Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Debussy, Bartok, and Tchaikovsky at The San Diego Symphony
Concert master Jeff Thayer plays the solo while Debussy and Tchaikovsky pine and yearn.
Jeff Thayer
There is something about Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn that aches with nostalgia. When the piece started at the Jacobs Music Center on Saturday night, I settled in to experience a happy memory.
The San Diego Symphony got everything right. The performance was tender and introspective with soft rhythms and delicate textures. I will allow Walt Whitman to describe the tone of the performance:
I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning;
How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turn'd over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,...
Jahja Ling
Following the voluptuous ruminations of Debussy was the frenetic Bartok Violin Concerto No. 2.
The solo was played by our concertmaster Jeff Thayer. This concerto is a difficult piece of music. It’s difficult to play and can be difficult to listen to if you’re not used to Bartok. However, this concerto is regarded as one of the great violin concertos not just of the 20th Century but in general.
Bartok repeats the main theme of the opening movement 32 times with slight variations . Believe it or not, he was trying to prove a point to Schoenberg, ”that you can use all 12 tones and remain tonal.”
Mr. Thayer played his part well and received a standing ovation from the audience. I cannot express just how much I enjoy having the orchestra members as soloists from time to time.
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3: Polish was the second half of the concert. I think this music could be considered a great symphony if Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies weren't — well — Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies.
I do get caught up in that from time to time. I stop listening to the music and start comparing it to other things the composer has written.
I'd listened to the Third before and decided to try to let it stand on its own merits. I can say, without a doubt, that it is a beautiful and moving piece of music.
The San Diego strings tore their hearts out during the third movement. Tchaikovsky gave them so much of himself to play in this section. The string music was full of unrequited yearning.
It wasn't the satisfied recollection that Debussy gave us. This was wanting and praying and hoping and striving for something or someone unattainable.
However, the finale of the symphony gave us everything the third movement withheld. The pathos of the third movement was put in its place as merely pathetic while Tchaikovsky stormed the heights in the closing minutes of this journey.
While this wasn't the tightest I've heard the orchestra play, it didn't matter because they communicated the spirit of the music. The performance created that magical passage between the mind of Tchaikovsky and the ears of the audience. We experienced, in the present, the creative force of the past.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Debussy, Bartok, and Tchaikovsky at The San Diego Symphony
Concert master Jeff Thayer plays the solo while Debussy and Tchaikovsky pine and yearn.
Debussy, Bartok, and Tchaikovsky at The San Diego Symphony
Concert master Jeff Thayer plays the solo while Debussy and Tchaikovsky pine and yearn.
Jeff Thayer
There is something about Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn that aches with nostalgia. When the piece started at the Jacobs Music Center on Saturday night, I settled in to experience a happy memory.
The San Diego Symphony got everything right. The performance was tender and introspective with soft rhythms and delicate textures. I will allow Walt Whitman to describe the tone of the performance:
I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning;
How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turn'd over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,...
Jahja Ling
Following the voluptuous ruminations of Debussy was the frenetic Bartok Violin Concerto No. 2.
The solo was played by our concertmaster Jeff Thayer. This concerto is a difficult piece of music. It’s difficult to play and can be difficult to listen to if you’re not used to Bartok. However, this concerto is regarded as one of the great violin concertos not just of the 20th Century but in general.
Bartok repeats the main theme of the opening movement 32 times with slight variations . Believe it or not, he was trying to prove a point to Schoenberg, ”that you can use all 12 tones and remain tonal.”
Mr. Thayer played his part well and received a standing ovation from the audience. I cannot express just how much I enjoy having the orchestra members as soloists from time to time.
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3: Polish was the second half of the concert. I think this music could be considered a great symphony if Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies weren't — well — Tchaikovsky's Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth symphonies.
I do get caught up in that from time to time. I stop listening to the music and start comparing it to other things the composer has written.
I'd listened to the Third before and decided to try to let it stand on its own merits. I can say, without a doubt, that it is a beautiful and moving piece of music.
The San Diego strings tore their hearts out during the third movement. Tchaikovsky gave them so much of himself to play in this section. The string music was full of unrequited yearning.
It wasn't the satisfied recollection that Debussy gave us. This was wanting and praying and hoping and striving for something or someone unattainable.
However, the finale of the symphony gave us everything the third movement withheld. The pathos of the third movement was put in its place as merely pathetic while Tchaikovsky stormed the heights in the closing minutes of this journey.
While this wasn't the tightest I've heard the orchestra play, it didn't matter because they communicated the spirit of the music. The performance created that magical passage between the mind of Tchaikovsky and the ears of the audience. We experienced, in the present, the creative force of the past.
Comments