Category: Concertos

March 2024 Concert Diary

Okay, a few concerts to mention in passing.

Alice Sara Ott is a wonderful concert pianist and you should definitely go and see her while you have the chance. Her Chopin preludes interspersed with (good) contemporary compositions in Brussels a few weeks’ back was a wonderful.

Maxim Vengerov probably is the best violinist in the world at the moment although Hilary Hahn is probably close. Last week he played Sibelius in the National Concert Hall in Dublin and despite some issues in the opening movement, it was truly glorious. In addition to the Sibelius, David Brophy and the NSO in Dublin gave us a Haydn symphony, and also Beethoven’s 7th. It was a night to savour. The brass section was a little overly loud but David Brophy is an excellent conductor with a very broad range of capabilities. He conducted the Beethoven from memory (together with the repeats) and I know he also did the Davey concert the week before as well. He is possibly Ireland’s best classical music asset at the moment and yet somehow, I think over rated.

Benjamin Grosvenor played Liszt 2 with the OPRL from Liege in Brussels on Holy Thursday. The OPRL are an excellent orchestra, treating us to wonderful Liszt Preludes and something by Strauss cannot remember what – beautiful. Sucks how talented he was when he wasn’t such a nice person. The Liszt piano concerto was accurate, finger secure and a bit underwhelming. I expected more but the piano was somewhat lost in the orchestra and I didn’t find it to be a particularly engaging performance for its accuracy and security. It’s a pity because that Liszt piano concerto is a stand out concerto, full of fire and drama. But it wasn’t really like that on Thursday night and I’m not in a hurry back. Given the coverage he gets on line, and especially in UK classical music coverage, I was expecting something more.

Sergei Khachryan came back to Bozar to play Bruch’s iconic first violin concerto on Good Friday. The concert was sold out and absolutely worth it for the experience of hearing him play; I wasn’t aware of him but have to note him as an excellent soloist, with all the passion that the concerto demands and then some. Two encores by Isaye (third and fourth sonata movements from what I remember) and an audience who truly loved him. But well they might. He rescued them from what was an seminally awful opening work, by Sofia Gubaldalina called Feast during a Plague. You will find a recording of it on YouTube where some elitist misguided idiots call it “lovely”.

The Romeo and Juliet ballet extracts from Prokofiev which followed the break was lovely. The Feast during a Plague was not but I’ll write on that separately.

New [to me] sheet music (3)

I found myself myself in a secondhand bookstore today looking at their sheet music collection. It was…disappointing in a way but exhilarating that two second hand bookshops in Brussels have sheet music. Today, you were quids in if you played the violin, the electric organ or the clarinet. Actually I assume that if you play the clarinet, it must be quite wonderful to fall over the odd bit of clarinet music anywhere, nevermind a shop more used to selling fiction and comic strips.

Anyway, times were thin on the piano music but I picked up two pieces, one being a duplicate (of more anon) and the other being by Guastavino whose music I had to order specially lately (I haven’t started the piece yet). He is not yet out of copyright but is difficultly in print. I’m not sure what this will be like but I bought it anyway.

New to me Sheet Music
Bailecito by Carlos Guastavino

What struck me about it was that each page was stamped with what looks like a publisher’s mark.

Anyway. I have it.

As a teenager, aside from Rach II, a couple of pieces of cinema music seared through my mind, one of which was Richard Adinsell’s Warsaw Concerto from the movie Dangerous Moonlight. As I mostly found classical music through figure skating at that time, I assume that’s where I picked that up from. Anyway, we found a recording, probably on Naxos at some point, but the sheet music eluded me for years and years and years and years. In fact, I only picked a new copy of it sometime in the last 2 years since Pointe d’Orgue became known to me (one of the two sheet music shops that I trust in Brussels. I ordered the Guastivino mentioned above from the other, Brauer. I know them both. Anyway, Pointe d’Orgue had the Adinsell so after a near 25 year search I had it in my hands.

One of the fascinating things for me with orchestral piano music is that you can get lots of it and it all has an accompaniment for a second piano or is a reduction for 2 pianos. So the Hummel I picked up last week was a bit of a novelty. Anyway, today’s haul includes Warsaw Concerto, or more specifically, Concerto de Varsovie, solo piano.

New to me Sheet Music
Warsaw Concerto, French publication, Richard Adinsell

If you’re looking for a good recording of it, I’m inclined to suggest Jean Yves Thibaudet. You can have a listen on Youtube here.

Jean Yves Thibaudet pushing out into the dead of night

Actually, I went looking for a trailer for the film Dangerous Moonlight which I have never seen and instead, I found this. The music is very clearly the star and yet, it’s completely different to any recording I have ever heard of it.

If you want to read more about the movie, you can find it here.

Anyway, they cost almost nothing. The total I spent in the shop was 5 euro 50 cents and in addition to the sheet music there was a kids book and a how to draw ballet dancers book.

When I got home I went to my “keep these safe” documents where I thought there was a copy of the piano solo of the Legend of the Glass Mountain by Nina Rota. Apparently I have put it somewhere even safer.

This is something I’ve been looking for almost as long; and I found a copy of it in the Sheet Music Library in the Central Library in Dublin about 30 years ago having searched for a while for it. No dice but I seemed to acquire a photocopy of it. I never got around to learning it but it’s still on my TBL list. I see a copy of it on eBay though which will post to Belgium so I am going to rectify that.

I’m interested in second hand sheet music sources. Point me at them.

Leif Ove Andsnes – Henri LeBoeuf Hall, Brussels

Just before I went on holiday, I was lucky enough to catch Leif Ove Andsnes playing Beethoven 5 in Brussels. It’s the second time I’ve heard that piece although previously it was with Daniel Barenboim as soloist.

Leif, I have always wanted to hear, playing the Nokia jingle if that was what it would take. I’ve missed concerts before for various reasons.

He was excellent. There is something quite delicate about how he plays, and he fades into the music. I enjoyed it very much. I’m sorry in one way to have been sitting behind him up high.

Beethoven 5 is one of my favourite concert pieces – up there with Saint Saens 5 and Rach 2 – and for a while it was a piece I did not think people could play disappointingly. Barenboim was somewhat disappointing the night I heard him play. It made me think that that concerto in particular is maybe a younger man’s game. Andsnes is one of those younger men and he made it count.