Category Archives: Music

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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ECMSA: Beethoven’s Fifth

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The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta opened the Emerson Series with a concert of all Beethoven music cleverly titled “Beethoven’s Fifth.” It featured two of his early works, the violin sonata no. 5 (the Spring Sonata) and string quartet no. 5, as well as an orchestration of Beethoven’s symphony no. 5 for piano with four hands.
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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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ACP: Brahms, Mozart, & Chausson

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The Atlanta Chamber Players began their concert at the Cecil B Day Chapel at the Carter Library a little late. Apparently, the featured guest artist, Robert McDuffie, was running late due to traffic. When the concert finally began, McDuffie and Pridgen performed Brahms’ Violin Sonata no. 1 in G major. McDuffie didn’t seem to be playing his best through the first movement, though he seemed to gain more control as the piece progressed. I have to admit to zoning out a little during the second movement — though I blame that on Brahms, whose work has never really captured my esteem, and on my own fatigue from a long, stressful week.
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