Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Left (Seat
B3, $52.50).
Program
Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D major (1731) (arr. Mendelssohn,
Ed. David) by Bach.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor (1831) by Mendelssohn.
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K.551 (“Jupiter”) (1788) by
Mozart.
We left our house at around 4:45 pm, having heard news that
President Obama was going to be at Alice Tully Hall for a fundraiser this
evening. There were tons of problems
with GWB (up to 2 hours delay) which overflowed into Lincoln Tunnel (1
hour). Our way in through Holland Tunnel
wasn’t too problematic, even with lingering effects from a stalled vehicle
earlier. We got to Ollie’s at around
6:15 pm. Anne left right after dinner to
collect the tickets while I took care of the bill. We thought we would have time to make the 7
pm pre-concert recital, even though I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic since it
was going to be Hough’s own 2010 composition.
But that wasn’t to be.
Traffic (vehicle and pedestrian) was blocked off for many of the
intersections between Ollie’s and Lincoln Center so the President’s motorcade
could zip right by, which it did at around 7:05 pm. There was a lot of grumbling in the waiting
crowd about how the fundraising event is wreaking havoc on people’s lives (the
motorcade evidently started from JFK airport), so I assume some votes were
lost. To be fair, there was some
scattered applause in the crowd also. I
was amazed how many police officers showed up, some in full combat gear, and I
suspect there were snipers perched on all the corner rooftops – too bad I didn’t
look up.
The upshot is we didn’t make it to the pre-concert. I suspect many didn’t since approach from the
north was not possible. I actually
reconnected with Anne at the corner I was stuck at: she was on the other side.
Our seats were in the first row (despite its B label), and
we were a few yards away from the last row of the first violin section. Human perception is an interesting thing,
when I try to listen to the full orchestra (i.e., didn’t think about the
individual musicians) that instrument would be dominant, but I managed to hear
the three or four different first violins if I concentrated on doing so. One would think loudness is inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between the source and the listener,
but (for instance) the second violins could oftentimes be clearly heard.
That was a lot of pre-amble, onto the program for the
evening.
The write-up (by Paul Schiavo) on the Bach Suite would be a
dream for our friend David Y, it contains some rather interesting observations,
some I excerpt below: (i) Mendelssohn did a lot to revive Bach; (ii)
Mendelssohn made a lot of changes to the original score; (iii) There is debate
whether it should be played by a solo violin; (iv) the trumpet in Bach’s day
was more difficult to play; (iv) Ferdinand David was the principal violinist at
the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The movements
of the Suite are quite typical: Overture, Air, Gavotte I and II, Bourree, and
Gigue. I enjoyed the performance very
much.
Anne and I had a debate on whether we have seen Stephen
Hough before. I thought not, she was
sure. A review of this blog says at
least not since 2005. Our seats actually
were quite good, we could hear him quite well without the piano’s sound being
the dominant one, and we could see his hands flying over the keyboard. The concerto is rather short, and consists of
three movements played without stop: Molto allegro con fuoco, Andante, and
Presto – Molto allegro e vivace. The
fast movements were quite demanding, my worry that he would slip a note kept me
on the edge of my seat. Just a beautiful
performance of a beautiful concerto – and Mendelssohn wrote it when he was
about 22.
Hough played a Chopin Nocturne as an encore. As we read the program, we actually found out
Hough’s composition actually has an interesting story behind it. It is called “broken branches” and evokes
Hough’s catholic faith.
Mozart’s last symphony must be one of his longest at about
40 minutes. According to the program
notes, Mozart discovered Bach’s music when he went to Vienna at age 25. One could argue there was indeed a lot of
Bach influence in this composition; or one could just say Mozart’s wrote more
complicated music as he got older. I did
hear this in the “final trilogy” New York Philharmonic concert more than six
years ago. It is interesting how context
makes something look. My remark at the
New York Philharmonic concert was that the music sounded “simple.” Tonight, however, it sounded much more
complex when compared against the Bach and Mendelssohn pieces. Again, human perception is an interesting
phenomenon. The four movements are
Allegro vivace, Andante cantabile, Menuetto, and Molto allegro.
Anne’s conclusion is: the Mostly Mozart performances are
definitely better than those of Orpheus’s.
I tend to agree, although the Orpheus Orchestra does Mozart quite well.
A few words on the conductor Manze. He is quite animated, and we could hear him
grunt quite often. I think the orchestra responded very well, although
sometimes not as crisply as I would like.
By the time we left, the President was long gone. There were still quite a few officers milling around the area. We got back at about 11 pm.
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