NEC Prep: Preparatory String Orchestra 8:30. Marta Zurad, conductor. December 6, 2025.

Brown Hall, NEC, Boston, MA.  Balcony (free).

Program

Dona Nobis Pacem by Unknown.

Celebration by Dvorak (1678-1741), arr. H. Ashlin.

Waltz of the Flowers by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), arr. J. McLeod.

Emmie continues to play in the NEC preparatory orchestras.  For the current academic year she is in the PSO 8:30 (evidently there is also a PSO 10:30).

Brown Hall is quite a bit smaller than Jordan Hall, Joe P and I were in the balcony with a great vantage point.

As Joe P observed, the level of this ensemble was clearly better than the one Emmie was in last year.  Of course the kids are a year older (generally), and can withstand some amount of criticism.  And the number of players was also smaller.

Both sets of grandparents showed up.

Anne and I left for the airport for our return flight to NJ right after the concert.

Boston Concservatory Orchestra. Jorge Soto, Conductor; Byron Zhou, piano. December 4, 2025.

Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston, MA.  Nave (Left side, free).

The orchestra seated in front of the altar.

Program: Building Our Future Together - A Preview of Carnegie Hall's United Nations Concert

The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart.

Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninoff.

Symphony No. 9 (first three movements) by Beethoven.

Finlandia by Sibelius.

Program for the evening.  I left during intermission.

I came across this event when I was searching for classical concerts during my week in Boston.  Although Anne came back to Somerville after her dental appointment, she decided not to go.  The concert started at 6 pm, so I thought I would give it a try.

Tonight's concert was a warm-up/dress rehearsal event for a private concert at Carnegie Hall for people from the United Nations.  The musicians would board buses the next morning for NY City.  Since the soloists and chorus are based in New York, that would mean for tonight's event they would skip the last movement of the Choral Symphony.  And instead of the Mozart piece, they would do a couple of songs by Florence Price.

I left after the first half.  I rarely do that (even with free concerts), partly because I am stubborn, and partly because I want to support the musicians.  The major reason for my leaving early was the acoustics of the cathedral.  Perhaps it is great for choral music, but for traditional classical music things just sound muddled, very muddled.  I thought of "a wall of music" or "a cauldron of musical notes" during the entire concert, the half I was present for, anyway.

An impressive church on Tremont Avenue.

For the Rachmaninoff, the pianist was just a few pews ahead of me.  Yet it sounded as if the pianist never let go of the pedal, and I could barely make out any of the lines.  Things got even worse when the orchestra chimed in.

Soloist Byron Zhou.

The musicians must have practiced a long time to get to this stage, and I wonder if they realize what a disaster the performance was.  Carnegie Hall definitely has much better acoustics, and I hope they did well there.

I have heard performances in various cathedrals and churches before (both in the US and Europe), and I don't remember anything as bad as tonight.

The area is suffering from a cold spell.  I walked to the Assembly Station to catch the subway; it was around 30F and quite bearable.  It was in the teens when I got back to the Station (at around 7:30 pm), and with a strong wind blowing, it felt very cold.  Joe came by to pick me up.

Roxbury has a reputation of being a rough area.  The situation has evidently improved a lot, and it certainly felt fine walking to the church and back from the Roxbury Crossing Station.  Joe P says his school is a block from the train station, and that the area is fine.

Boston Symphony Orchestra. Samy Rachid, conductor; Pablo Ferrandez, cello. November 29, 2025.

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA.  First Tier (Seat B8, $95.95).

At the conclusion of the concert.

Program - All-Dvorak Program

Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (1895).

Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88 (1889).

For this BSO season, we plan to attend two concerts with Joe P and Emmie.  This was the first one.

Both Dvorak pieces on the program are quite well-known, and easy to like.  In that regard it was a pleasant concert.  However, the evening didn't turn out to be as great as I had hoped, given the reputation of the orchestra and the venue.

One interesting note in the Program Notes was that the repertoire for solo cello and orchestra is limited; it lists - besides Dvorak - two Haydn concertos, two Saint-Saens Concertos, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, and the Elgar and Shostakovich Concertos from "this century" (it's actually the last century, so the writeup is at least 25 years old,)  Beethoven wrote a triple concerto (piano, violin, and cello); Brahms a double concerto for violin and cello.  And then there is this "hard to pull off" Schumann concerto.  The last comment was a bit puzzling also.  There are several entries in this blog on the Schumann cello concerto - including a performance by Yo-Yo Ma - and I seemed to enjoyed all the times I heard it.  (One could say my appreciation is superficial, and certainly not as a cellist.)

Back to Dvorak.  This was the first time that I realized a strong commonality in the opening 4-note cello motif between Dvorak's and Shostakovich's, a motif that is used throughout the respective concertos.  Perhaps it's worth noting - again - that Dvorak incorporated passages into the work to memorialize the passing of his sister-in-law (perhaps an unrequited love of Dvorak's), that added a bit of melancholy (well, the key is B minor) and poignancy to the overall emotional feel.

Ferrandez is a Spanish cellist.  He certainly made the performance an enjoyable one for the audience.  One complaint is the instrument - a Stradivarius - was at times overwhelmed by the (somewhat reduced sized) orchestra.  Again this may be how I hear the different frequencies.  My seat in Tier 1 Row B is considerably more expensive than Row E - my usual price range - but the acoustics didn't sound much better (I know it is a somewhat apples/oranges comparison).  By way of example, for a "random" BSO concert in January, the prices are $91 and $51 respectively.

Ferrandez acknowledging the audience at the end of the Dvorak Cello Concerto.

Ferrandez played an encore.  With the fireworks he produced during the concerto performance, I am not sure what it added to the evening.  I was impressed when Google identified the piece after a few notes.  It returned a movement from a Peer Gynt suite, which I am sure is an error.  So it failed twice to get a right answer (to be fair, last time it was network issues).

Per the Program Notes, Dvorak was paid 3000 marks for his seventh symphony, but offered only 1000 for his eighth by Simrock, his publisher.  That may be one reason why Dvorak went with another publisher in this instance.  A search of the web returned the amusing fact that while Dvorak wasn't paid specifically for the cello concerto, his job in the US paid 25 times more than his prior job.

As to how today's performance fared, it was good, but not spectacular.  But spectacular is few and far between, so it's perfectly fine.

This is the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so going to a concert probably wasn't on most people's must do list.  That may explain the large number of empty seats in the auditorium.  The few times I went to a BSO concert, attendance never seemed to be very high.  At New York Phil a poorly attended concert would have say 90% of the seats filled.  BSO has one of the largest orchestra endowments in the US (presumably the world as well), so perhaps not a big problem for them.  It has to be a bit discouraging for the musicians involved, though.  (A search of the web returned attendance numbers that are quite different, so take my observation with a grain of salt.)

A photo in the hallway showing Ozawa and Bernstein at Tanglewood.

There were quite a few empty seats tonight.

It was a nice evening, Joe P drove, which made things very simple.

New York Philharmonic. Stephane Deneve, conductor; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano. November 26, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat BB103, $59).

Deneve and Thibaudet after performance of Khachaturian's Piano Concerto.  To the right of Deneve is the musician who played the musical saw (his name is not on the program).

Program

Icarus (2006, rev. 2011) by Auerbach (b. 1973).

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D-flat major, Op. 38 (1936) by Khachaturian (1903-78).

Cantus Arcticus, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, Op. 61 (1972) by Rautavaara (1928-2016).

Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome) (1923-24) by Respighi (1879-1936).

When the concert began, the conductor Deneve spoke for a few minutes.  A couple of interesting points were made: one is the use of an "augmented" orchestra in all four pieces.  For Icarus, it's the theramin for which hand movements control the pitch and volume.  Khachaturian uses a musical saw in its second movement.  Both instruments have an eerie quality to them.  Bird songs are used for the Rautavaara and Respighi pieces.  For Rautavaara it's taped birdsong; for Respighi it's the singing of a nightingale played on a circa 1909 phonograph (this from the Program Notes).  The other interesting remark he made was that JY Thibaudet is the most American of French pianists.

Except for Lera Auerbach's piece, all the pieces were written in the 20th century.  While the program is by no means traditional, I walked away thinking I enjoyed it mostly with my right brain, as I didn't spend much time trying to analyze the music; that was a pleasant surprise.

Icarus is the boy who flew too close to the sun, and the Program Notes describes it as such.  Without commenting on how the music felt (since I have already forgotten the few adjectives I thought of while listening to it), I remember telling myself this doesn't sound like Icarus at all.  In her description of the work, Auerbach maintains that her music is abstract, and she hears her music differently every time she listens to it.  Icarus was what it felt like when she gave the piece its title.  How giving the piece a name helps with her desire that the listener imagines the music freely escapes me.

We had one prior encounter with Auerbach's work before, in 2017.  It was a violin concerto, considerably longer, and I described it as atonal.  Yet I said I would love to hear it again (of course I haven't).  I can make a similar remark in this instance.

Auerbach looks very different today that the photo of her from 8 years ago.

Sheryl Staples was the concertmaster this evening.  After performance of Icarus composed by Auerbach.

Auerbach came on stage for curtain call.

.  

When I hear the name Khachaturian, I think "Sabre Dance."  The Program Notes describes his piano concerto as being influenced by Caucasus, Armenian, and Georgian folk music, and that Khachturian called the piece "the first national piano concerto."  To appreciate this one needs to be both an ethnomusicologist and a historian of the area; I am neither.  As a first time listener, I would simply call it an exhilarating ride of virtuosity.  Very enjoyable ride, at that.  Thibaudet played an encore.  He announced it, but no one around me could make out what he said.  There was no cell service at my seat, so Google couldn't help.

The Program Notes provides an outline as presented by Khachaturian.  The three movements are Allegro ma non troppo e maestoso, Andante con anima, and Allegro brillante.  The musical saw was used in the second movement; the musician provided an excellent counterpoint to the pianist.  I have no idea how difficult the instrument is to play, but good ears must be a requirement.

With his patterned jacket, Anne said Thibaudet made her think of Liberace.  I thought he looked like a more subdued, male, and older version of Yuja Wang.

Our prior encounter with Rautavaara's piece was 19 years ago, in Hong Kong.  This is NY Phil's first performance of the piece - go figure.  I was dismissive of the piece 19 years ago, and am still somewhat dismissive of it after the second hearing.  As described in the Program Notes, the work involves three slow movements.  The composer's instruction for the first movement (The Bog) was to "think of autumn and of Tchaikovsky."  I guess that leaves a wide range of possibilities for interpretation.  The second and final movements (Melancholy and Swans Migrating) supposedly start with extended birdcalls - which I didn't get.  There are also other subtleties that I could neither understand, nor hear.  An example would be "the orchestra is divided into four groups of different sonorities ... but the groups themselves are not always strictly synchronized."  But the piece did make some sense to me, which is an improvement over my experience from 19 years ago - if my writeup is any indication.

Rautavaara's piece called for taped birdcalls.  This photo was taken after the piece.  The phonograph at the back was used in Respighi's Pines or Rome.

My blog entries contain references to Respighi's Fountains of Rome and Roman Festival, but not to Pines of Rome.  Anne is quite sure we had heard it before, in Tanglewood specifically.  As with Fountains, here in the course of 20 or so minutes Respighi painted four scenes: The Pines of the Villa Borghese, The Pines Near a Catacomb, The Pines of the Janiculum, and The Pines of the Appian Way.  There must be many ways to put in music one's perception of different scenes, so I am in no position to say whether the sceneries were described properly.  In any case, other than a quick visit to Villa Borghese and some idea of the Appian Way, I don't know much about Roman scenery.  "A nightingale sings" at the end of the third movement.  The music for the last movement certainly evoked images of soldiers marching towards the listener.  As a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi's ability for great orchestra colors was highlighted in this piece.

The tickets for tonight were bought at a 35% discount.  Chung Shu joined us.  We took the train from NJ (he started in Hazlet) and had dinner at Legend 72 before.

New York Philharmonic. Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor; Augustin Hadelich, violin. November 20, 2025.

David Geffen Hall.  Orchestra (Seat W109, $96).

Hadelich after performing Barber's Violin Concerto, with Slobodeniouk looking on from the podium.

Program

Stonework (2014-15) by Fagerlund (b. 1972).

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14 (1939-40; rev. 1948) by Barber (1910-81).

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 (1901-02) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

As Anne observed, this was a mostly Finnish program.  The Program Notes describes Sebastian Fagerlund as a musical descendant of Sibelius, and him being known for his abstract orchestral compositions "like Sibelius and Lindberg."  (I see a few problems there ...)  Stonework is part of a trilogy that is inspired by Nordic nature.  While Fagerlund grasped that only upon the completion of the three works, tonight's audience had the benefit of the description; so much so that "what else could it be describing?" popped into my head.  The opening measures, characterized as a "broad, harmonic-melodic" motif, are indeed present in various forms (some not so obvious) throughout the 15-minute piece.  Frankly I didn't get a lot beyond the images of presumably rugged Nordic landscape (think fjords) from the piece.  That it was "an impressionistic neo-noir where echoes of electronic dance music rattle around ancestral mausoleums, post-punk and Sibelius join in trancelike harmony, and new and old converge" completely escaped this first-time listener.

Fagerlund came on stage after the performance of his Stonework.

The other Finnish piece was Sibelius's second symphony.  I am embarrassed to say while I have some familiarity with Sibelius's symphonies, I cannot tell definitively which is which.  (Somewhat like my knowledge of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos, I can tell it's by the composer, but can't say definitively which one.)  So listening to tonight's performance was interesting in a way: when a familiar melody hit, I would say, ah, this is where it belongs.  Various musicologists have attributed different story lines to the movements of the symphony, all of which Sibelius rejected.  Nonetheless, that these story lines continue to be told means people still find them helpful.  The music is indeed mostly "abstract," that a final resolution comes (for the entire symphony) at the end brings to that conclusion a lot of satisfaction.  Famously, Tchaikovsky quoted his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov's comment "Well, I suppose that's possible, too," implying perhaps Sibelius did march to a different drummer.

This piece has to be quite a challenge for the orchestra.  Some of the passages are fast, and the tempo seems to change every few measures.  The New York Phil managed to make this an exquisite experience.

After the Sibelius Symphony.

The four movements of the symphony are (1) Allegretto - Poco allegro - Tranquillo, ma poco a poco ravvivando il tempo al allegro; (2) Tempo andante, ma rubato - Andante sostenuto; (3) Vivacissimo - Lento e suave - Largamente; and (4) Finale: Allegro moderato.

Another confusion I often have is the Barber and Bartok violin concertos.  In my mind one was a lot easier to get than the other; but I often forget which one.  The "easier to get" certainly applies to the first two movements of the Barber concerto.  Even though written around 1940, the first two movements definitely have a romantic feel to them.  The melodies are hummable, the harmonies quite traditional, and the structures easily tracked.  The third movement, on the other hand, sounded just like a difficult etude for the violin (and the orchestra).

There is a story behind how the concerto came to be.  It was initially commissioned for the violinist Iso Briselli for $10,000.  That translates to about $24,000 today, pretty low by my reckoning.  Eventually Briselli withdrew as the premiere performer, and the soloist was Albert Spalding.

The Stickynotes Podcast (by Joshua Weilerstein) compares the oboe solo in the second movement to the one in Brahms, which is a bit of an oversell.  The third movement did give the violinist a workout, with two breaks (one quite short) so he could take a breath.

The three movements are Allegro, Andante, and Presto in moto perpetuo.

Hadelich plays a Guarneri which projected well against a rather large orchestra.  As a lot of the solo music is in the middle registers, that is (supposedly) difficult to pull off, which speaks highly of the musicians involved.  Even for the third movement, with all the pyrotechnics, that wasn't an issue.

This was by no means a "moderately sized" orchestra.  The combination worked well.

Google couldn't identify the encore Hadelich played.  It is best described as blue-grass like, and sounded a group of fiddlers playing together.  I got the feeling the audience was glad it was over, though.

All in all, I enjoyed the concert a lot more than I thought I would.  Since we had some time before the train, we bought some street food before we headed to Penn Station.

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Lahav Shani, conductor. Guy Eshed, flute. October 16, 2025.

Carnegie Hall, New York.  Dress Circle (Seat GG30, $75).

At the conclusion of the concert.  This is a large ensemble.  The roster lists 20 first violins.  About 16 were at this performance.

Program

Halil (1981) by Bernstein (1918-1990).

Symphony No. 1, Op. 25 (1939-1940) by Ben-Haim (1897-1984).

Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64 (1888) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

For many years we have been traveling to Europe to experience its classical music scene.  The experience has been rewarding, and we plan to continue to do so.  Living near New York City, many of the world's orchestras (some very well-known) come to the area, and for us the venues (mostly Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall) are just one train ride and a subway ride away.  This, however, is the first season we have a subscription to one of Carnegie Hall's International Orchestra series - four concerts featuring Budapest Festival, Vienna Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and the organization we heard  tonight.  At least in recent memory.

The second half of the program, featuring Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, was a crowd pleaser.  This Symphony is like Dvorak's Eighth.  If performed well, the piece can be an exhilarating ride from wondering where Fate would lead to a triumphal statement that human striving can overcome whatever Fate tries to dish out.  (That's one way of looking at it.)  A mediocre performance would have the several themes repeated and nauseam, and the listener can enjoy the many nice melodies thrown together.  A poor performance will expose an orchestra's inadequacies in meeting the considerable technical requirements of the piece.  As with many other symphonic works, having some prior knowledge of the themes and overall structure helps a lot with the appreciation.  All said and done, I quite enjoyed the performance.  The sections (especially the strings) were together, the dynamic range was good, and the balance was generally commendable.  One notable exception was that the woodwinds - especially the reeds - sounded quite weak.  They were playing against a large ensemble - I counted 28 violins - but that's not a legitimate excuse.  Or the acoustics at my seat had some issues with these instruments.  We hadn't sit in the Dress Circle section for a while, the acoustics were generally good at our seats, but somehow (nearly) all the solo instruments sounded a bit weak.

If I were to grade on a curve, I would give the performance a solid B+.  Points were taken away mostly for the woodwinds solos.  Anne, however, was not as generous as I was, for today anyway.  So I revise the grade to a B.

This was the first time I heard, or heard of, Bernstein's piece Halil.  Yadin Tanenbaum was a flutist who died inside his tank when he was nineteen, and Bernstein dedicated the piece to "the spirit of Yadin and to his fallen brothers."  Bernstein describes it as "a kind of night-music, from its opening 12-tone row to its ambiguously diatonic final cadence, is an ongoing conflict of nocturnal images: wish-dreams, nightmares, repose, sleeplessness, night-terrors, and sleep itself, Death's twin brother."  All very good, except I didn't get any of that, not even the 12-tone row.  Bernstein didn't know Tanenbaum.

Other than the strings, the orchestra for this piece consisted of only a few other instruments.  The solo flutist is the principal flute of IPO.  There were quite a few duet passages with another flute; per the Playbill, that would be an alto flute.

Paul Frankenburger was born in Munich and started his musical career in the German tradition.  As the National Socialists (why not simply Nazis) came to power, he moved to Tel Aviv and changed his last name to Ben-Haim.  Despite initial problems with adapting to  his new home, his style of composition eventually evolved to merge the more Eastern sounds into his Western one.

Israel Philharmonic used to be called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, and up to the early 1940s it didn't play three things: works by Richard Wagner, works by Richard Strauss, and works by Israeli composers.  Not playing Wagner is understandable, the latter two categories are a bit puzzling.  In any case, Ben-Haim's symphony broke the tradition; it premiered in 1941, with the composer at the podium.  The second movement is often performed by itself with the title "Psalms," and was first performed in Carnegie Hall in 1951.  Today's concert is the premiere performance for the entire symphony. 

While the three movement markings of the symphony are simply Allegro energico, Molto calmo e cantabile, and Presto con fuoco, the Program Notes contains a rather interesting description of the three movements.  I read the Notes earlier in the day, and - alas - by the time I heard it I had forgotten most of it, except for some Jewish sounding themes.

For the record, here are my simple reading of the three movements.  Not how I heard it, but as described by the Program Notes.  The first one evokes terrible forces at work during the time the music was written, but ends on an ambiguous manner that can be read as war or a feeling of optimism, security, and resilience.  The material is derived from "I lift up my eyes to the mountains," a song from a singer Ben-Haim accompanied for a decade.  The title is also the first line of Psalm 121.  The last movement has themes from "Joram," Ben-Haim's composition when he was in Germany, and from a syncopated hora, the Israeli national dance.  At the end of the Notes, Ben-Haim is quoted as saying "If you like it - that's good.  If you don't like it - that's also good, as you can enjoy extraordinary orchestral playing."  Heads you win, tails you win.

Eshed (flute) and Shani (conductor) after performance of Bernstein's piece.  There were six percussionists.  The timpanist also played the four drums to his right (the first time I observed this).

After Ben-Haim's Symphony No. 1.  The stage in Isaac Stern Auditorium is huge.

We got multiple messages from Carnegie Hall saying security would be tight tonight.  The recent peace agreement may have contributed to the concerns.  We went by three security personnel before we could enter the hall.  That may explain why the concert was delayed close to 20 minutes.  So we ended up taking the 11:18 pm train and got back to NJ after midnight.  It was a cool and nice evening, so the short walk from Penn Station to Herald Square was pleasant.  Regardless, Carnegie Hall may want to move up the start times of their concerts to 7:30 pm, as NY Phil and NJ Symphony have done starting this year.

Recital. Eric Tsai, violin; Lohan Park, piano. October 12, 2025.

State Theater of New Jersey, New Brunswick.  The Sound Studio (General Admission, $30).

Program

Solo Violin Sonata No. 5 in G Major, Op. 27/5 by Ysaye (1858-1931).

Violin Sonata in G Major, K. 379 (373a) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Three Taiwanese Songs by Shih-Ching Ju (b. 1972).

Violin Sonata in G minor, L. 140 by Debussy (1862-1918).

I have been to STNJ enough times to think I know the layout of the place.  Turns out there is this "Sound Studio" that's located at the balcony level that I didn't realize was there.  Now I wonder if other similar rooms exist in the theater.

In any case, today's concert took place in this studio that by my estimate can comfortable seat over 100 people.  For today about 50 folding chairs were laid out.  I have no idea what the expectations are for a concert of this type, and today's weather was forecast to be somewhat nasty - it turned out not to be so, I only had to contend with light rain both going to the theater and returning to the car.

I forget exactly how I knew about this concert, it was probably from an STNJ mailer.  I thought it would be interesting to spend a couple of hours listening to violin music performed by young artists.  Prior to this I had not heard of either Eric Tsai or Lohan Park, whom I assume to have Taiwanese (the Program gave it away) and Korean ancestry respectively.

The choices for the afternoon's concert are a bit puzzling.  It would be an interesting program for students of violin music, and they would have to be more knowledgeable than me.  (Many would argue the criteria are easy enough to meet.)

Eugene Ysaye's piece is about showing off the violinist's virtuosity.  Performed by a solo violin, the two movements are L'Aurore (dawn) and Danse rustique, and they add to about 11 minutes.  It's a technically difficult piece, with a lot of double stops, left hand pizzicatos, and harmonics.  The basic requirement would be to get the intonation and bowing right, which Tsai did well.  Then the music needs to sound coherent, preferably evoking images of dawn and a rural dance.  Here I thought Tsai came up short.  If this were an examination, the grade would be a passing one, but not much beyond that.

After the Ysaye's piece, Tsai talked a bit about the pieces on the program.  First, they are all in G major, which usually evokes sunny and happy days.  Given the somewhat dreary weather outside, he hoped that the music will brighten the day somewhat.  Of course if the day had been sunny, it would be a message of emphasizing how nice it was. His comments about the pieces on the Program will be incorporated as I write.

Mozart's violin sonatas should really be named piano sonatas with violin accompaniment.  Students of the instrument learn them early in their career, and often find it difficult to find piano partners of the same age.  I am not sure I have encountered this specific sonata before; I will probably remember it as it is unusual in several aspects: it's only two movements, there are not that many repeated notes for which Mozart is known for, and the piece starts in "adagio" tempo.  It was quite an enjoyable performance.  Would I have preferred a more traditional sonata, or even a Beethoven or a Brahms?  Probably.  Tsai did give credit to the pianist and acknowledge the important role of the piano.

The Taiwanese songs are from the era of Tsai's parents and grandparents (so starting in the mid 1950s?).  I know a bit about Taiwanese songs, and these will pass muster.  (I actually know someone with a Ph. D. degree in music from Taiwan.)  However, I submit Taiwanese songs have a lot more breadth and depth than what was heard today.  Today's were all on the slow side.  They were mostly pentatonic, so I am not the key signatures matter very much.  The titles of the three songs are The One I Yearn For, Illusionary Dream by the Riverside, and Dusk at Tamsui.

The story behind the Debussy sonata is a sad one, and it is in the key of G minor.  Debussy set out to write six sonatas for different instruments, but completed only 3 before he succumbed to cancer; this sonata was the composer's last completed work.  It didn't sound sunny at all (how can it, if the listener knows the story behind it), although per Wikipedia there are passages of light.  The movements are Allegro vivo, Intermede (Fantasque et leger) and Finale (Tres anime).

The concert lasted just a little over an hour.  There was no intermission.

New Jersey Symphony. Xian Zhang, conductor; Joyce Yang, pianist. October 11, 2025.

Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, NJ.  Balcony (Seat G111, $52).

Yang and Zhang after the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto.

Program

Hymn for Everyone (2020-22) by Montgomery (b. 1981).

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23 (1874-75) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 by Dvorak.

This is the season opening weekend for New Jersey Symphony.  There was a celebration honoring Zhang's 10th season as Music Director for NJS yesterday at NJPAC.  For tonight it was simply more like a regular season concert, albeit after a summer hiatus.  Attendance seemed to be better than usual,which was good.  There were still a lot of empty seats in the balcony, so "good attendance" is relative.

The pieces by Tchaikovsky and Dvorak are popular in the orchestra repertoire; however, the season began with a piece by Jessie Montgomery, whose music finds its way onto many orchestra stages nowadays.

The well-written Program Notes on Hymn for Everyone has a great description of how the piece came about.  Evidently the hymn came to the composer spontaneously, and the melody moved through different orchestral "choirs."  (Paraphrasing the composer's words.)  The backstory - added by the editors -- was that Montgomery's mother passed away in the year the work was composed, thus tapping into the tradition of hymns offering solace.

The end result reflected the description quite well.  Not in a good way.  I have heard Montgomery's work before, while not wowing, they have been quite enjoyable.  Today's just sound repetitious, and after several repeats it ceased to be captivating, or moving, for that matter.  At 12 minutes it felt 8 minutes too long.  Actually it seemed to last a lot more than 12 minutes.

After "Hymn for Everyone."  The stage hands had a bit of trouble opening the lid of the piano to prepare for the Piano Concerto.  I was worried that the lid would fall down during the performance.

Joyce Yang came on the music scene quite a while ago (I would even say 20 years?). She then disappeared for a while - my best guess is to raise a family. I had seen her perform only once,about 10 years ago, also with New Jersey Symphony.  Today she was in great form, attacking the piano with fierce determination, and finessing it to coax out the lyrical, and doing all that with supreme confidence.  Somewhat missing in the whole performance was a sense of direction, it seemed to go from one passage to another as the music explores what the instrument is capable of.  Very impressive technical display, even more impressive as Tchaikovsky wasn't a pianist.

To be fair, the composition contains many hummable melodies and unforgettable passages  Perhaps that should be enough, or perhaps one should expect more?  The Program Notes also says Tchaikovsky quoted from Cossack, French, and Ukrainian sources.

Yang played an encore that Google identified as Rachmaninoff's Prelude No. 12 in G# Minor,  Op. 32.  (She did announce it, I got only the Rachmaninoff part.)

Dvorak's Eighth Symphony is only second in popularity when compared to the "From the New World."  This Symphony is actually harder to pull off.  One place where ensembles often fall short is the large number of repetitions can overwhelm the audience (with boredom) in a less-than-stellar performance.  Tonight's performance occupies a middling ground.  Which may be okay, but a bit disappointing. From the balcony the balance between the orchestra sections were sometimes problematic.  The oboe was always weak, what was unexpected was the flutes were not as dependable as they usually were.

End of Dvorak's Eighth Symphony.  The principal bass left to join the Baltimore Symphony.  I didn't see her as an extra in the last few NY Phil performances, either.

I walked away thinking while this orchestra has improved a lot over the years, it still has a way to go.

Anne had a commitment for a church event, so she couldn't go.  Our friend from college, Shirley Y came instead.

It was a bit nippy, and a storm was supposed to hit the next day.  

New York Philharmonic. Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; LA Dance Project. October 9, 2025.

David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat EE03, $58).

End of concert.  LA Dance Project dancers in front, and a few groups of musicians on stage.  Many light bars were placed in the auditorium for effect.  Salonen was wearing a red and a blue glove.

Program

Octet for Wind Instruments (1922-23; rev. 1952) by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Concerto for Orchestra, BB 123, Sz 116 (1943) by Bartok (1881-1945).

Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna for Orchestra in Eight Groups (1974-75) by Boulez (1925-2016).

LA Dance Project, Benjamin Millepied, choreographer.

Marissa Brown, Courtney Conovan, Daphne Fernberger, Audrey Sides, Hope Spears, Noah Wang

This was the second series marking Boulez's 100th birthday conducted by Salonen.  On the program is a 32 or so minute composition by Boulez.  As Salonen describes it in the Program Notes, the joint commission (by NY Phil, LA Phil, and l'Orchestre de Paris) was to "add something that would not violate or compromise the music in any way but would give it a new context.  We decided to incorporate choreography ... I am absolutely sure that Boulez would have been delighted."

To start with, this is already a complex composition.  The term "Eight Groups" means exactly that, there are eight groups of instruments, each group a complement of one or more "lyrical" (or non-percussion) instruments plus one percussionist (two in the case of the eighth group) who plays on an array of percussion instruments.  That already sounds complicated enough.  If the lyrical instruments don't play in unison (and I am sure they didn't), then they alone can occupy a 40-staff score.  Assuming the percussionist do only one instrument at a time, we are easily talking 50 lines going on at the same time.  I saw a 29-staff score at Wahnfried, and that was unwieldy enough.  The score in front of Salonen certainly didn't look that long.  In any case, I wonder if musically it would make any difference if the parts are just written as one score (not sure what terminology to use), one can still achieve a spatial dimension by having musicians placed in different parts of the auditorium.  We noticed at lease three placed in the third tier.

Again from the Program Notes, the death of Boulez's fellow composer Bruno Maderna was the catalyst for Boulez composing this work, and it is viewed by many as a "summation of Boulez's sensibilities at that moment."  Left unsaid was if Boulez's sensibilities continued to evolve, or they remained pretty much the same for the rest of his composing career - I am assuming sensibilities don't equate to style.  The score includes a poem by Boulez to memorialize his friend.  It's printed in English in the Program Notes, I wonder if the original was in French.  How the imagery evokes "the idea of alternation, of polyphony within space" is beyond me; I guess I have to understand what the words means first.

My usual frustration with modern music is the words used to describe the music is very interesting, but the actual experience of listening never matches what the words say.  My usual tendency is to map what I hear into what I know about the work.  In this case all I read was the description in the Program Notes, and it provided little guidance; another way of saying I couldn't get the "plot," if there was one.  I read the Wikipedia description just now.  While it added considerably to my understanding, I doubt very much I would have gotten more if I had read it beforehand.  Part of what made it interesting was trying to figure out where the sound came from.

What about the choreography?  I do have a few things to say.  The group of six young people certainly exhibited a lot of athleticism, and by-and-large didn't cause much distraction due to their presence.  One could say, given the nature of the music, a lot had to happen to cause real issues in that regard.  (I.e., there was nothing to distract.)  I don't know how much practice they put in, but I was impressed they could follow the music.  I am assuming the choreography is sync'd to the score, so the dancers needed to know the music well enough to anticipate what was to come along.  The ending of the piece was a repetition of a few notes, the dancers helped with - but did not eliminate - the tedium of the repetitions.  Indeed, the stagnant end felt very incongruent with the rest of the piece; up till that point the music had a sense of propulsion that moved it along.

I usually take a stroll inside the hall at intermission.  Here in the back of the third tier were chairs and stands for additional groups of musicians for the Boulez piece.

The concert began with a short Octet written by Stravinsky.  The piece is quite interesting and showcased the technical prowess of the featured wind instrumentalists.  The three movements of the octet are Sinfonia, Tema con variazioni - Finale: Tempo giusto. The description of the second movement in the Playbill is quite interesting.  The movement starts with the theme and then variation A, but then this variation A becomes a recurrent visitor, resulting in a theme-and-variations rondo.  I got lost soon into this movement, so couldn't tell when the different variations came in (up to variation E).  The finale followed without a pause.

This octet was composed in 1922, after Firebird and The Rite of Spring.  It sounded nothing like the composer's earlier pieces, I wonder if Stravinsky had since moved on to another composition style.

I have encountered Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra a couple of times before, and in reading over my previous blog entries, didn't come away very impressed.  One of those times was Salonen conducting the New York Philharmonic.  The lady sitting next to us clearly was enjoying the performance, so I assume I could get there if I know the music well enough.  Some of that enthusiasm rubbed off on me, which was a good thing.  Interestingly last week we also heard a Concerto for Orchestra, by Lutoslawski.

The Octet.  Salonen conducted.

After performance of Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.

What was remarkable was both the Stravinsky and Bartok pieces sounded very approachable.  I wonder how much more that would be the case if Boulez was performed first.  Speaking of Boulez, the two concerts had a total of a little over 40 minutes of his music in it.  Not that I wanted to hear more, but a bit light for the composer's 100th birthday anniversary.

The Program Notes says the Boulez piece has a duration of 26 minutes, but tonight's performance was about 35 minutes long.  We couldn't make the 9:38 pm train.

New York Philharmonic. Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano. October 3, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Tier 1 (Seat CC101, $95).

Salonen and Aimard after performance of Debussy's Fantaisie for piano and orchestra.

Program

Notation IV, Rythmiques, for Solo Piano (1945) and for Orchestra (1976; rev. 1984, 1987) by Boulez (1925-2016).

Gigues, from Images for Orchestra (1909-12) by Debussy (1862-1918).

Notation VII, Hieratiques, for Solo Piano (1945) and for Orchestra (1997).

Rondes de printemps, from Images for Orchestra (1905-09).

Notation II, Tres vif, for Solo Piano (1945) and for Orchestra (1978; rev. 1984, 1987).

Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra (1889-96) by Debussy.

La Mer: Trois Esquisses symphoniques (The Sea: Three Symphonic Sketches) (1903-05, rev. 1910) by Debussy.

If the last concert we attended didn't provide enough of a dose of contemporary music (let's use the term interchangeably with modern), the next two series by New York Phil should satisfy most modern music lovers. Leila Josefowicz was the draw last week, and for this and next week that role falls on Salonen.  Although Salonen holds his own as a contemporary composer (indeed one wonders why he didn't team up with Josefowicz for the concerto he wrote for her), for these series of concerts he takes on the role of an interpreter.

For me a major reason was timing (I am available) and price.  The price shown above represents a 50% discount.

Pierre Boulez wrote the Notations for Solo Piano at age 20 (the Program Notes calls him a youth radical), and proceeded to turn them into orchestral pieces decades later (a mature master).  The piano pieces were composed (perhaps "constructed" is a better word) using the 12-tone scale, and Boulez further challenged himself with the number 12: 12 piano pieces, same 12-tone scale (are there others?), and each exactly 12 measures long.  I would also add the word hieratiques means sacred or liturgical, and tres vif means very lively.  There is a lot more information in the Program Notes, but having read it before the concert, and reading it just now, I can't really map the descriptions into what I heard.

A few observations and comments.  First, each piano solo is only 12 measures long, the three last 30 seconds, 1 minute and 20 seconds.  The corresponding orchestral passages last 2, 9, and 2 minutes.  A very large orchestra was used.  I counted 32 violins, 12 (or 13) violas, 10 double basses, and 3 harps.  When the piano was playing, the stage was dark except for a light shing on the pianist (Aimard, in the back of the orchestra).  There were also 9 percussionists.

I am okay with programs that highlight both the composer's works, and how that composer evolved over the decades.  What puzzles me is the reasoning behind inserting two of Debussy's pieces in between.  Were they palate cleansers, or there to contrast the music of the two composers?  The transition form the Notation orchestra part to Debussy was easy enough to catch.  However, for my simple mind, I would rather listen to the Notations then the two Images movements together (or better yet, the complete work).  Surely Debussy's Images can stand on its own.  As organized I didn't know how I should listen to it.  The Program Notes again contains description of the two pieces (including Boulez's comments on them), they didn't help at all.

After the first half of the concert.  A rather large ensemble was used.

Debussy never wrote a piano concerto, and Fantaisie is his closest.  The composer tinkered with the composition for years, and the work was never performed in his lifetime.  The work consists of three movements: Andante ma non troppo, Lento e molto espressivo, and Allegro.  The only aspect of the performance I remember was that Aimard had the music in front of him, and he didn't need a page turner.

We heard La Mer at BBC PROMS 2025 in August, not that long ago.  I still stand by my remark that it wasn't a particularly convincing performance (my measure was did it conjure the images stated in the movement headings).  Today's was better, but still not quite there.  There are moments of clarity, but most of the time I don't feel I am sitting somewhere watching how the seas and winds interact.

At the conclusion of the concert.  Salonen was returning to the podium.

Our seats in Tier 1 are supposed to be good, if price is any indication.  Certainly the view of the orchestra is better, albeit further away.  The acoustics, however, is as weak as I remembered it, before the renovation.  Indeed the solo piano was often overwhelmed by the smaller orchestra, and the orchestra didn't sound as robust.  That despite the use of a large ensemble.

We have another concert where another Boulez piece will be featured.  (For a "celebration" of the composer, not much of his work is featured in these two weeks.)  The program will be balanced by works by Stravinsky and Bartok.  I wonder how much I would enjoy it.

Even though we left soon after the concert concluded, we missed the Southbound 1 train and had to wait 8 or 9 minutes for the next one.  We therefore had to wait for a later train.  Meanwhile, some event at Madison Square Garden ended, so the train was very crowded until we got to Secaucus.

New York Philharmonic. David Robertson, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violin. September 27, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat P103, $20).

Program

Devil's Radio (2014) by Bates (b. 1977).

Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61 (1932-33) by Szymanowski (1882-1937).

Concerto for Orchestra (1950-54) by Lutoslawski (1913-94).

The program for tonight was another eclectic one (for me, anyway).  Prior to today I had three encounters with Szymanokski's music, his Violin Concerto No. 1 (twice) and his very short opera King Roger.  All three left me scratching my head.  Back in 2012 we heard Witold Lutoslawski's "Musique funebre" performed by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.  While I have no recollection of that, my blog entry on the piece was positive.  Mason Bates's opera "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" has found its way onto the Metropolitan Opera stage, my previous experience is with his piano concerto (written for Trifonov) and the symphonic work "Anthology of Fantastic Zoology."  My reviews of those pieces were on the "meh" side.

Devil's Radio has a simple premise based on an old Southern saying "Rumor is the Devil's radio."  What was initially conceived as a piano etude morphed into a work for a large orchestra when an Idaho symphony orchestra commissioned the work.  Interestingly no electronic instrument is used in the large ensemble, but the music calls for a large array of percussion instruments.

Given the description provided by the composer, the music made sense as a devil's tribute to himself.  The phrase "... when thunderous hits in the low brass suggest a Goliath-sized figure throwing his weight around" evokes Fasolt and Fafner.  The devil as described in this music is neither sinister nor scary, though.

Bates came on stage after the performance of his work.

Josefowicz is well-known for performing contemporary violin pieces.  If not contemporary, at least obscure.  Tonight's violin concerto belongs in the latter category.  My view on Szymannowski's first violin concerto isn't favorable (I take credit for the remark "better" doesn't mean "good").  Szymanowski counted on his violinist friend Pawel Kochanski for the solo part, and indeed the cadenza is attributed to Kochanski completely.  My initial reaction was "this time it is different," unfortunately after about 10 minutes (the piece is about 20 minutes long) I started to scratch my head; while that assessment is better than the first concerto, it is disappointing nonetheless.  The remark "better doesn't mean good" again comes to mind. Even as a virtuoso showcase, the piece is limited to double and triple stops, and notes played high on the fingerboard.  And speed, of course.  (I am sure there are occasional harmonics, pizzicatos, and other demanding maneuvers.)  Not that they don't require skills of the highest caliber, but they do sound repetitive after a while.  For encore she played another virtuoso piece that Google couldn't identify.  I suspect it's a modern composition highlighting her capabilities.  It felt like more of the same, though.

From the little I know about her, Josefowicz seems to exclusively perform modern violin pieces, many written specifically for her.  We often wonder how virtuoso musicians would sound when they play more "traditional" pieces, and I wonder if Josefowicz will ever get to that point.  This was my third encounter with her, the serious look on her face I noticed before has turned into a pained expression - I never saw her month closed the times I looked.

Her violin didn't project that well (we were in Row P), and didn't have the brilliance of a Stradivarius or the warmth of a Guarnerius.  A web search indicated that she plays a 2013 instrument which in her opinion matches her playing style.

The three movements of the concerto are played without pause, and they are (1) Moderato molto tranquillo - Andante sostenuto; Cadenza; (2)  Allegramente molto energico; and (3) Andantino molto tranquillo.

After performance the encore.  Many of the stripes on the dress were reflections of the lights, thus they moved as Josefowicz moved.  Clever, or distracting?  Or should I even be commenting on this?

To me the major difference between a Concerto for Orchestra and a Symphony is the former provides specific passages for the different sections, and in some cases for the principals of the different sections.  By that measure this composition by Witold Lutoslawski certainly falls into the former category.  An uninitiated listener (i.e., someone who hasn't read the Program Notes) will probably mistake the work for a symphony.

The section "The Work at a Glance" could well have been mistaken for that of a symphony. Nonetheless, it provided a useful guide during the performance.  I will incorporate some of the material in this blog entry.  The motif provided for the first movement (Intrada: Allegro maestoso) was easy enough to grasp; it is a folk melody from the Mazovia region.  The motif is successively stated by different instruments in the ensemble.  The end of the movement is marked by "many solo instruments overlap[ping] with the folk theme ..."  Thereby a concerto for orchestra.

The second movement (Capriccio notturno e arioso; Vivace) is in the form a scherzo, with the Arioso serving as the trio.  The return of the scherzo was very brief.

The eight-measure bass line that anchors the last movement (Passacaglia, toccata e corale) was easy to pick up when the passacaglia first commenced; it got lost as the line got repeated 18 times.  (And I also lost count.)  The ending of symphony was described thus: "It expands, through sequential repetitions, into six parts, by the brasses, then, by the strings, into 14 independent lines covering five octaves.  Probably all true, but for this initiated listener it simply sounded more chaotic.  Which is okay.

Robertson went over to acknowledge the bassists.  They repeated the 8-measure passacaglia theme 18 times, amongst other duties.

The price indicated at the top isn't a typo.  A couple of weeks ago I got an offer from NY Phil for $20 tickets.  Even with that promotion, there were quite a few empty seats tonight.  It looks like there will be few empty seats for Tuesday's performance.

The next two series will be Salonen conducting works by Debussy, Boulez, and Bartok.  BOGO tickets were on offer, so I bought tickets to both concerts.  I wonder how I will react to Boulez, even at 50% off.

The originally programmed conductor was Marta Gardolinska in her NY Phil debut.  Robertson stepped in when she withdrew for health reasons, that's quite unfortunate.  I don't know how these conductors work, Robertson looked like he knew what he was doing, even when he had to deal with the 14 independent lines at the end.

The concert was short (7:30 pm start, ended at 9:15 pm), but the timing was such that we didn't have to hurry to catch our train back to South Amboy.  Penn Station was very busy tonight.