Sprightly

Ok, so the fellow who tried to sell me a stereo must be working for Gramophone Magazine… *** Glinka - Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila Rachmaninov - Symphony No. 3 Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No. 1 Ludovic Morlot, conductor Simon Trpceski, piano Ludovic Morlot kind of sounds like the name for a Harry Potter-esque villain. In truth he’s a capable stick man and couldn’t be a nicer fellow, maybe too nice. Sadly, there’s a certain nastiness quotient necessary for a conductor to achieve real greatness. But the entire program had a kind of lightweight summer season feel to it anyway. We used to have a guy here (music director, I think – name escapes me) who frequently programmed the Glinka Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila as an encore and took it really, really, really fast – maybe even too fast, but who am I to say. He also had the habit of hiding the baton when taking the final curtain call so he could leap onto the podium and astonish the crowd by starting the encore unexpectedly. One day w...

High Fidelity audio is another thing to get nostalgic about, what with the now ubiquitous I pods and compressed audio winning the day. When I first joined the orchestra the thing to do (or so I became convinced) was to shop for an expensive audio system. Reasonably, it seemed an essential accessory for the serious professional musician, not to mention a sizeable tax-deduction. I consented to accompanying a colleague to one of those stuffy audio places – where they take you into a soundproofed room, offer something to drink, sit you down in a comfy leather chair and proceed to push thousands of dollars worth of audio equipment. I confess to being something of a skeptic when it comes to high-end audio gear – maybe you could call me decidedly lo-fi – probably how I’ve managed to tolerate playing the double bass all these years. Anyway, the preoccupation with minute details of the performance of various audio components always struck me as somehow antithetical to the spirit of music makin...

The Inca Trail (Name Redacted) Symphony Orchestra Jessica Warren-Acosta, Andean flutes Kenneth Olsen, cello Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor It may come as a surprise to discover a number of orchestra musicians less than perfectly satisfied all of the time. For some, displeasure with the goings on at hand is an essential piece of equipment, akin to the gunslinger’s six-shooter. For them, it is best not take to the open range (or the stage, as we call it) without an ammo belt fully loaded with invective, holster flap unbuttoned, ready to fire from the hip an ill-considered complaint, a fusillade of perfunctory condemnation at the first sign of trouble. Right off the bat, I confess to joining up with many a hastily assembled angry posse, riding down an innocent composer, conductor, program, concert venue, or what-have-you, and stringing them up from the nearest tree without a second thought. In that spirit, I took notice of the Inca Trail program – a collection of South American music pe...

It was certainly nice to see Neeme Järvi back on the podium after many years away. True to form, he brought some interesting music to town – Taneyev, Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, not a bad piece really, and much more enjoyable than playing the same three Tchaikovsky symphonies over and over again. The first rehearsals began in somewhat muddled fashion and I wondered if my fond memories of Järvi were all wrong. But at the Saturday evening concert he seemed to be having a good time, doing one of his trademark overlong grand pauses while giving a little smile to the orchestra, bowing to the audience member who clapped enthusiastically between movements. A little wavelet of nostalgia overtook me – something I felt horribly self-conscious about until it struck me that my chosen profession is based almost entirely on obsessive infatuation with an idealized, unrecoverable past. Anyhow, Järvi was a frequent guest here when I joined the orchestra and I always looked forward to the weeks he conduc...

Bass Blog Back! Well, I finally heard from all five of my readers. There may be 68,000 odd hits on this page, but to be honest, about 57,995 of those were me obsessively checking to see if the page still existed and if anyone else had viewed it. Thanks to those who inquired about my health, which is no better, but certainly no worse than usual – I simply needed a break. The performances last week of the Bruckner 5th Symphony have a great deal to do with my decision t start blogging again at this time. Letting a Bruckner 5 pass without comment would be like sitting at the breakfast table one sunny morning and watching the Hindenburg silently drift by without at least nudging one’s companion to look up from the newspaper. Fortunately, under the baton of replacement conductor Jaap van Zweden (filling in for the permanently absent Riccardo Chailly) Bruckner’s bloated masterpiece fared better than the similarly tumid German airship. The Dutch violinist turned conductor spent more rehea...

the end…of Ravinia 2008 Program A MOZART The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384 Hanan Alattar, Constanze Anna Christy, Blonchen Topi Lehtipuu, Belmonte Nicholas Phan, Pedrillo Morris Robinson, Osmin Michael York, Pasha Apollo Chorus of Chicago James Conlon, Conductor Kevin Murphy, Continuo/Coach Program B MOZART Don Giovanni, K. 527 Ellie Dehn, Donna Anna Soile Isokoski, Donna Elvira Heidi Grant Murphy, Zerlina Toby Spence, Don Ottavio Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Don Giovanni Samuel Ramey, Leporello James Creswell, Masetto Morris Robinson, Commendatore Apollo Chorus of Chicago James Conlon, conductor Kevin Murphy, Continuo/Coach Monday 11-1:30 rehearsal (orchestra A) 2:30-5 rehearsal (orchestra B) Tuesday 11-1:30 rehearsal (orchestra A) 2:30-5 rehearsal (orchestra B) Wednesday 11-2:30 (orchestra A) 3:30-7 (orchestra B) Thursday 7 program A Friday 7 program B Saturday 2 program A Sunday 2 program B This week the orchestra is split in two. Needless to say with my luck I ended relegated to o...

Program A WAGNER Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg SCHREKER Prelude to a drama, Die Gezeichneten INTERMISSION BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 James Conlon, conductor Miriam Fried, violin Program B DVORÁK Carnival Overture, Op. 92 GRIEG Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 INTERMISSION BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 James Conlon, conductor Orion Weiss piano Program C BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 INTERMISSION BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68 James Conlon, conductor Gil Shaham, violin Monday 11-1:30 2:30-5 rehearsals Tuesday 2:30-5 rehearsal 8 concert (A) Wednesday 2:30-5 rehearsal 8 concert (B) Thursday 2:30-5 rehearsal 8 concert (C) Friday off Saturday off Sunday off OK, I’m way behind again… This week ended up a bit differently than originally planned. Itzhak Perlman was supposed to play the Beethoven concerto and then conduct the next night. I’m not sure what happened to him, but I ...