Orango at the Southbank Centre.

The Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen's performance of Shostakovich's Orango (and the Symphony No.4 of course!) is less than a week away (May 16). I've been looking forward to this concert since I bought the ticket in September and I cannot adequately express how excited I am for it. I wrote about the recording and also the history of Orango in this post, but here's a little something extra. The Philharmonia Orchestra made a promotional video for the concert, with lots of information and interviews and music, and it is fantastic and makes me even more giddy with excitement. 

Shostakovich's Opera: Orango from Philharmonia Orchestra on Vimeo.

If you live in the London area (or anywhere in England, it's worth a trip, really) I urge you to go to this. There are still tickets available, including student tickets (50% off) and it will be an unforgettable evening. Get those tickets here.

Bohuslav Martinů - Symphony No.3

There are so many composers still on my to-listen list, but thanks to The Rest is Noise Festival I can strike one of them off: Bohuslav Martinů. Last week I saw the London Philharmonic Orchestra play his Double Concerto, which was amazing (you can read my review here, they also played Berg, Bartók and Webern). It was an incredibly moving and exciting piece, and so of course I had to seek out more of his music. My favourite so far? The Symphony No.3:


Bohuslav Martinů - Symphony No.3: I Allegro Poco Moderato
Played by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Vaclav Neumann

Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was a Czech composer. He studied at the Prague Conservatory for a while but was dismissed because he preferred to study and explore on his own. Eventually he studied composition under Josef Suk for a few years, after which he left and moved to Paris. He was really interested in different styles of music and of course Paris at that time was an absolutely fantastic place artistically speaking. His composing style continued to develop, but it wasn't until after his move to the US in 1941 that he wrote his six symphonies. He composed many pieces (almost 400!) throughout his life, apart from the symphonies there are many ballets, 8 pieces for piano and orchestra, a whole bunch of other concertos, and a lot of chamber music, including 12 string quartets.

Symphony No.3 contains three movements and was composed in 1944. The piece wasn't commissioned but it was dedicated to and premiered by the Boston Symphonic Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky (premiere was in 1945). It's an energetic and loud piece, but honestly it's also quite unlike anything else I've heard before (even though it fits squarely into the genre of loud 20th Century symphonic music that I love so much). The piano has a prominent place in the symphony, perhaps similar to Stravinsky's Sympony in Three Movements. At the same time it has some stunning writing for woodwinds, and some wonderful percussion. Basically, it's really fantastic and you should listen to it. If you like the first movement, here are the others: II Largo and III Allegro - Andante.

Spring music

Officially it's spring, but with the weather still feeling like winter it's difficult to tell. So I've been listening to music that does remind me of spring because we need to get our sunshine from somewhere. Here are a few of my favourites (some of these are overtly related to spring, some much less so, but I hope you enjoy all of them nonetheless): 

Claude Debussy - "Rondes des Printemps" from Images


Igor Stravinsky - "Spring Rounds" from The Rite of Spring


Dmitri Shostakovich - "Folk Feast" from The Gadfly


Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Easter Festival Overture


Mieczyslaw Weinberg - I Allegro risoluto and II Lento from Sinfonietta No.1


John Adams - The Chairman Dances

Witold Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra

One of the things I absolutely love most about classical music is that I keep discovering new composers and new pieces. There is such an endless amount of fantastic music out there, and still being quite young and relatively ignorant, there's still so much I have yet to discover. Every year I have some more composers to add to my composers-I-love list, and this year has already proven to be quite successful in that regard: I discovered Witold Lutoslawski.

These past months the Philharmonia Orchestra had a festival going on called Woven Words. It is in celebration of Witold Lutoslawski, who was born 100 years ago this year. I was lucky enough to see the first concert at the Royal Festival Hall, which included Lutoslawski's Piano Concerto (played by dedicatee Krystian Zimmerman) and Musique Funèbre (and also a fabulous performance of Ravel's complete Daphnis et Chloé!). Both pieces were beautiful, and the Piano Concerto in particular blew my mind. Needless to say I immediately searched out more of Lutoslawski's music and I've loved everything I've listened to. This inspired me to go to yet another of the Woven Words concerts, this time with a raucous performance of Debussy's La Mer and two Lutoslawski pieces: the Cello Concerto and Concerto for Orchestra. It's this latter piece that I'm going to talk about in this blog post.


Witold Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra : I Intrada (allegro)
Played by the Polish National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lutoslawski himself.

Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) was a Polish composer. Many people consider him to be one of the most important composers of the 20th Century, though he is not as well-known as he deserves. He wrote, among others, four symphonies (the second is my favourite), a bunch of shorter orchestral works (Like the Musique Funèbre, Livre pour orchestre, Mi-parti and Jeux Vénitiens), and some great vocals works (like Paroles Tissées and Les Espaces du Sommeil). He is perhaps best well-known for his use of the alaetory technique, in which the musicians and conductor can decide when each instrument moves from one section to the next - there is a precise structure but also some freedom in interpretation. He had an immense talent for orchestral colour and texture, perhaps reminiscent of Ravel and Debussy (which is why the Woven Words concerts were so beautifully programmed), but more modern and chaotic (even though his music makes complete sense to me).

The Concerto for Orchestra was finished in 1954, and originally inspired by Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. It consists of three movements, I Intrada, II Capriccio, Notturna e Arioso and III Passacaglia, Toccata e Corale. It contains a lot of folk(-inspired) melodies, taken from Lutoslawski's native Poland. I absolutely love the piece because it's exhilarating and unpredictable yet it never becomes confusing. It has some wonderful loud moments, which of course I always love but Lutoslawksi's music is so full of constrasts, and this makes every loud moment and every quiet moment effective and at times very, very moving. But above all Lutoslawski's music is just really exciting, always.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes

Quite sometime ago I saw a concert in Utrecht that had Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Violin Concerto on the program. I hadn't heard Weinberg's music before and even though it wasn't the most genius thing I'd ever heard, I really enjoyed the Violin Concerto and it piqued my interest to find some more of Weinberg's music. I have since fallen in love with quite a lot of his pieces, especially his orchestral work and feel like it's time to share one!

This is the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes. It starts off really calmly, with cellos and basses, though pretty soon the rest of the orchestra joins in and the main melody first appears just after 2 minutes. But for me the real joy is after about 6 minutes! There are Weinberg works that I find more beautiful or more moving and I'm sure I'll post those sometime, but I've been addicted to this Rhapsody for a few days now because it brings a smile to my face. Have a listen:


Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes
Played by the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Gabriel Chmura.

Mieczyslav (Moisey) Weinberg (1919-2006) was a Jewish Polish/Russian composer. He was born in Warsaw, where he later studied at the conservatory. The history of his family is tragic, his parents and sister died in the Trawniki concentration camp, but when WWII broke out Weinberg fled to the Soviet Union, settling in Minsk. In 1943 Dmitri Shostakovich convinced him to move to Moscow, and the two became good friends. Weinberg was never a part of the musical elite in Russia, some considered him a bad version of Shostakovich, but at the same time many other composers (and some critics) did love Weinberg's music. Nowadays he is still much less well-known than his contemporaries, though last year the Vredenburg in Utrecht had a small festival dedicated to his music (and of course I am very much regretting not seeing more of those concerts!). Weinberg wrote 22(!) symphonies, 17 string quartets, 7 operas and whole bunch of other music including a requiem. I still have to a lot to explore when it comes to his music, but I'm very excited to do so.

The Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes was written in 1949. Unfortunately I can't find all that much information on it. It's about 12 to 15 minutes long and its title already gives away where much of its inspiration was taken from. One of the reasons why I like it so much is that although it contains some upbeat catchy melodies it's not a consistently joyful piece. Take the opening for example, which one could perhaps compare to something like Shostakovich's Eight Symphony (and no one could ever call that a happy piece!). It is slow and brooding, almost foreboding. It doesn't betray anything of the energetic and joyous middle part, yet everything flows and everything works well together. I hope at the very least that it makes you remember Weinberg's name and perhaps search out some more of his music.

Favourite concerts of 2012

2012 was another fab year for live classical music. I reviewed 29 concerts for Bachtrack and many of them were really good. There were, as always, a few concerts that really stood out for me. Interestingly enough, they all seem to have been from April-July but I swear the rest of the year was good as well! Now that I live in England I am very curious to see what 2013's list will be like, especially with The Rest is Noise festival going on I'm anticipating perhaps my most exciting musical year yet. But now for 2012:

1. May 31: Maurice Ravel - L'Enfant et Les Sortilèges and Ma Mère L'Oye, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Magdalena Kožená, Nathalie Stutzmann, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Vlaams Radiokoor et al at De Doelen, Rotterdam.
I am of course a big fan of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. They're an absolutely fantastic orchestra with great programming every year, and this Ravel concert was probably my favourite concert in all of 2012. Apart from L'Enfant et les Sortilèges (which, together with Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre must be one of the funniest operas ever) they played Ma Mere l'Oye and these two pieces Ravel wrote for children are just stunning and hilarious and beautiful and moving. All the soloists were phenomenal and the puppet theatre done by O.T. Theater only made everything more awesome.
My bachtrack review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-de-doelen-rotterdam-phil-seguin-ravel-enfant-sortileges (five stars).

2. June 7: Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No.1 and more, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado, Alisa Weilerstein at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam.
Of course Shostakovich concerts are generally my favourites because I love his music above all. But Alisa Weilerstein's rendition of his Cello Concerto No.1 was honestly something else. I'd seen it live twice before and was impressed every single time, but not to the extent that Weilerstein impressed me. For the entirety of her playing I found it hard to breathe because I simply felt too much, it was such an emotional performance, and combined with all her technical mastery that made it a performance I will probably remember for a long, long time. The other pieces of the evening were pretty great as well, I loved Schnittke's Moz-art a là Haydn which was my first live-experience of a Schnittke piece!
My bachtrack review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-mahler-chamber-orchestra-heras-casado-holland-festival (four stars).

3. April 27: James MacMillan - Violin Concerto, Bartók - Romanian Folk Dances and Shostakovich - Symphony No.9, Radio Kamer Filharmonie, James MacMillan, Vadim Repin
I think I loved James MacMillan's violin concerto even more than I thought I would. I was familiar with some of his choral works, which I really enjoy, and I figured that having Vadim Repin (one of my favourite violinists in the world) play the violin concerto would at least make it interesting. But it turned out to be amazing and just right up my street and it took me a little while to appreciate just how much I loved it. It was loud and energetic and playful and funny and moving and memorable. It was recorded for Dutch TV and even though I haven't found an entire recording on youtube yet, there is this movement which you should just watch. Sadly enough, The Radio Kamer Filharmonie has disbanded this year because the Dutch government makes stupid decisions and it is a massive loss to the Dutch classical music world.
My bachtrack review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-macmillan-repin-radio-kamer-filharmonie-shostakovich (four stars)

4. June & July: All the Pekka Kuusisto
Basically, this year was a good year for Netherlands-based Pekka Kuusisto fans. He was the artist in residence at the Robeco Zomerconcerten which means I got to see him play three times and each time was marvelous. The concert of Finnish tango music (with pianist Iiro Rantala) was so much fun and actually a lot more interesting musically that I'd anticipated (I love being wrong). His rendition of the Sibelius Violin Concerto is second to none, and truly revealed the beauty and strength of that concerto (some renditions I find can make it a little bit dull, but at least with Kuusisto you will never ever be bored). The Paganini concert, with guitarist Ismo Eskelinen was probably my favourite of the three, because it kind of combined all of Kuusisto's strengths. Not only is he a gifted performer and great story-teller, but he is an incredibly technically accomplished violinist with such mastery and musicality that you cannot help but be in awe.
My bachtrack reviews: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-robeco-2012-kuusisto-rantala-finnish-tango (Finnish tango, four stars)
http://www.bachtrack.com/review-robeco-2012-kuusisto-eskelinen (Paganini, four stars)
http://www.bachtrack.com/review-robeco-zomerconcerten-rpo-sinaisky-kuusisto (Sibelius, three stars)

5. July 27: Britten - Sinfonia da Requiem and Shostakovich - Symphony No.5, Aldeburgh World Orchestra, Mark Elder at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam
Okay so 2012 wasn't as impressive a Shostakovich-year as 2011 was for me, but there were still some great concerts. The Aldeburgh World Orchestra gave an amazing performance of the Symphony No.5 (I still fondly remember the timpanist's last notes, he was great), and combined with Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (one of my favourite Britten pieces) this was just generally one of my favourite concerts. They also played the Adagio from Mahler's 10th which was good, but not quite as memorable as Britten and Shostakovich. Every time I see Mark Elder conduct a Shostakovich symphony I am sutprised by how good it is, you'd think that by now I'd remember that he's great at it! Also, the fact that the Aldeburgh World Orchestra are not even a professional orchestra and had been playing together for just 3 (!!!) weeks before this concert makes it all the more impressive.
My bachtrack review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-robeco-2012-aldeburgh-world-orchestra-elder-britten-mahler-shostakovich (four stars)

Other highlights: Renaud Capuçon playing Ravel's Tzigane and Saint-Saëns's Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso at Vredenburg Utrecht, Alexander Melnikov playing all of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ Amsterdam, the Philip Glass Violin Concerto 'American Four Seasons' by Robert McDuffie and Amsterdam Sinfonietta in Middelburg, Prokofiev's Symphony No.5 by Valery Gergiev and the Rotterdam Philharmonic at De Doelen Rotterdam, Grieg's Peer Gynt at the Barbican London, Ravel's Shéhérazade and Daphnis et Chloé by Yannick and the R'dam Phil at De Doelen, Mahler's Symphony No.7 by the Gustav Mahler Jugendorkester at Concertgebouw Amsterdam. And probably more!