We’re coming up on the end of the concert season. I attended my last TSO show last week, and there are only two more left in this season from the NSO, so this began the countdown of the final three. … Continue reading NSO’s The Planets
A concert review. What a fantastic program. Also, I think I’m going to stop including “concert review” in the titles of my concert reviews. Isn’t it obvious? Should be. Just added that first line there. The titles get too long … Continue reading NSO’s Shostakovich: His Humor and Seriousness
I’m not entirely sure what it was about these three pieces that tie them together under that title, even before hearing the first piece on the program. Some things, though, never change, and that’s so comforting. 19:30 pm, the chatter from … Continue reading Concert Review: NSO’s Musical Philosophy
performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Marriss Jansons One of the largest symphonies in the standard repertoire, along with most of Mahler, bits of Bruckner, and some Shostakovich (but this is his longest). This recording comes in at around … Continue reading Shostakovich Symphony no. 7 in C major, op. 60 ‘Leningrad’
Concerts have become a bit slow-going in the summer. I’m pretty okay with that, though. There are some big ones coming up soon that I need to save up for. But perhaps aside from one or two graduation recitals (which I think were actually in May, so no), this was the first concert of the month of June, and one of perhaps only two. Let’s talk about it. Mr. Gilbert Varga is back in town with our Taipei Symphony Orchestra. Last time I heard them play was under The Great Maestro Eliahu Inbal. What a pleasure, a privilege to see/hear … Continue reading Concert Review: Taipei Symphony- Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff
Back to symphony hall less than a week since Eroica for another fantastic performance, again conducted by Maestro Gunther Herbig. The title ‘Reflections on War’ (slightly different in Chinese: 烽火蕭八) was eye-catching. I read somewhere in a program or website for the concert that it was to commemorate the 70th anniversary of World War II. Before reading up on Liszt’s Les Preludes, I wouldn’t have seen or heard or thought of any association with war, but it was an interesting contrast, in many ways. The program was also heavily weighted toward the second half, obviously. While Shostakovich’s eighth is a massive … Continue reading NSO: Symphonic Milestone- Reflections on War
A musical scavenger hunt of sorts. “He’s making a list… he’s checking it…” oh, only about half a billion times. I got this idea from this thread at Talk Classical which you may not be able to read without logging in. This is essentially an exercise in musical sudoku. There is ZERO inherent quality that a first symphonies of multiple composers would have in common, save it being the first one they wrote. Prokofiev’s first as a kind of musical caricature is so different from the ambitious first symphonies of Brahms or Mahler or Rott (his only, as I know, thanks … Continue reading The favorite symphonies list
performed by the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich Buckle up… please listen to this piece, and please read this whole thing. Or just read the wikipedia article on it. I reference it a lot. I listened to his first … Continue reading Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47
I couldn’t agree more with this article. I was giddy when I found it. Read it and then come back. (Buckle up. The first few paragraphs are outrageously tangential, and then we get to the main point.) I am coming to have a closer relationship with classical music after realizing that it is perhaps the only thing that helps me enjoy or look forward to washing dishes. I don’t have a dishwasher, and I cook a ton (and I’m a messy cook), so there’s lots of washing up to be done in a very small kitchen, but instead of setting a … Continue reading Nerds (geeks?) and Classical Music
performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich (This piece has been ‘revisited’ since I felt the article below to be inadequate. For the updated article, click here.) This was Shostakovich’s graduation piece at the Leningrad conservatory, and he … Continue reading Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in Fm
Fugue for Thought 