Concert review: Battle of the Bands, Pendrecki String Quartet vs. Ebony Tower Trio, NUMUS
[back-dated]
I wasn't going to bother reviewing this, but in part I wanted to record that I don't always like the concerts I go to...
We went to see Pendrecki String Quartet sharing a concert with "Ebony Tower Trio", a jazz group including Glen Buhr, the new director of NUMUS. d. and I conclude that Buhr is much more interested in playing his own pieces than Jesse Stewart was, which is a shame; we used to like NUMUS concerts. This opened and closed with pieces of Buhr's composition, as well as the next-to-closing piece.
Much of the audience seemed to like them, though the house (the old King Street Theatre) was barely half full.
The second piece was a setting of Poe's "The Raven" to string quartet, read by the trio's singer, who made really odd gestures throughout. It was preceded by 15 or so minutes of exposition by the composer, who nearly went line-by-line through the piece, having the players demonstrate the musical phrasing. (For goodness sakes- this isn't a workshop!) She said "I don't know what I should say about this part, but..." and went on to do so, for minutes.
There was a Beethoven piece, Grosse Fugue, which was described as being excised from his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major upon its premiere, when the audience applauded the preceding movements but not the conclusion. I can see why. It seemed as if it were strung together from the bits and pieces of a dozen other fugues. I was really amused for the first five minutes. And it went from "OK, he's playing with us" to "why is this still going?" I'm intrigued that wikipedia says it's considered among Beethoven's greatest achievements. Maybe it was that we were already coloured by the first pieces. It was technically very good, as far as I could tell.
And there's no law I need to like all Beethoven.
Fortunately.
And the first half concluded with an instrumental Radiohead piece, "Like Spinning Plates." Which I sort of liked, but not as much as the studio version.
The second half started with Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues, done by the trio. The vandals took the handles, alright. More odd gestures and expressions from the lead singer.
The string quartet played one piece I really liked: String Quartet by Erkki-Swen Tüür, a modern Estonian composer who was apparently a popular Estonian rock-star in the 80s.
And, after the closing Glen Buhr pieces, they did a collective encore with Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", which was, um, under-rehearsed.
Sigh.
I wasn't going to bother reviewing this, but in part I wanted to record that I don't always like the concerts I go to...
We went to see Pendrecki String Quartet sharing a concert with "Ebony Tower Trio", a jazz group including Glen Buhr, the new director of NUMUS. d. and I conclude that Buhr is much more interested in playing his own pieces than Jesse Stewart was, which is a shame; we used to like NUMUS concerts. This opened and closed with pieces of Buhr's composition, as well as the next-to-closing piece.
Much of the audience seemed to like them, though the house (the old King Street Theatre) was barely half full.
The second piece was a setting of Poe's "The Raven" to string quartet, read by the trio's singer, who made really odd gestures throughout. It was preceded by 15 or so minutes of exposition by the composer, who nearly went line-by-line through the piece, having the players demonstrate the musical phrasing. (For goodness sakes- this isn't a workshop!) She said "I don't know what I should say about this part, but..." and went on to do so, for minutes.
There was a Beethoven piece, Grosse Fugue, which was described as being excised from his Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major upon its premiere, when the audience applauded the preceding movements but not the conclusion. I can see why. It seemed as if it were strung together from the bits and pieces of a dozen other fugues. I was really amused for the first five minutes. And it went from "OK, he's playing with us" to "why is this still going?" I'm intrigued that wikipedia says it's considered among Beethoven's greatest achievements. Maybe it was that we were already coloured by the first pieces. It was technically very good, as far as I could tell.
And there's no law I need to like all Beethoven.
Fortunately.
And the first half concluded with an instrumental Radiohead piece, "Like Spinning Plates." Which I sort of liked, but not as much as the studio version.
The second half started with Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues, done by the trio. The vandals took the handles, alright. More odd gestures and expressions from the lead singer.
The string quartet played one piece I really liked: String Quartet by Erkki-Swen Tüür, a modern Estonian composer who was apparently a popular Estonian rock-star in the 80s.
And, after the closing Glen Buhr pieces, they did a collective encore with Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", which was, um, under-rehearsed.
Sigh.