozart, Leon Fleischer, held a question-and-answer session with those of the audience who cared to stay, which we did. (And one of the orchestra members, whose name I didn't fully catch.) So I asked Rouse why he would call a one-movement work a symphony. He claimed that it had four sections, each of which followed proper sonata form. He also added, however, that he called it that because he could - which is what I had suspected. He told a story about a student of his calling a composition for four players "Quintet" because he could. Anyway, I didn't hear separate sections each with exposition, development, and recapitulation myself, and I don't like the piece enough to buy the CD and listen to it again, but I wouldn't mind seeing the score; I could probably spot some of it there, plus I'd like to see how he notated some of that noise.
After the Dvorak, the orchestra did an encore, of all things - one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances that had been orchestrated by Dvorak.
All in all, a very satisfying experience.
That reminds me, Fade and Rob, Pittsburgh has a famous enough orchestra - you have fair warning that if we hear they're going to do something really interesting, you can expect us at your door looking for a place to crash. Incidentally, nurse at my cardiologist's office was telling us of an alternate route to Pittsburgh besides just I-70; she's from Pittsburgh, and rides a motorcycle herself, and gave us the route numbers and all for a really nice ride come spring, that's not too many more miles than the Interstate, so it's a feasible ride for us. S entered the info into the GPS unit :-) Aren't you just thrilled to hear that aging hippie geek bikers are going to be landing on your doorstep frequently?
Alsop gave us a few verbal program notes about the Rouse before they started, which was good because otherwise it would be difficult to appreciate. She was quite funny. The piece itself is dissonant and depressing. After the concert, Alsop, Rouse, and the piano soloist for the Mozart, Leon Fleischer, held a question-and-answer session with those of the audience who cared to stay, which we did. (And one of the orchestra members, whose name I didn't fully catch.) So I asked Rouse why he would call a one-movement work a symphony. He claimed that it had four sections, each of which followed proper sonata form. He also added, however, that he called it that because he could - which is what I had suspected. He told a story about a student of his calling a composition for four players "Quintet" because he could. Anyway, I didn't hear separate sections each with exposition, development, and recapitulation myself, and I don't like the piece enough to buy the CD and listen to it again, but I wouldn't mind seeing the score; I could probably spot some of it there, plus I'd like to see how he notated some of that noise.
After the Dvorak, the orchestra did an encore, of all things - one of Brahms' Hungarian Dances that had been orchestrated by Dvorak.
All in all, a very satisfying experience.
That reminds me, Fade and Rob, Pittsburgh has a famous enough orchestra - you have fair warning that if we hear they're going to do something really interesting, you can expect us at your door looking for a place to crash. Incidentally, nurse at my cardiologist's office was telling us of an alternate route to Pittsburgh besides just I-70; she's from Pittsburgh, and rides a motorcycle herself, and gave us the route numbers and all for a really nice ride come spring, that's not too many more miles than the Interstate, so it's a feasible ride for us. S entered the info into the GPS unit :-) Aren't you just thrilled to hear that aging hippie geek bikers are going to be landing on your doorstep frequently?
