On Saturday night, the fourth of May, 2013, the San Diego Symphony stood victorious upon Tchaikovsky’s mountain of pathos.
The concert began with Ives’ The Unanswered Question which was structurally unique with a choir of woodwinds being conducted upstage by Kent Masur while Jahja Ling directed the strings and a solo trumpet played from the balcony.
As we might infer from the title, this piece was inconclusive but beautiful. The strings repeated a progression that sounded similar to Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
The trumpet and woodwinds conversed over the background of the stings. The trumpet asked existential questions and the woodwinds answered with more and more frustration until they finally gave up and let the trumpet ask a question to which they did not answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbArUJBRRJ0
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 contained some of the goods. The goods being what we get in Rach’s second and third piano concertos. The performance from the statuesque Olga Kern was brilliant but the music in and of itself did not have the ability to transport us.
The ensemble of the orchestra was tight. Very tight. It appeared that their spectacular playing from Aida was carrying over into this concert.
The Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony would be the acid test.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/06/45030/
On Saturday night, the fourth of May, 2013, the San Diego Symphony stood victorious upon Tchaikovsky’s mountain of pathos.
The concert began with Ives’ The Unanswered Question which was structurally unique with a choir of woodwinds being conducted upstage by Kent Masur while Jahja Ling directed the strings and a solo trumpet played from the balcony.
As we might infer from the title, this piece was inconclusive but beautiful. The strings repeated a progression that sounded similar to Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
The trumpet and woodwinds conversed over the background of the stings. The trumpet asked existential questions and the woodwinds answered with more and more frustration until they finally gave up and let the trumpet ask a question to which they did not answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbArUJBRRJ0
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 contained some of the goods. The goods being what we get in Rach’s second and third piano concertos. The performance from the statuesque Olga Kern was brilliant but the music in and of itself did not have the ability to transport us.
The ensemble of the orchestra was tight. Very tight. It appeared that their spectacular playing from Aida was carrying over into this concert.
The Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony would be the acid test.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/06/45030/