Category: Symphony

Picture: Sasha Rozhdestvensky Sydney Symphony; 2009 Season, Great Classics. RUSSIAN TRIBUTE. At the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. Music is not my field of expertise, however it is part of my theatre going diary. Hence… This program called RUSSIAN TRIBUTE has the Violin Concerto No 1 in A minor, Op.99 by Dmitri Shostakovich (my favourite composer {at this time}) followed by Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, orchestrated by Vladimir Ashkenazy. The violin soloist is Russian: Sasha Rozhdestvensky and the conductor is Russian: Vladimir Ashkenazy. Russians playing and interpreting Russian. Blissful expectations. And so it was. I bought my…

Photo: Janine Jansen SYDNEY SYMPHONY, 2009 SEASON, EMIRATES METRO SERIES: ASHKENAZY CONDUCTS SHOSTAKOVICH at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.   After the summer, end of holiday feel of the Mendelssohn presentation of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM last week, it was with excitement that I approached this concert. Once again I declare that I am only a concert goer in my appreciation and not an expert. I had in the Shostakovich, admittedly, one of my favourite composers, a great and shattering time.   The first half of the program was Antonin Dvorak’s VIOLIN CONCERTO in A MINOR, Op53 (B.108). The…

SYDNEY SYMPHONY 2009 Season. ENERGY AUSTRALIA MASTER SERIES: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. Overture and incidental music for Shakespeare’s play by Felix Mendelssohn. Text abridged by Tim Carroll.   This concert is a celebration of “the opening of the concert season for 2009… the beginning of the formal relationship between Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Symphony” and the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, two hundred years ago, in 1809.   In the Introductory notes to the performance we are told “the program we’ve devised for tonight speaks to the power of music – not just its power to move our emotions and stimulate…

\Music, as I have declared elsewhere, this year in this blog space, is a late appreciation for me. As I matured I began to attend and appreciate Concert going. My experience is that of a growing “lover” rather than a “knower”. In my concert going Mahler is a relatively new acquaintance. The San Francisco Orchestra under the guidance of Michael Tilson Thomas, both concert and recordings, was how I was first drawn into the Mahler spell. The extremely erudite introductory essay in the program notes by Gordon Kerry will be responsible for any knowing that I write here. I decided…