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.
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