Category Archives: Orchestra

ASO: Robert Spano with David Coucheron

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The ASO violins left me wondering if they had to use a large number of subs or if they had even rehearsed this concert en ensemble. They were really off this evening and you could even see bows moving out of sync and in opposite directions of the rest of the section on numerous occasions, especially during Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel, which certainly didn’t help me appreciate a piece that has never really caught my ear. I’m also not a huge fan of Brahms’ violin concerto, for that matter. Top that off with me, due to an unfortunate series of phone conversations that I had to have today, being in a mood that seeing Lauri Stallings — a choreographer who has been called out by the NY Times for blatantly ripping off other artists and, in her supreme ignorance of her art form, has likely caused physical harm to her students in the past or, at the very least, taught them absolute worst practices in regards to basic dancer safety — really got under my skin. Despite all of that, I can, in all honesty (and with a little help of some wine during intermission), say that I enjoyed the evening’s concert.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Tatiana Monogarova, Morris Robinson, & Simon Trpceski

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This evening’s ASO concert was full of beauty and power realized by some great soloists under a well managed baton wielded by Maestro Spano. It began with Shostakovitch’s Symphony no. 14, which is scored for soprano and bass vocalists with a chamber orchestra made up of strings and percussion. The vocal parts are Russian translations of 11 poems by Lorca, Apollinaire, Kuchelbecker, and Rilke, all of which revolve around death through a variety of perspectives. Despite this, the music isn’t all grim and brooding and is actually somewhat lively at times. There was something throughout the piece that came across sometimes as abstract and almost alienating and others as somewhat contemplative, as though the music is thinking about the poems, turning them around in different ways to try to get to the real meaning. The soloists for the piece were soprano Tatiana Monogarova and bass Morris Robinson. The vocalists were both excellent: Robinson’s low notes were clear and strong and Monogarova’s performance was dramatic and moving. The third movement in particular, based on Apollinaire’s ‘Loreley,’ nearly brought me to tears and I found the fourth, based on Apollinaire’s ‘Le Suicide,’ only slightly less moving. The low strings are very prominent in this piece and cellist Daniel Laufer gave a stand-out performance, particularly when giving solo accompaniment to Monogarova.
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ASO: Carlos Kalmar with Yevgeny Sudbin

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Oddly enough, I have no idea why I had a ticket to the ASO tonight. It wasn’t a bad program but it was also not one that normally would attract me: I prefer my Beethoven from later in his career and I’m just not big on Brahms. When I checked the program sometime last week to see what I was doing this weekend I found myself wondering why I hadn’t exchanged this ticket for something else. Maybe it was because I’ve never heard Schoenberg’s orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor and was curious. Who knows but, that said, I enjoyed it and am glad that I went.
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ASO: Robert Spano

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The ASO had a little pre-concert reception with complimentary wine and cheese for subscribers, so I went to this evening’s concert a little early and enjoyed a glass of wine and a chat. It seems that management is so convinced that nobody likes classical music that they decided to play cool jazz in the background to get us ready for the show. You’d think, given that the ASO has produced many Grammy winning albums and even have their own record label, that they might play something that would actually promote the ASO but, well, at least they didn’t explicitly insult us the way that Doug Hertz kept doing during the lockout. Anyway, thanks for the wine.
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ASO: Olli Mustonen

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Mustonen managed to interest me with his The Old Church at Petajavesi, though I’m not sure that I really like the piece. I did enjoy it, but it felt a little weak in the orchestration at times, maybe a little too simple, like he was more intent on expressing the piece’s program than creating an orchestral work. Although I don’t think that I’ve heard anything else of his, I wouldn’t write him off just based on this. There was quite a lot in the piece that might not have fit so well together but he found a way to bring a certain coherence to it that really worked. I’d be interested in hearing a more abstract piece by him. I don’t know if either of his symphonies have been recorded, but maybe I’ll try to check them out if I can. For some reason, I left the piece thinking that he might create something interesting were he to compose a horn concerto.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Jonathan Biss

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I had high hopes for tonight’s ASO concert but, sadly, I was let down. I really like Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra. It has some good power and lots of exciting bits but doesn’t neglect pure beauty. It’s a great piece to show off the sections of the orchestra as well as the principals. There are a lot of really good musicians in the ASO and they have done a really great recording of it but, sadly, I don’t think that, taken as a whole, they met the challenges of the piece this evening. The principals were mostly great, though I think that I’ve found that I don’t like the sound of the new principal double bassist’s instrument. I think that the sound that I didn’t like last weekend was coming from it, though it wasn’t as bad tonight. During his solos, it had a bright and disorganized sound to it and I found that I could pick his sound out when he was playing in ensemble both during the Higdon and the Beethoven, which I couldn’t do with any of the other bassists. It was one of two things that I had a hard time believing that I was hearing this evening and it made me feel a little like I might be crazy or something and I’m wondering if I would be able to hear the detail that bugs me if I were sitting further away. Also, one of the percussionists didn’t quite match the quality of the others tonight, which really threw huge sections of the piece for me.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Tom Sherwood & Charles Settle

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I’ve only attended one or two of the ASO’s pre-concert talks that are hosted by Metzler — they aren’t bad but they also aren’t really my thing — but I went to the one this evening because, frankly, I had nothing better to do than get there early. It was actually pretty interesting: Avner Dorman, the composer of the first piece on the program, ‘Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!,’ was there to talk about his work and he was actually somewhat interesting. The piece, it seems, originated as just a percussion duo and was later expanded to become a concerto. This really showed in the piece as the orchestra merely filled out the sound a little in the first movement but played a more complementary role in the second and third movements. He said of the title that he had decided to write each movement around an idea that was both enticing and dangerous: Spices taste wonderful but, in excess, can cause digestive issues (you can tell the man is Jewish); Perfumes “seduce but can also betray;” and Toxins can be quite intoxicating as well as being deadly.
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