Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra Right
(Seat X2, $46.50).
Pre-concert Recital
Pieces de clavecin, from the Septieme order (1716-17) by
Couperin (1668-1733).
Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5, No. 6 (1746) by Geminiani
(1687-1762).
Four Nations Ensemble: Loretta O’Sullivan, cello; Scott
Pauley, lute; Andrew Appel, harpsichord.
Program
Overture to Le nozze di Figaro (1786) by Mozart.
Piano Concerto No. 25 in C manor, K. 503 (1786) by
Mozart.
Symphony No. 1 in C manor (1799-1800) by Beethoven.
Since today is a weekday, we decided to drive in. Traffic was quite good and we got to Lincoln
Center at about 5:45 pm. After we got
our tickets, we had a light dinner at China Fun and made it to the 7 pm
pre-concert recital in good time.
I am even less a student of period instruments, and only
find myself enjoying occasionally such a concert. Today’s concert wasn’t one of those, although
I didn’t mind sitting through the two rather short pieces (at 14 and 8 minutes
respectively.)
As a side remark (first brought up by Anne), while I am
not a fan of renaissance art in general, I do find some of the paintings and
sculptures from that period quite interesting (I just visited Florence, after all,) and I do look at the work before
then more as a means to get educated rather than as material that would “lift
my soul.” Interestingly, as far as music
is concerned, the demarcation seems to be around Bach’s time, which is a few
centuries later. Not sure much can be
gleamed from this, but interesting nonetheless.
For completeness, I excerpt some of the information from David Wright’s writeup below.
The two works were considered daring and bold for their time. An “order” for Francois Couperin, a master
composer for the harpsichord, roughly means a “suite.” Today’s performance consists of five selections
from the eight:La Menetou; Les petits ages(litte ages): La muse naissante (birth
of the muse), L’enfantine (little child), L’adolescente (adolescent), and Les
delices (delights). It is believed that
La Menetou may refer to some in Couperin’s circle, evidently a person of
complex and crafty intellect.
Francesco Geminiani was an admired violinist also
considered a great composer by some. The
Cello sonata is performed by three instruments.
The lute is an interesting looking instrument with a very long
neck. I had trouble telling the difference between how a lute and a harpsichord sounds. In the short eight minutes the
composer manages to squeeze in three movements: Adagio, Allegro assai, and
Allegro.
Now onto the main program. First the summary: this was a much more
enjoyable performance than the one we went to last Friday. And in the spirit of simple enjoyment of a
summer evening, I should stop here ...
It helps that the program consists of three well-known
pieces, and the annotator even encourages the audience to tap along (good thing
no one did, as far as I could tell.) The
orchestra and the soloist all seemed to play with more spirit than they did
last Friday. The piccolo player was
playing the flute today and didn’t seem to have trouble staying awake.
The strings did have some trouble with some of the faster
runs (such as the one in the overture) and sounded a bit chaotic, but in
general provided the light and crisp touch called for in Mozart’s music. For the symphony things generally ran well, I
do wish the trumpets could sound a bit louder, though.
The pianist put in an engaging performance. However, sometimes I wonder whether he was
playing Mozart. There was too much pedaling
and he was more liberal than usual with varying the tempo.
The applause from the audience was quite
enthusiastic. I wonder if it is more a
result of their appreciation of the interpretation, or just a show of how much
they enjoyed hearing some of their favorite music being played. In either or both cases, it is all good. If one was listening for the former, then one would find Wright's detailed writeup analyzing the compositions very useful; otherwise his summary remarks would suffice.
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