been a busy couple of weeks - three concerts in the last eight days, so I decided to roll them together into one entry. On December 5th at the Queen Elizabeth Hall the Philharmonia Orchestra performed Ligeti's Violin Concerto, with soloist Saschko Gawriloff, and Mahler's 5th Symphony: the conducter was Jonathon Nott. The Ligeti produces some interesting sounds by detuning one violin and one viola to high harmonics on the double-bass, thus exploiting the same.
Intriguing as an idea, though I have to say the piece is not really my sort of music. The Mahler 5th was given a terrific performance; the very complex Barber's affecting Adagio for String, the Shostakovich 2nd Violin Concerto, and Shostakvich's 1st Violin concerto, but the 2nd is a quite different work, composed much later, and more mature and thoughtful: well played by Boris on themes by Tchaikovsky, re-worked in Stravinsky's personal manner but with own recording, but in a live performance much more of the intricate scoring can be heard.
, in central London near Oxford Circus, is a small concert hall for their wares: it has been a general recital hall since 1917.
Yesterday works for woodwind and brass. Handel's Fireworks Music (in the original and Stravinsky's Octet, composed in his so-called 'neo-classical' period but with typical Stravinsky dissonances - took us to the interval. The second half consisted of an assured student work by Doniztti, only published in 1967 - his Sinfonia in G minor - and Richard Strauss's complex and lyrical Sonatina no.
1 from 1943. All played with charm and style, conducted by Robin O'Neill.
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