New York String Orchestra – Jamie Laredo, conductor; Richard Goode, piano. December 28, 2017.

Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall.  Parquet Mid (Seat N5, $25).

Program

Elegia Andina (2000) by Frank (b. 1972).

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (1785) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56, “Scottish” (1842) by Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

The tickets were bought at a discount on Cyber Monday.  I didn’t know anything about the NYSO, but thought I couldn’t go wrong with Laredo and Goode.

Tonight turned out to be a rather interesting experience.  Turns out NYSO is a 70 or person ensemble consisting of high school and college students, they come together for an intensive 10-day practice period and put out this concert as a result.  This current group range in age from 16 to 23, coming (mostly) from North America, Asia, and Central and South America.

There are quite a few woodwind and percussion members in the ensemble, so I wonder if they should drop the “string” in their name.  Of course calling themselves “New York Orchestra” probably won’t work.

The works performed were written in the 18^th, 19^th and 21^st (well, year 2000) centuries, so quite a range.

Gabriela Lena Frank was born to a Peruvian-Chinese mother and a Latvian-Jewish father.  Her music comes from an anthropological perspective while maintaining its own distinctive voice.  Andean Elegy, one of Frank’s first written down compositions, is dedicated to her older brother, and explores what it means to be of several ethnic persuasions – of several minds.  One characteristic is the use of two flutes to mimic the Peruvian double-row panpipes.

The paragraph above is taken directly from the description in the Playbill.  I thought while the 11-minute long piece has its interesting moments, it sounded quite repetitive, and flat (perhaps befitting an elegy.)  I did catch the effect produced by the flutes, and still wonder how that somewhat eerie sound was generated.

I have heard Richard Goode a couple of times before, and generally enjoyed his playing.  He again needed the music in front of him, although for tonight I was sure just as insurance (most of the time anyway.)  Tonight the sound he produced on a Steinway concert grand sounded very subdued, at times very much like a period fortepiano.  It came across well.

Richard Goode, Jamie Laredo, and the New York String Orchestra.

The Scottish Symphony is a 40-minute long piece inspired by Mendelssohn’s visit to Scotland.  He also wrote the Fingal’s Cave Overture as a result of the visit; this Symphony would come 12 years later.  While I was sure the players had no problems with the music, the lack of “together time” showed on several occasions by the somewhat muddled playing.  The three movements, played with no (or minimal) pause are (i) Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato; (ii) Vivace non troppo; (iii) Adagio; and (iv) Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai.

Since 12/26 we have had a cold spell (temperature not breaking freezing) that is forecasted to last through 1/7/2018.  On top of that the Newark Bay Bridge was closed for emergency repairs, making driving quite untenable.  We ended up taking the train.  After the concert we rushed back to Penn Station to catch the 10:20 pm train.  Along the way we bought a couple of McDonald’s burgers, but had to leave before getting the food because we were afraid we would miss the train.  I had a light meal before we left, Anne was quite hungry by the time we got home.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the evening.  It was good to see so many young people take their music so seriously, and that there are people willing to help them along.

Monmouth Civic Chorus – Ryan James Brandau, conductor. December 17, 2017.

Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ.  Orchestra (Seat L6, $45).

Program

Joy to the World: The Messiah & More

Artists

Meg Dudley, soprano

Bob Kelly, reader

Kenneth Wasser, baritone

Daniel Ford, reader

Gerald Metz, baritone

The New Jersey Youth Chorus – Patricia Joyce, Artistic Director

This concert was again part of the celebration of my “twin” Lorinda’s and my birthday.  Jennifer again sang in the chorus.

I don’t plan to do a critical review of the concert, instead just a few general remarks.

The concert was quite well-attended, better than any of the NJSO concerts I have been to at this venue.  I imagine if each performing member brings along 5 guests, it would fill half the auditorium already.

A selfie of the four of us.

Again, the acoustics left something to be desired.  I am sure in a hall with better acoustics I would be able to hear the chorus clearly.  Instead I had to strain, quite hard at times, to make out what they were singing.  The NJYC had a few numbers, and they did well.  As they say, children and animals always steal the show.

Meg Dudley is a professional singer and I enjoyed her singing.  The other two singers are part of MCC, they have beautiful voices but needed the PA system for sound projection. I wonder if that resulted in an unfair assessment of how Dudley did.

There were three numbers from Messiah, perhaps the program should be titled: “More and Messiah?”  In any case, it was an enjoyable evening.  The audience enthusiastically joined in the singing of “Jingle Bells.”

Meg Dudley on the right side of photo.  Members of NJYC in front.

Afterward the Homs and we had a nice, simple dinner at Juanito’s.

New Jersey Symphony – Xian Zhang, conductor; Stephen Hough, piano. December 2, 2017.

State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ.  Orchestra (seat O106, $18.)

Program

Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 (1912, rev. 1915) by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 (1934) by Rachmaninoff.

Symphony No. 6 in E-flat Minor, Op. 111 (1945-47) by Prokofiev (1891-1953).

In the past few years I would get an email from NJSO announcing their Thanksgiving sale, which would typically have the ticket prices reduced by 50%.  I didn’t get any (or missed it) for this season.  After midnight on Thanksgiving I decided to visit the NJSO website to see what was on offer.  Turns out they were offering a “Black Friday” special where most seats would sell for $15, plus a $3 per ticket handling fee.  I grabbed four pairs at that price.

I am writing this on December 16, two weeks after the concert, and frankly do not remember much of it, even though I made a mental note of what I wanted to jot down during the concert.

Anne and I were in Ireland on Halloween 2014, and attended a Halloween-themed classical concert that featured the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody.  A few things we learned (probably reinforced during the intervening several years) were still fresh in my mind, in particular the Dies Irae theme and the inverted melody.  I also took a look at the score and found out there were 24 variations (if memory serves), so quite short.  Today’s performance was very enjoyable.  Stephen Hough pounded it out quite methodically, but it was a lively performance.  He played one of Chopin’s Nocturnes as encore.

At the conclusion of the concert.  My finger was in the way of the lens, evidently.  Need to get use to this new iPhone I am using.

So I have some record of the other two pieces, let me at least quote from the Program.  On the Vocalise: “Originally a wordless song for voice and piano, Vocalise has been arranged for numerous other instrumental combinations.  In the composer’s orchestration, violins deliver the ravishing soprano melody.”  On Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6: “The trajectory of this rarely heard wartime work moves gradually from darkness, through lyricism, to affirmation.  A march frames the first-movement development.  The eloquent central Largo is warm and expressive, while a Haydnesque motor rhythm propels the finale.”  The three movements of the Symphony are: Allegro moderato, Largo, and Vivace.  This was the first time the NJSO performed it.

I did remember this as being a worthwhile event, especially consider the cost and closeness of State Theatre to our house.  Too bad there were many empty seats in the auditorium.  I was seated in the orchestra section and noticed several rows with very few people in them.

New York Philharmonic – Gianandrea Noseda, conductor; Frank Huang, violin. November 26, 2017.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 3. (Seat HH114, $56).

Program

Suite from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh (190304, arr. 1908?) by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), arr. M. Steinberg

Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61 (1880) by Saint-Saens (1835-1921).

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 (1935-36, rev. 1938) by Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).

We got tickets to the concert because of scheduling problems.  New York Philharmonic will now only give you back the value you paid if you swap concerts. In this case they were offering $59 tickets for Orchestra 2 tickets, but wanted to charge full price if swapped ticket value was used.  Hence these tickets towards the back of the orchestra.

They were actually not bad seats acoustics wise, even though they were a bit far from the stage.

For me the main draw was the Saint-Saens concerto, which I listened to a lot during my younger days, and also attempted a few passages.  In my opinion Huang did a much better job with this than he did with the Franck concerto.  The piece contains many challenges for the violinist, one is the long passage of harmonics at the end of the slow movement.  To do good harmonics required a precise spread of the fingers and bowing close to the bridge, if memory serves.  Easy enough if it is one note, not so easy with multiple measures. Huang dispatched them with ease. I did think the whole piece started a bit slow, but things got on track soon afterwards.

Curtain call after performance of the Saint-Saen's Violin Concerto.

The Legend of the Invisible City is an opera written by Rimsky-Korsakov during 1903-04, and the composer’s son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg extract the suite from it a few years later.  The opera has of course a story associated with it, and the markings for the suite are (i) Prelude – Hymn to Nature; (ii) Fevroniya’s Wedding Procession – Invasion of the Tatars; (iii) The Battle of Kerzhenets; and (iv) Fevroniya’s Glorious End – The Ascension to the Invisible City.  Some of the movements were evidently played without break, so I couldn’t quite track the music with the outline.  The opera may be worth seeing, although it is not staged that much outside of Russian, the suite definitely is not.  It was performed twice in New York Philharmonic history, in February 1994.

I was quite sure I had heard Rachmaninoff’s third symphony before, but couldn’t find any entry in this blog.  (The last NY Phil performance was in 2003.) It did sound familiar, and the Dies Irae of the third movement was barely discernable.  The three movements are (i) Lento – Allegro moderato – Allegro; (ii) Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro vivace – Tempo come prima; and (iii) Allegro – Allegro vivace – Allegro.

So the concert consisted a popular violin concerto sandwiched between two rather obscure pieces.  I nonetheless enjoyed it.

I was surprised to see a stool placed on the podium.  While Noseda sat on it on occasion, his conducting continued to be quite energetic.

The New York Times review is very positive, even though it started with a tongue-in-check description that the programming was a “mild adventure.”  He explained that Noseda had back surgery recently.

Drive into and out of New York City was quite straightforward.  We again opted for takeout food, this time from the Chinese place on Amsterdam.