Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Center (Seat
D111, $50).
Musique funebre (Muzyka zalobna) (1958) by Witold
Lutoslawski (1931-1994).
Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945) by Bartok (1881-1945).
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K.543 (1788) by Mozart
(1756-1791).
We wanted to get into the city early for the pre-concert
recital, but missed it by about five minutes, the usual summer Friday afternoon
traffic being the culprit this time. That is too bad as I was looking forward to hearing Brahms' Intermezzos (Op. 117). On the plus side, we
did find off street parking on 65th, for free.
Our seats in Row D gave us a great view of the musicians in
the front, but not much visibility beyond that.
We could hear the individual instruments in the orchestra (or most of
them, anyway), which is a good thing. My
comment on the concert we heard on Wednesday was that the orchestra sounded
soft, being closer made it better, but the volume was still on the soft
side. The downside is with the solo
piano, the orchestra was completely overwhelmed.
The first two pieces of the program were all written in the
mid 20th century, which doesn’t make a lot of sense for a Mostly
Mozart concert. The only connection I
could possibly made is the there is supposedly some birds and crickets effects
in the Bartok piece (more on that later.)
The Program Annotator for tonight’s program is Paul Schiavo. He also did a good job with the write-ups.
I had not encountered Lutoslawski’s music before (not having
heard of him probably was a primary reason,) and didn’t know what to
expect. He conceived the work as a
memorial to Bela Bartok, and the music – basically for a string orchestra –
does fit the bill. I would agree with
the Program Notes’ statement that he succeeded splendidly in using modern
compositional methods in a clear and readily apprehended way. The four parts of the piece were played
without interruption: Prologue, Metamorphoses, Apogee, and
Epilogue, with the first and last parts like an arc encasing the
middle sections. In any case, the music
was indeed quite accessible to a first-time listener, in my case using
Schiavo’s write-up as a guide.
Bela Bartok completed the piano concerto shortly before his
death, hoping his wife could earn some money performing it: there is probably a
poignant story behind the matter-of-fact narrative in the Program Notes. The first two movements (Allegretto and
Andante religioso) are on the relatively straightforward side, making me wonder
what Bartok was thinking when he wrote this.
The lack of virtuosic requirement on the performer is negated in the
third movement (Allegro vivace) which includes many difficult passages with a
lot of flourish thrown in. The annotation
in this instance has a couple of comments on the second movement that I find a
bit puzzling: it calls the second movement “in every way the heart of the
Concerto” which I would take issue with (admittedly after hearing it only
once.) The other comment about its A-B-A
design while technically correct is close to non-informative, since the second
A is very different from the first A. I
didn’t get the evocations of bird and insect sounds in the B section; Anne did.
As I said earlier, the piano dominated the performance,
probably because of the acoustics at our seats.
The soloist certainly enjoyed himself, and he put in a delightful
performance.
To me, Bartok’s music is generally easy to understand, and
this one is particularly so. I suppose the program design folks at Mostly Mozart picked these two
pieces for their ease to understand. If
that is so, kudos to them.
We have heard the Mozart symphony several times before,
including the time New York Philharmonic played all three in the “final
trilogy,” of which this symphony is the first.
I still remember using the phrase “Mozart-fatique” to describe the experience
of listening to three symphonies in a row.
There was no such problem tonight, the orchestra put in a spirited and
crisp performance. The four movements of
the symphony are: Adagio – Allegro, Andante con coto, Menuetto: Allegretto, and
Allegro.
I did notice a violinist who also plays in the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra, a group I have mixed feelings about. Going over my prior blog entries, I find an
entry where the Orpheus Orchestra also performed this piece. My remark was that the performance “was not
particularly noteworthy.” I can’t help
but wonder if this particular violinist enjoys playing the piece with or
without a conductor. She did pay a lot
of attention to the conductor, though.
Langree certainly did his job with gusto; a bit much at
times, in my opinion. I couldn't help but notice how crisp his pants looked: the "Maestro" episode of Seinfeld kept flashing in my head.
Our trip home was uneventful. We got back at around 10:45 pm, and that
included a side-trip to fill up the gas tank.
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