Tag: Symphony

Gilbert Varga takes the podium in a commanding performance with the SSO

By Philippa Kiraly

With flair, Swiss conductor Gilbert Varga made his debut on Seattle Symphony’s podium Thursday night for remarkable performances of Enescu’s “Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka” and, with Horacio Gutierrez, Beethoven’s P iano Concerto No. 4.

It was hard to take your eyes off h im. Varga almost danced the music, gracefully using his entire body and the whole podium to convey to the orchestra what he wanted, and so clearly that the musicians responded with the precision of a Rolls Royce engine. He used no score for either the Enescu or Stravinsky, allowing him to give his attention to the musicians throughout.

Continue reading Gilbert Varga takes the podium in a commanding performance with the SSO

The masterpiece by Prokofiev and Sergei Eisenstein

By Philippa Kiraly

How many film directors hope to boast that their movies are being shown and revered more than 70 years after their making? There can be few talking movies in that category before Sergei Eisenstein and Sergei Prokofiev collaborated on the epic “Alexander Nevsky” in 1938, one of the first and arguably the most massive movie production ever at that time and the forerunner of others in similar vein from “Ben Hur” to “Spartacus” and more.

“Nevsky” is black and white and a bit grainy by current standards, but what has helped to keep it high in the category of great films is the musical score by Prokofiev. To his great credit, Eisenstein allowed the composer considerable rein in his musical portrayals of the plot.

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Quarter notes: Levine, the Ring, and Amelia

Scary clowns in the LA Ring.

has hit Los Angeles.

Levine on the rest of the Met season.

Morlot to Seattle to fill in for Roberto Abbado.  More than a few are looking forward to his return.  According to the SSO, Dutilleux and Morlot are close.  Will the second date be as good as the first?

The Seattle Chamber Music Society is out with their

Next week, I will be attending a media availability with the Seattle Opera’s creative team to discuss Daron Hagen’s new opera Amelia.  Don’t know Hagen?  Check out his Frank Lloyd Wright inspired opera Shining Brow on Naxos.  Live blogging will ensue.  Stay tuned for more details.

Ludovic Morlot to replace Roberto Abbado

Roberto Abbado has withdrawn from his upcoming appearance with the SSO.  In his place, the orchestra is bringing back Ludovic Morlot.  Morlot was last here in October when he conducted a concert of Martinu and Haydn.  For that concert, the orchestra was split with the opera.  This time, Morlot will have the benefit of the whole orchestra as he leads the group in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Henri Dutilleux’s Cello Concerto with Xavier Phillips as the cello soloist.

Quarter notes: Chamber Music Madness, the Met, James Gaffigan, and La Traviata

On this Easter Sunday some classical music bits and pieces to tide you over.

Chamber Music Madness, a local organization that helps kids grow as musicians is looking for a new executive director.  String players with good administrative and fundraising skills should apply.

Vanity Fair is out with a piece questioning whether the Metropolitan Opera’s economic model is sustainable.  The article comes on the heels of Alex Ross’ own critique of the current Met season which includes the now infamous Luc Bondy Tosca.

Speaking of sustainable economic models, the Honolulu Symphony has a plan to save the beleaguered orchestra.

Chicks, fox, witch, oxen, little kids…symphony concert?

By Philippa Kiraly

Animals, nature and generally pictorial matter suffused two thirds of the Seattle Symphony’s concert Thursday night at Benaroya Hall and, together with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5, they created a lively, colorful and satisfactory program.

It can be enlightening to hear show music without the visual element, in this case the Suite from Janacek’s opera “The Cunning Little Vixen.” When you are watching a complete event on stage, there is so much to see and hear and take in that the details of the music can get passed by, so it’s good to hear it shorn of other elements.

Janacek is not easily pigeonholed. His central European origins and musical idioms are shot through with highly individual harmonies.

Continue reading Chicks, fox, witch, oxen, little kids…symphony concert?

If you had to choose: which piece for chorus and orchestra would you like to hear?

The performance of “Daphnis et Chloe” at the Seattle Symphony put me in a hopeful mood. What other seldom heard, secular pieces for chorus and orchestra could the SSO perform next?

By no means is the following poll an exhaustive list of the many pieces composed for chorus and orchestra. But, if you had to pick just one, which would you like to hear the SSO or another local ensemble perform?

Bach to the future

Bach, of course, anchored the program, with his Suite No. 2 in B Minor, BWV 1067, and his Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. For the second half, music director Christophe Chagnard chose one of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ tributes to the composer, the “Bachianas Brasileiras No 5” in an arrangement for string orchestra by J. Krance; and lastly, a work by one of Bach’s contemporaries and friends, Telemann’s “Don Quixote” Suite.
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Consider me a Dausgaard partisan


Whether you fell in love with Lutoslawski’s Fourth Symphony or loathed it, found a new favorite in Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony or still prefer the Second, Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard had one of the toughest programs to conduct of any of the season’s guest conductors. Based on the audience’s reaction after each piece, it can be said he succeeded.

Abbado might have Dutilleux in April, but Beethoven’s Fifth will have everyone flashing “V for victory” before the night is done. Even the Seattle Symphony debut of John Adams’ Harmonielehre under the baton of Robert Spano has the help of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.

Dausgaard not only had to contend with the least interesting of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos (the fourth) but he also had the job of guiding the orchestra and (what I am sure was) a skeptical audience through Witold Lutoslawski’s slithering, slinking, and shimmering symphony from 1992. The score alone is enough to make lesser conductors and musicians hurl themselves into Puget Sound.

Under normal circumstances, closing the night with a Sibelius symphony – if it is the First or Second Symphony – would be an automatic hit. Dausgaard picked the Fifth instead, a symphony that begins with two movements that can be problematic for orchestra and audience, but ends with a third movement that is both dignified and resplendent.

Continue reading Consider me a Dausgaard partisan