Favourite concerts of 2013

Well, 2013 was another impressive year for me concert-wise. It had some of the best concerts I've ever been to, and thankfully a lot of Shostakovich as well as new musical discoveries (most importantly Lutoslawski and Martinu). As I was writing this list I noticed that there's a lot of mention of Esa-Pekka Salonen, but that's just further proof that he conducts awesome programs amazingly well (no news there). Here's my five favourite concerts of the year: 

1. May 16: Shostakovich - Orango and Symphony No.4, Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ryan McKinny, Allan Clayton, Richard Angas, Elisabeth Meister, Peter Hoare, Philharmonia Voices at the Royal Festival Hall

I had been looking forward to this concert ever since it was announced, and on the day itself I was giddy with excitement. The newly discovered Orango received its European premiere in a fantastic performance by the orchestra and soloists, lead by Esa-Pekka Salonen, who is always extraordinary. I wish someone would have filmed the performance because it was also visually captivating, and Ryan McKinny in particular was spectacular. The Philharmonia's performance of the Fourth Symphony was one of the best - if not the best - I've heard, and I really hope they will perform more Shostakovich symphonies with Salonen in upcoming years. 

My bachtrack review (five stars)

2. October 30: Schnittke - Symphony No.1, Lutoslawski - Cello Concerto, and Ligeti - Lontano, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Michail Jurowski, Johannes Moser at the Royal Festival Hall

Okay so by the time this concert came around I had gotten slightly tired of Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto. An amazing piece though it is, 3 performances in one year may be a bit too much. Thankfully I thought wrong because this performance turned out to be BY FAR the best. It was so much better than the other (also good) performances, in terms of musical interpretation by the conductor (Michail Jurowski is pretty badass isn't he?), playing by the orchestra but especially in terms of the soloist. Moser was phenomenal, absolutely amazing. And this performance wasn't even the highlight of the evening! Schnittke's Symphony No.1 is one of the most fantastic pieces of music ever written and the London Philharmonic gave such an incredible performance that even thinking about it makes me smile from ear to ear. It was a life-affirming performance that was suitably ridiculous, challenging, intense and all-encompassing. Definitely a concert I will never, ever forget. 

3. October 26: Shostakovich - Symphony No.13, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Mikhail Petrenko, Gentlemen of the London Philharmonic Choir at the Royal Festival Hall

I really miss seeing Yannick at the Rotterdam Philharmonic, so of course I had to go see him conduct the London Philharmonic in Shostakovich's impressive Symphony No.13. The performance did not disappoint, Petrenko was really impressive, and the male chorus was completely on point but the orchestra in particular gave a passionate and intelligent performance of this emotional and bleak symphony. It's one of my favourite works Shostakovich has ever written and so I tend to be a little bit worried when I see it live, because what if I don't like the interpretation of the performance?! But this one was about as good as it gets, and proves that Yannick really is a great Shostakovich conductor. 

My bachtrack review (five stars) 

4. May 30: Varèse - Amériques and Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring, Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Royal Festival Hall

THIS CONCERT WAS JUST SO WONDERFULLY LOUD. Seriously. Amériques is just so much fun and it's so impressive to hear it live, and coupling with the always enjoyable Rite of Spring was a great move. The performance of the Rite of Spring was simply amazing, it was animalistic and organic and so rhythmically powerful and  played with unstoppable energy and drive. 

My bachtrack review (four stars)

5. January 30: Lutoslawski - Musique Funèbre & Piano Concerto and Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé (complete ballet), Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Krystian Zimerman, Philharmonia Voices at the Royal Festival Hall

This was my introduction to the music of Lutoslawski, which I am immensely grateful for. Musique Funèbre was mesmerizing and the Piano Concerto was stunning to hear for the first time. The performance of one of my favourite pieces ever, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé was also faultless and made for an impressive ending to a great concert.

My bachtrack review (four stars) 

Other highlights: Leila Josefowicz and the London Philharmonic playing Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.1, the Philharmonia and Ashkenazy's astounding performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No.15, Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra played by the Philharmonia and Salonen, Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra's thought-provoking performance of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, Britten Sinfonia and Pekka Kuusisto's performance of Tüür's  Lighthouse, and last but certainly not least, the "Music from Dark Times" program by the London Philharmonic and Jurowski. 

24classics

Last week saw the launch of a fabulous new website: 24Classics. It plays host to 24 playlists with different kinds of classical music, and these playlists are curated by people from the Dutch classical music scene. I'm in charge of the Heavy Symphonic aka the loud stuff, but there are a whole bunch of great lists. I particularly love the Adventure playlist, curated by Micha Hamel, Modernism, curated by Rob Overman and Sunday Morning by Petra Geresse.  

"Heavy Symphonic" isn't a self-evident genre, and I'm not able to provide a nice one-sentence definition. It isn't merely about the volume, although my list will comprise of a lot of loud music. Sometimes I consider a piece 'heavy' because of a certain darkness, a certain emotional depth, as in the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.4 that you find in this first list. I've tried to not make the music too overwhelming, and to alternate really loud things with some that are not quite so ear-splitting. For example, the piece from Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, 'Gegrusst, O Konig, an Gurres see Strand' is probably the loudest and most chaotic of the bunch (though also one of my favourites). As such, an upbeat and relatively uncomplicated movement from Prokofiev's Symphony No.5 precedes it, and the aforementioned Tchaikovksy 4 comes after Schoenberg. For me this brings out the strength in all three tracks, as they contrast really beautifully. At the same time the contrasts aren't so massive that you think you've suddenly ended up in a different playlist, it really is a balancing act. 

On 24classics there's a heavy symphonic and a Light Symphonic (curated by conductor Jan Willem de Vriend) playlist, but nothing in between and I think some of the things I put on my list, and also probably some that will appear on the Light playlist, are just simply "symphonic" works. Brahms symphonies for example, I wouldn't consider light OR heavy. And one of the great things, for me, about 24classics is that the compiling of playlist really is up to our own discretion and our own assessment of works. So maybe a movement from a Brahms symphony will show up in my playlist sometime, and even in this first one there are a few tracks that might not be traditionally considered "heavy". 

Because of licensing restrictions (that will hopefully not be around forever, I'm also trying to swap some tracks for different versions from smaller labels that aren't being difficult) you can't simply skip from one track to another so I hope you can find the time to listen to the whole playlist. There are still some issues that come with any new site, so if anything goes wrong or if you have any advice or feedback, please go to the info page, there's contact information on there (or leave me a message here, if it's about the playlist). 

I don't think it's particulary worthwhile to write something about every track on my list, also partly because I can only say "well I like it so that's why it's on my playlist" so many times. If you have any specific questions, or any feedback, please comment. Here is the full list, with a few elaborations: 

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

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!

The Rest is Noise at the Southbank Centre

From January 2013 onwards the Southbank Centre in London will play host to probably the most exciting classical music festival I know. It's inspired by Alex Ross's amazing book The Rest Is Noise, which is also the title of the festival. The first half of the festival, from January till June, is concerned with music from the early 1900s until right after WWII.

And honestly, it's like someone asked "hey Renée, what kinda music do you like"? and put it all in one festival. There are 18 concerts I REALLY want to go to and a whole bunch of other that I'd like to go to. Because I love the whole program so much, I figured I'll highlight some of the concerts on this blog. It is important to note, however, that this is only a tiny fraction of all the amazing concerts going on at the festival, you really ought to look at official site as well.

Saturday 16 February 2013 "Riot at the Ballet"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Leila Josefowicz
Ravel - Ma Mère l'oye (complete ballet)
Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No.1
Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring

I love Yannick so much I would even consider seeing him conduct Haydn or someone else I hate. But to see him conduct a program consisting of Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky is pretty much perfect. His understanding and love for the music of Ravel is much-documented, but I'm sure he'll kick ass at the Prokofiev and Stravinsky as well. I am excited to see Leila Josefowicz play Prokofiev, I'm a huge fan of her Adès and Salonen concertos and even though I've been kinda spoilt by seeing Vadim Repin play this concerto before, if there's anyone up to the challenge it's her.

Wednesday 20 February 2013 "Imagining America"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Marin Alsop, London Adventist Chorale
Trad. - Spirituals (a capella)
Dvorak - Symphony No.9
Milhaud - La Création du Monde suite
Varèse - Amériques

One of the things I love about this festival is that Darius Milhaud, a criminally underappreciated composer is getting quite a bit of attention. Of course La Création du Monde is his most well-known pipece, but on February 20th at 6 there's a free concert with two of his Petite Symphonies as well. And this concert in the evening will be amazing if only because Varèse's (also underappreciated) Amériques is absolutely insane and incredible to hear live. I CANNOT wait to hear it again!

Saturday 6 April 2013 "Orff's Carmina Burana"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Hans Graf, Sally Matthews, Andrew Kennedy, Rodion Pogossov, the London Philharmonic Choir and Trinity Boys Choir
Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms
Orff - Carmina Burana

Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms is incredibly beautiful. To have it combined with one of the highlights of Twentieth century choral music; Orff's Carmina Burana is the stuff dreams are made of. It'll be loud and exhausting and overwhelming and absolutely fantastic.

Saturday 27 April 2013 "Music from Dark Times"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski, Barbara Hannigan
Webern - Variations for Orchestra
Berg - Lulu Suite
Martinu - Double Concerto
Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

I love Bartók and Berg and Barbara Hannigan so this can only be an evening full of excitement. On top of that, Martinu is one of those composers that I've wanted to check out for ages but still haven't, so this is a great opportunity to get to know his music!

Thursday 2 May 2013 "Composing Under Stalin"
Philharmonia Orchestra, Jakub Hrusa, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Philharmonia Voices
Skriabin - Rêverie for Orchestra
Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No.1
Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky cantata

Oh what to say about this one... Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No.1 is one of my favourite pieces, I've seen it quite a few times by now and it still makes me want to weep like a little girl (apart from the scherzo which is hilarious). Alexander Nevsky is great as well, and I love it when cantatas are performed, somehow it seems to be quite rare.

Friday 10 May 2013 "Imprisoned Music"
Renaud Capucon, Gautier Capucon, Denis Kozhukhin, Jörg Wildmann
Shostakovich - Piano Trio No.2
Messiaen - Quatuor pour la fin du temps

Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps is probably the piece of music with one of the most moving histories; it was composed and first performed in a prisoner of war camp in 1941. The instrumentation was one of necessity, as it is tailored to the musicians Messiaen met in the camp. It is not as bleak as one might expect, but it is heartbreakingly beautiful and upsetting piece of music. Programmed with Shostakovich's Piano Trio No.2, written in 1944 this evening of music will probably be overwhelming, but it will be worth it.

Thursday 16 May 2012 "Satirical Shostakovich"
Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars, Philharmonia Voices
Shostakovich - Orango: Prologue (orch. Gerard McBurney)
Shostakovich - Symphony No.4

I'm not sure if I can adequately explain how exciting this concert is for me. Perhaps you get the picture when I say that I bought tickets for it as soon as they became available. Orango was only performed for the first time in december of last year, by the LA Philharmonic with Salonen, and I've played the CD of that performance about a million times. It is the prologue to what would've been an opera by Shostakovich, but halfway through he and the libretto-writers (who both died in workcamps later on) decided it might not be such a good idea to finish it and have it performed. It was discarded and a pianoscore was rediscovered years later, from with McBurney made an excellent orchestration. The Fourth Symphony is of course one of my favourite pieces ever and to see Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct it is a dream come true!

My favourite concerts in 2011.

It's almost the end of 2011 - what a year it has been! I have never seen this many classical concerts in one year, mostly thanks to Bachtrack and them allowing me to write reviews. And so, I thought I'd make a little list of my favourite concerts this year.

I went to 46 concerts of which 34 were classical. It's been an incredibly lucky year in that I got to see quite a few of my favourite performers (Pekka Kuusisto, Nikolai Lugansky, Sergey Khachatryan, Ian Bostridge, Leila Josefowicz, Vadim Repin and of course Yannick!) and I fell in love with a lot of music I hadn't heard before. Concert-wise there were a few definite highlights, but because I can never decide what order to put things in, I've decided to do them chronologically. I've also generally not listed the entire concert but only one particular piece played (or sometimes more) because those pieces were my highlights.

1. March 25: Dmitri Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No.1, Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Ludovic Mrolot, Sergey Khachatryan at De Doelen, Rotterdam.
This is the concert that made me fall in love with Khachatryan, because despite sniffing crazily loud he played this concerto better than I ever could've imagined. It's a stunning piece in itself, I would probably enjoy any performance that wasn't crap, but Khachatryan really elevated the violin concerto and made it so so beautiful.

2. April 3: Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No.13 - Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Dmitri Slobodeniouk and Sergei Aleksashkin at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
The 13th Symphony is an interesting and complicated work. It's set to poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and its subtitle is "Babi Yar" - the title of a poem and the first movement, and the sight of a huge massacre in WWII. In my review for bachtrack I said this of the performance: "The music emphasizes these different elements, the terror and the optimism, the fear and the solidarity, and Slobodeniouk brought them out beautifully in the orchestra. Although Sergei Aleksashkin is not the most facially expressive singer, his voice expressed every emotion that one would expect to hear in this piece. [...] The chorus was also extremely powerful and you could feel just how much all of these musicians connected to the music and understood the tremendous meaning(s) it contains. The standing ovation was much deserved."
My review on bachtrack: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-shostakovich-13th-babi-yar-concertgebouw

3. June 15: Benjamin Britten - The Rape of Lucretia - Oliver Knussen, Ian Bostridge, Susan Gritton, Angelika Kirchschlager and others at the Muziekgebouw Aan 't IJ in Amsterdam.
I hadn't heard The Rape of Lucretia before I went to see it and had no idea what to expect. Well, I had some idea, because I was familiar with another of Britten's operas: Peter Grimes and I absolutely love that opera. The Rape of Lucretia is quite different in that it is a chamber opera so the drama has to be more contained and somewhat more subtle but none of that matters because it is an absolutely fantastic piece. The performers were absolutely incredible as well, particularly Ian Bostridge and Susan Gritton who played the male and female choruses.
My review on bachtrack: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-rape-of-lucretia-holland-festival

4. June 17: Thomas Adès - Concentric Paths, Polaris, Tevot - Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Thomas Adès, Leila Josefowicz at the Concertgebouw.
Well, none of you will be surprised by the inclusion of this concert in my favourites. I absolutely adore Adès's music and I was SO excited to hear him conduct these works and also to hear Polaris for the first time. Concentric Paths is a violin concerto and was played by the remarkable Leila Josefowicz (who I already knew because she played Salonen's violin concerto so ridiculously well) and hearing it live was incredible. Same goes for Tevot and Polaris - Adès has a bit of a love for really high violin notes but he also loves loud percussion so that's me sorted! This concert was probably a highlight of my year in general - I felt so lucky and priviliged to have present there, to have been a part of it.
My review on bachtrack: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-concertgebouw-ades

5. July 15: Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.2 - Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Emmanuel Krivine, Nikolai Lugansky at the Concertgebouw.
Okay so I just really love Nikolai Lugansky, and anytime he plays Prokofiev will be a favourite concert of mine. It really is that simple, no one plays Prokofiev like him and no one wrote piano concertos like Prokofiev.
My review on bachtrack: http://www.bachtrack.com/ravel-prokofiev-and-dvorak-in-the-concertgebouw

6. August 29: Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No.8 - Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Andriss Nelsons at the Concertgebouw.
This performance was exceptional. The 8th symphony isn't even one of my top 5-favourite Shostakovich symphonies but this performance made me want to listen to it over and over and over and over again because it broke my heart and made a huge impact on me. Generally for Shostakovich I prefer the Rotterdam Philharmonic but I have no doubt that I will never forget this performance. It was incredible.
My review on bachtrack: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-royal-concertgebouw-andris-nelsons-shostakovich-8

7. October 21: Sofia Gubaidulina - Das Gastmahl während der Pest and Edgar Varèse - Amériques - Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Mariss Jansons at the Concertgebouw.
The Gubaidulina piece was great just to see a bunch of old people at the Concertgebouw being subjected to badass drum 'n' bass-beats. Seriously so amusing. Varèse is one of my main musical discoveries of the year - I absolutely loved Amériques, it is such an exciting and loud and fantastic piece of music. 19 percussionists!!! 139 musicians!! I wish every concert were like that.
My review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-gubaidulina-celebration-concertgebouw

8. December 2: Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No.4 - Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Mark Elder at De Doelen, Rotterdam.
I love the Fourth Symphony more than pretty much anything in this world. This performance was beautiful and pretty much turned me into a mess for its duration. Mark Elder also held a lovely speech before playing explaining what the symphony was about, and I think this probably added to the experience of anyone not aware of Shostakovich's dire living situation during the writing of the Fourth Symphony. I would like to relive this concert over and over again.
My review: http://www.bachtrack.com/review-rotterdam-philharmonic-mark-elder-shostakovich-fourth-symphony

Other highlights:
Yannick conducting anything and everything, Vadim Repin playing Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto at De Doelen, Sergey Khachatryan playing Arthur Aharonian's Second Violin Concerto at the Muziekgebouw, Nikolai Lugansky played Maurice Ravel´s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (twice), Britten's War Requiem at De Doelen, Britten's Death in Venice Suite at De Doelen, Gubaidulina's Jetzt immer Schnee at the Philharmonie in Haarlem, Béla Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion at the Muziekgebouw, Alexander Raskatov's Alphabet of Death at the Muziekgebouw, Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet in the Stadsgehoorzaal Leiden, Shostakovich's 11th Symphony at the Concertgebouw (would've been in my top list if I hadn't seen the Rotterdam Phil play it even more intensely last year), the entire Russian Fall festival by the Rotterdam Philharmonic (please do one every year..) . And I also have a least favourite piece: Terteryan's Symphony No.6. I wish I could un-hear it, but at least I (and about half of the audience with me) slept through some of it.

Anyway, I hope it's been a fantastic year for all of you as well, and I'll see you in the new year!