Month: October 2010

By R.M. Campbell

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s Visiting Orchestra Series may be somewhat diminished this season but its opening gesture Friday night at Benaroya Hall was anything but that.

When Kremerata Baltica made its local debut a few years ago, it created a powerful impression for its finesse and technical acuity. Nothing has changed in the intervening years, as demonstrated this weekend. This string orchestra of some two dozen young musicians, gathered from the various Baltic states, is still sharp-edged with transparent textures, impeccable ensemble and handsome sound. Everything about the group is a pleasure as well as informed and articulate. It is modern in all sorts of ways, the best sort of ways. This is an orchestra that knows how to play pianissimo, one so focused it sails across the footlights.
Continue reading Kremerata Baltica opens visiting orchestra series at Benaroya Hall

Michael Francis, a young British conductor who also plays double bass with the London Symphony made his debut with the Seattle Symphony Thursday night.  Though he had a small orchestra at his disposal, Francis made up for it with a program that was conceptually sound, challenging for musicians, and rewarding for listeners.

Francis’ rise to prominence has followed the same well-worn path that has promoted other virtually unknown maestros into the spotlight. Three years ago, Francis was recruited to the podium from the ranks of the LSO, when 12 hours before a concert Valery Gergiev pulled out. A month later, the John Adams pulled out of a concert he was to conduct with the LSO. Again, Francis was pushed to the podium. Today, Francis regularly acts as an assistant conductor with the LSO helping to prepare performances and with rehearsals when Gergiev can’t.

Continue reading Michael Francis debuts with the Seattle Symphony

By Gigi Yellen

Muscular. Delicate. Impeccable. Polished. Quick descriptions, all, of performances that deserved a bigger audience Saturday night at Nordstrom Recital Hall, opening the third season of Seattle’s Russian Chamber Music Foundation concerts. Pianist Natalya Ageyeva, artistic director, at the keyboard for two of the three works on the program, anchored the concert with a dazzling technique. Her Russian-composer programming was pretty dazzling, too, introducing a rarely-heard piano trio by Schubert’s contemporary Alexander Alyabiev; five Novelettes by the teenage Alexander Glazunov; and, in a sterling performance, the 1941 Piano Quintet in g, op. 57, by Glazunov’s most famous pupil, Dmitri Shostakovich.
Continue reading Autumn evenings return to Nordstrom Recital Hall

By R.M. Campbell

What the Seattle Symphony Orchestra called “An Organ Celebration” Saturday night at Benaroya Hall was planned more than a year ago, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the C B. Fisk organ. The concert would feature two of city’s preeminent organists — Carole Terry and Joseph Adam — along with a string ensemble from the orchestra itself. Some of the best-known works in the literature, such as Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Poulenc’s Organ Concerto in G Minor, would be on the program, along with pieces by Charles Marie Widor, Giovanni Gabrieli, Handel and a world premiere by Samuel Jones.
Continue reading An organ extravaganza at Benaroya

By Philippa Kiraly

Pergolesi lived only 26 short years at the start of the 18th century. During that time he wrote two enduring masterpieces in totally different genres—the comic opera “La Serva Padrona,” and the beautiful “Stabat Mater,” commissioned by the monastery of San Luigi di Palazzo. Both have been continuously in the repertoire ever since.

In modern days, the “Stabat Mater,” written for solo soprano and alto voices, has been a staple of school choirs as both voices can be sung by groups, but less often today is it performed as we heard it Saturday night at Town Hall.
Continue reading Pergolesi’s masterpiece (or at least one of them)

By R.M. Campbell

Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff, who opened the Seattle Symphony Distinguished Artist Series Monday night at Benaroya Hall, has always gone his own eclectic way, doing an entire program devoted to the tiny piano sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, for instance, or Bach and Janacek, Schubert, Bartok and Mozart. For his Seattle recital, he paired Mendelssohn and Schumann.

One does not think of the two as a natural combination, but one should. They were born only a year apart — Mendelssohn in 1809 and Schumann the following year — and were part and parcel of the early Romantic movement in Germany. Each died young: Mendelssohn in 1847, at 38, and Schumann, nine years later, at 46. Their talent was obvious early on, Mendelssohn particularly, with careers that were wide-ranging and far-reaching. Lyricism came naturally to both. The Mendelssohn pieces were well-chosen, from the justly celebrated “Variations Serieuses” to open the concert, and the F-sharp Minor Fantasia to start the second half. Paired with the “Variations” was Schumann’s First Sonata and to close the formal program was Schumann’s great Fantasia in C.
Continue reading Andras Schiff combines Mendelssohn and Schumann at Benaroya