I really enjoyed last night’s concert of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It began with some dancey fun in the form of three dance variations from Bernstein’s ballet “Fancy Free.” It was a vivacious start to the evening and the musicians sounded great under the capable baton of Peter Oundjian.
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It seemed that Maestro Spano was so excited about Mahler’s Symphony no. 1 in the second half of the program at this evening’s performance of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that he forgot that the piano concerto in G major played in the first half was actually written by Beethoven and not Mahler. He conducted it as though it were from the late Romantic period, which sounded horribly off with the smaller orchestra and the whole thing came across as though it were being interpreted by a brooding, teenage goth. Beethoven’s piano concerto no. 4 is one that rarely fails to delight me, but I found this slow, over-dramatic performance to be a total bore. I can’t even comment on Pohjonen’s playing in it because my mind was wandering so much from the tedium of the performance that I barely noticed him. He did, however, impress me with his playing of Grieg’s “Butterfly” during his encore.
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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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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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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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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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I was disappointed in the first half of tonight’s concert. I have no idea if it was somehow just me, but everything under Spano’s baton seemed sterile. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard Sibelius’ “The Bard” before this evening, so I can’t be sure how it is normally played, but I found myself unable to find any expressiveness in the way that it was performed. I actually bought the ASO’s (somewhat) recent all-Sibelius album and listened to the first half of “Tapiola” on the way home to remind myself that Spano et al can most certainly do more than mere justice to the composer’s music. (This is a great album, by the way, and I’ve been meaning to pick it up for a while. If you haven’t heard it, do try to give it a listen.)
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