David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat M13, $52.50).
Program
Symphony No. 88 in G major (1787) by Haydn (1732-1809).
Arias by Handel (1685-1759).
Symphony No. 41 in C major (“Jupiter”) (1788) by Mozart (1756-1791).
Handel Arias
Disserratevi, o porte d’Averno, from La ressurezione
(1708).
Ritorna, oh caro e dolce mio Tesoro from Rodelinda
(1725).
Da tempeste il legno infranto, from Giulio Cesare in
Egitto (1724).
This is considered one of the events in the Mostly Mozart
Festival. One may question why the
Budapest Festival Orchestra would have a role in it, but at least it had one of
Mozart’s best-known works in it.
The Program Notes describes the Haydn symphony as one of his
best known. Hadyn wrote over 100
symphonies, I doubt this is in his top 20.
Over the years I must have heard quite a few of Haydn’s symphonies, and
I don’t recall ever hearing this one, neither could I find any entry in this
blog. Another “giveaway” is that if this
is indeed a popular symphony someone would have given it a name or nickname
already. (This last point probably is
somewhat controversial.)
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that Haydn didn’t
write this on a commission from some nobility, and that the orchestra he wrote
for had some virtuoso musicians. The
piece sounded complex enough, but I must say it wasn’t a memorable experience
in that I have forgotten it, after one day.
The four movements are Adagio-Allegro, Largo, Menuet: Trio, and Finale:
Allegro con spirito.
Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony is a delightful composition
that showed Mozart’s genius without sounding too difficult. Perhaps the best-known part is how at the end
of the fourth movement Mozart wove together 5 or 6 melodies which (according to
the Program Notes) “cannot readily be comprehended by the listener, only
recognized as something transcendent and awe-inspiring.”
It was a disappointment, especially against my expectations
of this orchestra. Muddled is the word
that came to mind the most. Fischer
brought out a lot of dynamics from the orchestra, but with no particular story
to tell. I like to think I have “broken
the code” on the 5-melody fugue, and it was not done well at all. Instead of clean, parallel lines, what I heard
was one line overwhelming the other, which eventually descended into chaos (well,
a bit of exaggeration here.)
Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the conclusion of the concert.
The highlight of this otherwise mediocre concert was the
young Trinidadian soprano De Bique. She
thrilled the audience with the three Handel arias she sang. I am not a singer, so I can’t describe the vocal
techniques she brought to bear to make her high notes exquisite, fast runs
clean, and diction clear. I sensed a bit
of nervousness at the beginning, but she just “let it rip” when she realized
how appreciative the audience was.
Jeanine De Bique has a delightful voice and an engaging stage presence.
While De Bique certainly has the technique and
personality to go far in her singing career, there is still some ways to go, in my opinion. All three songs sounded like vocal exercises. The titles of the three songs, translated
into English, are (i) Unlock yourselves, o gates of Hell! (ii) Return, oh my dear,
sweet treasure. (iii) A storm-battered vessel.
One can imagine the emotions are very different in the three songs, but
she could have done them in any order and I wouldn’t have known. That’s not helped by my inability to follow
her words along in the program. My
Italian is rudimentary, but not so bad that I couldn’t even catch a sentence
here or there?
It is not surprising that the Orchestra comprised mostly
of Caucasians, what is surprising was the concertmaster, Yoonshin Song, is a
Korean woman. A search of the internet
indicates that she has just been named Houston Symphony’s concertmaster
(vacated by Frank Huang three years ago), and was with Detroit Symphony from
2012. Which makes it more intriguing:
who is the regular BFO concertmaster?
The day after I bought the tickets to event Anne found
out she would have a conflict, so I went by myself. The train schedule was such that I had more
than an hour between arrival at Penn Station and the 5 pm start of the
concert. I walked up quite a sweat, even
though I did it slowly.
Overall it was still a good experience.
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