What was the last concert you went in 2016?
Posted by: Richard Dane on 17 January 2016
A new year, and have been to my first concert of 2016, so thought I should start a new thread.
Peter Stark conducting the RCM Philharmonic Orchestra playing Elgar's Enigma Variations at the Royal College of Music in South Kensington.
You don't often get the opportunity to hear The Engima Variations played live and I'm pleased to say that for the most part the RCM Phil played well. They pretty much nailed the centre piece of Nimrod, although in other parts the timing was a little off and the charming Dorabella variation missed the sprightly balletic touch that you would find from a master such as Monteux conducting the LSO in their prime. But that's a huge ask of what is such a young and inexperienced orchestra, so overall a wonderful, if rather short, concert, and a great start to the 2016 concert season.
Jaap Van Zweden/CSO + Christiane Karg/Michael Nagy
Program:
Mozart Masonic Funeral Music
Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Brahms German Requiem
Christiane Karg made a CSO debut with German Requiem at the Orchestra Hall. When she entered the hall, I was shocked to see how *tiny* she is. ( even shorter than van Zweden! )
I was curious about how she's going to pull off Isolde but alas, Liebestod was orchestrated version without any vocal.
CSO sounded unusually bright and lightweight for both Mozart and Wagner pieces and former lacking in transparency and polish and the latter was malnourished with an anorexic Isolde! I suspect part of acoustic problem was they cleared the back terrace to accommodate CSO chorus so the house was relatively empty on the back of the stage with a lot of reflective surfaces exposed.
In contrast, Brahms' Requiem fared much better. Less bright and much better balanced tone. Both Karg and Nagy's voices carried above excellent 100+ Chicago chorus. Perhaps not as *human* and expressive as Muti's reading but I enjoyed Zweden's precise and compact style.
Program
Mozart Masonic Funeral Music
Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Brahms A German Requiem
Had this evening a good concert with Arabella Steinbacher and the Oslo Philharmonic. Violin Concerto of Mendelssohn and after the break Prokofiev Suites Romeo & Julliet. Arabella is great she has a warm type of tone and of course also the required virtuosity, her best parts where the playful parts of the concert. The Prokofiev was very very good......, so a nice concert evening. With a signing session .....
More pictures....
Royal Festival Hall, Wednesday 23rd November:-
Excellent Beth Hart gig. She has a great bluesy voice, drummer and bassist also good guitarist a bit off at times.
We left before the encore to make sure we could get home, and managed without resort to a taxi.
Why is it that ****wits have to go to gigs, talk,film, keep getting drinks and then go to the toilet? 
A blistering gig from the Wedding Present, still as vital as ever. Much more enjoyable than I expected.
SJB
Bert Schurink posted:The conductor was Jakob Hrusa, unknown to me but he did a good job. I would echo your feedback, it's not that it was bad - I just missed emotion from Buchbinder. To a friend I wrote that it was a B Concert, which is I think the right indication
He was a director for Nicola Benedetti's excellent Bruch disc and I recall how impressed I was with his orchestration.
Listen to this CD. He's really good! It's interesting to note that in concerto, orchestration is just as important as a soloist to make a great performance.
I am looking forward for his CSO debut next year.
And the signing session....
Now with a picture through a difficult route of Photobucket online....
