Tonight’s ASO concert opened with Blacher’s Variations on a Theme by Niccolo Paganini. I believe that this was the first time that I’d heard the piece. The theme comes from Paganini’s Caprice no. 24 and is presented at first by the concertmaster, is then picked up by the rest of the orchestra, and then the variations begin. The variations were mostly pretty fun, a number of them having a strong jazz influence and sounding very Gershwiny. The musicians played it well under Marc Piollet’s baton and I thought that it served as a good concert opener.
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