Stevens Cooperative School Middle School Spring Concert. May 13, 2025.

Gym at Hoboken Campus.  General seating.

Program

Students started doing various instruments starting at fifth grade.  Reid picked the violin.  This was his first concert playing a musical instrument.

Because of limited space, only 2 audience members were admitted for each student.  Kuau gave up his spot as he had two more events involving Reid the next couple of days.  We were advised we could just show up and no one would object, which we did, with Ellie.

The concert was quite long, at over an hour.  Both the students and the audience were enthusiastic throughout.  Seventh and eighth graders are teenagers, so it was not surprising some of them - actually surprisingly few - acted cool sometimes.  Being the biased grandparents that we are, we are glad we went.

Afterwards Anne and I had a simple meal at the corner Vietnamese restaurant.

"What the World Needs Now."  Haven't heard it for a long long while.

Boston Symphony Orchestra. Andris Nelsons, conductor; Baiba Skride, violin. May 3, 2025.

Boston Symphony Hall.  Center Balcony (Seat F28, $76).

Program - Decoding Shostakovich, Orchestra Program 5.

Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77[99] (1948) by Shostakovich (1906-1975).

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 (1943).

Why does the violin concerto have two opus numbers?

We were in the area for the NEC Prep concert earlier today, so we also bought tickets for this evening's BSO concert.  It was the conclusion of their "Decoding Shostakovich" Festival.  In addition to the five BSO concerts (this would be the last), there were also ensemble performances, and talks.  Associating Shostakovich with "Festival" is a bit strange (so is Mahler), the talks and concerts (and their accompanying notes) probably would add a lot of appreciation to the hitherto casual listener.  The entire festival can be overwhelming: in my case, two concerts 4 pieces were more than enough to keep track of.  It still does not explain why in one program Uchida played Beethoven's 4th piano concerto.  Great performance, no doubt, but how did they hang together?  (Perhaps Program Notes for that concert would explain, and didn't even need six degrees of separation.  I skimmed over the Notes for that program - still available on line on 5/8/2025 - and didn't see any connection mentioned.)

I remember the name Baiba Skride from a concert in Taipei I attended.  That was many years ago (2014), she played Brahms's violin concerto.  Checking on my blog entry for that event, I enjoyed that performance.

Rightly or wrongly, whenever I hear a Shostakovich piece I want to know if Shostakovich was being "patriotic," or was he expressing dissent, and whether the expressed patriotism is actually mockery in disguise.  It is hard to tell for the piece.  That it was first performed in 1955, several years before it was written, resulted in many musicologists (or even historians) to think there was a political message that could only be publicized after Stalin's death in 1953.  Some attribute the delay to Oistrakh, to whom the concerto was dedicated.  Today's Program Notes added the possibility that the Jewish flavor of the piece caused the delay as the USSR turned quite antisemitic at that time.

Indeed I noted quite a bit of Jewishness in the concerto.  Shostakovich reportedly said "the distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations."  I can convince myself I experienced that; but nothing like what one gets with "Fiddler on the Roof".

The theme DSCH is in the concerto; but I didn't get it.  It has four movements: (1) Nocturne.  Moderato (2) Scherzo.  Allegro (3) Passacaglia.  Andante; and (4) Burlesque.  Allegro con brio.  And a technically difficult cadenza between the last movements.  The Program Notes also described the moods and techniques involved.  While useful in appreciating the virtuosity of the soloist and the orchestra (perhaps even the composer), I found them not very helping for a first time listener.

But I am not a first time listener.  There are three other entries in this blog, the most recent one being two years ago.  While I wasn't blown away by that one, I was quite impressed with the prior ones (2009 and 2014).  My experience with the violin concerto thus contrasts unfavorably with that with the first cello concerto.  And I am a lot more familiar with the violin.

In contrast, the message of the eighth symphony was much clearer.  It has five movements: Adagio; Allegretto; Allegro non troppo - Largo - Allegretto.  As the dashes indicate, there are no pauses between the last three movements.  The long first movement represents the evil power of militarism, and a string motive reappears in subsequent movements to give coherence to the music.  The second movement provides music for a march, but one devoid of humanity.  The third movement is a dance of death, with its "theme" a descending octave shriek.  The fourth movement evokes a requiem for the countless dead with some ideas from the first movement reprised over a passacaglia repeated 11 times.  (All this paraphrased from a few paragraphs in the Program Notes.)

Even though I didn't get all the specifics, the description helped tremendously my appreciation the performance.  Some hints on what the composer was trying to say go a long way.  I couldn't find a prior reference to this symphony in this blog; this makes it even more amazing.  Since the descriptions of the concerto and symphony were written by the same author, it could be it's difficult to make such associations with the violin concerto.  (I am assuming Shostakovich didn't provide any notes to interpret the symphony.)

Nelsons is quite good with acknowledging the contributions of the musicians in the orchestra.  Here it was the first violin section.

The Program says the symphony is 66 minutes long.  It ended up being 75.  The concert started only a few minutes late (7:38pm?), and ended at 10:30 pm or so.

We stopped by the Charlestown soccer field to watch part of Emmie's game, and took an Uber to the Symphony Hall area, and had dinner before the concert started.  Joe came by to pick us up afterwards.  The afternoon saw rain on and off, sometimes heavy, we managed to dodge most of it.

NEC Prep: String Training Orchestras 9 & 8 & Prep String Orchestra 8:30. May 3, 2025. Peter Jarvis, Marta Zurad - conductors.

Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory.  Auditorium (Free).

Emmie seems to enjoy playing in the orchestra.  She gets up early Saturdays for practices that start at 8.

Program for STO 8:00

A Knight's Quest by Soon Hee Newbold (b. 1974).

Nimrod (from Enigma Variations) by Edward Elgar (1857-1934).

Symphony No. 1, GMW 11, II. Andante allegretto by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

     arr. Sandra Dackow

Conductors: STO 9 and 8 - Peter Jarvis; PSO - Marta Zurad.

This is the second concert of the year for these people.  Instead of having separate concerts for each groups, a combined concert was offered.

The performance certainly sounded better than the one in December last year.  Also, I was quite impressed with how well the Prep String Orchestra did.

STO 9.  No double bass.

STO 8.  Emmie is in the cello section.

PSO.

Zurad pointed out how few violists there were in the ensemble, and that the double bass was a "ringer" (my term) from NEC.  I think most kids choose the viola at an older age, so I don't think it is an issue, at least not yet.  I was a bit surprised with double bassists though.  Fifty years ago bassists were welcome into many orchestras; today hundreds apply for one opening in a world-class orchestra.  Some disconnect here.

New York Philharmonic. Simone Young, conductor; Steven Isserlis, cello. May 1, 2025.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat FF102, $89).

Isserlis after performance Schumann's Cello Concerto.

Program

Notturno for Strings and Harp (1895) by Schoenberg (1874-1951).

Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 (1850) by R. Schumann (1810-56).

Symphony No. 6 in A major (1879-81; ed. L. Nowak, 1952) by Bruckner (1824-96).

Both the Schoenberg and the Bruckner pieces are not often heard live in concert nowadays.  To underscore this point: for the NY Phil this is the first performance of the Schoenberg piece, and it was in January 2016 that Bruckner 6th was last performed.  I have no recollection of ever listening to it (turns out I have, multiple times).  The Bruckner piece is also remarkable as one of his few works that have (had?) not been heavily modified after its completion, either by himself, or by one of his students.

Nocturne was written before Schoenberg developed his 12-tone technique (1923), and when he was about 20.  The music equivalent of Picasso's neoclassical period?  Given that he probably had been self-taught, it is a rather impressive piece.  Indeed, both Strauss and Mahler thought highly of him as a "classical" composer.  The short 4-minute piece called for long passages by the solo violin (and Frank Huang's name is listed in the program), and the title has "for Strings and Harp."  The harp, however, did not figure as prominently as the violin; it mostly was part of the orchestra ensemble.  While the piece wasn't particularly captivating, it did pique my interest in Schoenberg's early compositions.  I do wonder if he had an early style that is easily recognizable to one familiar with that body of work.

Notturno is a short 4-minute piece composed by Schoenberg before atonality set in.  The concertmaster had quite a workout in the piece.

The Program Notes mentions that Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 isn't as popular as some of his other works.  Indeed, I wasn't familiar with it.  To me, Bruckner tends to stay on his themes a long time, develop them fully before moving to the next passage.  I didn't get that at all this evening.  While I heard precision, dynamics, and a great sound, I simply couldn't figure out what the symphony was saying.  I expected a lot more, because of the orchestra, the conductor, and my memories of prior encounters with Bruckner.  Perhaps unfamiliarity had something to do with it?  Well, I found several entries on this symphony in this blog, and while many writeups reflect my head-scratching, I did enjoy the piece very much at least on one occasion, and that was performed by the NJ Symphony (yay!).  I also observe that Bruckner has somewhat lost his popularity recently.  [I am typing this after I went to the BSO concert a couple of days later, and I enjoyed Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8, a work that was/is also quite unfamiliar.  More on that when I work on that blog entry.]

It turns out I went to the last time NY Phil programmed this symphony.  I went to the January 27, 2016 concert, and the last concert of that series was on January 30.  And the one before that at NY Phil was in January, 2013.  Not sure what to think of it.  Indeed the symphony is programmed less frequently recently? And/or I go to too many NY Phil concerts?

A large orchestra was used in the performance of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony.

The Schumann piece in comparison felt like a pair of well-worn shoes (I mean this as a compliment).  The cellist delivered exactly what I expected.  His cello - a Strad - could have sounded a bit louder.  I also amaze at how a cellist's left fingers seem to dance all over the fingerboard in an elegant manner.  Isserlis played an encore piece, Google returned the title of "The Song of the Birds" performed by Isserlis, so I have to trust the result.  It can best be characterized as an ephemeral piece.  One can find many references to the piece on the web.  It was a Catalan folk song adapted into a cello piece, performed often by Pablo Casals in recognition of refugees all over the world.

What Google returned as the encore piece.

The concert lasted two hours, so we couldn't make the 9:38 pm train back to NJ (not helped by subways run every 10 minutes at night).  We would be going to Boston the next day.

Stevens Cooperative School. Finding Nemo Kids. April 28, 2025.

Stevens Cooperative School, Jersey City.

Maisie was in this production with cast members from the 3rd and 4th grades.  Maisie did this play in November, 2023 (with Hoboken Children's Theater), and it was quite different from tonight's show.

Reid as a 6th grader helped with some props and costumes.