Brow, Forget All Your Thoughts
As my voice continues to be (overly?) present on the ol' blog here, I have yet another concert to report on (man my life is gonna get boring again come July). This time, it was the Berliner Rundfunk Orchester with Thomas Dausgaard conducting and Christian Tetzlaff (pictured below) playing the violin.
Christian Tetzloff
Strauss's Metamorphosen is of course an amazing thing - really one of those pieces that manages to pretty well loan some credence to the "maybe Strauss wasn't a total Nazi - just naive and a jerk" line. Also, especially given that most of his orchestral output his abjectly bad (again, everything except for Tod und Verklarung and 4 Letze Lieder (and the Metamorphosen) will I totally disregard (despite often humming the trumpet line from the middle of Heldenleben every so often, when it lodges itself in my poor brain)), the Metamorphosen really shines. It may be obvious, but when it gets to where its going, it blows me away every time I hear it. My seat wasn't the best, so the sound in general was rather muddy, so its hard to strike any judgement as to how clear these strings were, compared to the Staatkapelle or (top of the list) the Philharmoniker.
And Nielsen's 5th is a great piece. I really enjoy it. I don't know a whole lot of Nielsen beyond his 4th and 5th Symphonies, but I deeply like both of them. There's something very visual to me (and maybe I mean spatial by this) about his writing - the very large blocks of sound moving against each other. I'm also very interested by the role that interjection can play across the arts, and I think Nielsen is a great example of several modes of interjection/interruption that can play out at a grand level. That is, I tend to see (as it were) Nielsen's writing as large blocks kind of momving against each other, with various other smaller shapes jutting out across and between them (this is best pictured with Atari-era graphics and colors). The symphony was commandingly played, and the group got a deservedly long applause from the nearly-packed house. It was really pretty impressive to see a concert hall so full on a Sunday night for a concert of not-totally-famous music (though I do suppose Germany's own Tetzloff is something of a draw on his own).
Christian Tetzloffer... sorry...
Christian Tetzloff
err... third time's the charm...
Christian Tetzloff
The concert program was Strauss's Metamorphosen for 23 Strings, Karol Syzmanowski's 2nd Violin Concerto, and Nielsen's 5th Symphony, performed in Berlin's Konzerthaus (classic shoebox-style concert space (though I think a bit smaller than Vienna's Musikverein and with a slightly sloppier acoustic (though it's been a while now since I've been to the Musikverein))). The Berliner Rundfunk is one of the second tier orchestras here in Berlin - but like New Haven pizza, the second tier 'round these parts is still pretty damn good. Interesting concert. The Syzmanowski sounded dated to me, but was interesting enough and played very well by Tetzloff - establishing one particularly fireworky cadenza. CT also played some interesting little encore as well - I have no idea what it was though.
Strauss's Metamorphosen is of course an amazing thing - really one of those pieces that manages to pretty well loan some credence to the "maybe Strauss wasn't a total Nazi - just naive and a jerk" line. Also, especially given that most of his orchestral output his abjectly bad (again, everything except for Tod und Verklarung and 4 Letze Lieder (and the Metamorphosen) will I totally disregard (despite often humming the trumpet line from the middle of Heldenleben every so often, when it lodges itself in my poor brain)), the Metamorphosen really shines. It may be obvious, but when it gets to where its going, it blows me away every time I hear it. My seat wasn't the best, so the sound in general was rather muddy, so its hard to strike any judgement as to how clear these strings were, compared to the Staatkapelle or (top of the list) the Philharmoniker.
And Nielsen's 5th is a great piece. I really enjoy it. I don't know a whole lot of Nielsen beyond his 4th and 5th Symphonies, but I deeply like both of them. There's something very visual to me (and maybe I mean spatial by this) about his writing - the very large blocks of sound moving against each other. I'm also very interested by the role that interjection can play across the arts, and I think Nielsen is a great example of several modes of interjection/interruption that can play out at a grand level. That is, I tend to see (as it were) Nielsen's writing as large blocks kind of momving against each other, with various other smaller shapes jutting out across and between them (this is best pictured with Atari-era graphics and colors). The symphony was commandingly played, and the group got a deservedly long applause from the nearly-packed house. It was really pretty impressive to see a concert hall so full on a Sunday night for a concert of not-totally-famous music (though I do suppose Germany's own Tetzloff is something of a draw on his own).
1 Comments:
It's "Tetzlaff," with an "a." Your main point stands, however: he is awesome. (I have concurred already.)
I've only heard that Szymanowski piece on CD (actually, come to think of it, I wrote something about it once) but it sounds like a solid one to me. Szymanowski goes for the splashy romantic climax fairly frequently, which along with his lush orchestration can create that dated feeling. (See also: Zoltan Kodaly.)
Several months ago I did get around to listening to Szymanowski's Stabat Mater on CD, which is an excellent piece. I'd also recommend his Third Symphony (for tenor, chorus, & orchestra), a luxuriantly sprawling setting of texts by Rumi translated into Polish.
I'm jealous of all these concerts you're seeing. I haven't heard an orchestra concert for more than two weeks now.
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