Carmina Burana
I saw Carmina Burana at the Phil last night. I went to the pre-concert talk cause why not, but don't think I will again. If you closed your eyes, the lecture was delivered very well, but the speaker was quite physically awkward. He had his eyes rolled up to the cieling the whole time and kept taking one step forward, then one step back, and he was hugging himself. Also, he clearly was way more interested in the other thing on the program than the Carmina Burana. He talked a little about the Carmina Burana, but mostly to say gosh it's popular, probably because it's so repetitive.
The other thing on the program was Atlantida by Falla, a composer I've never heard of but the lecturer kept talking about as if we all knew, of course, all of Falla's music. Atlantida is almost never performed, which is why they tacked on excerpts from it to a concert whose program draw was the other piece, so that people were actually in the audience for it. And I'm sorry--there's a reason it's not played. it's not very good. And it's just dripping Spanish nationalism, especially with this idea of Spain's conquests in the New World being just a reunion with the Old World. Plus it was written during the Spanish Civil War, so there's some baggage there.
So--anyway--the Carmina Burana.
I was sitting in row J, which, since they'd extended the stage, was the second row. From this close, the acoustic is very odd. It's not just that I'm five feet from the violas and yards away from anything else, it's that the stage and and violists are in between me and most of the orchestra, so it sounds a bit like they're playing out of a well. I knew this when I bought the seats--I wanted to be close enough to feel the sound. And I was. The bass drum made the floor vibrate.
The performance was very, very good. It was a guest conductor, who brought a choir with him from Spain. As a chorister, I could tell they were doing an excellent job. I could hear every consonant. And of course I was close enough for the loud sections to blow my hair back. There was only one section that didn't quite pull together--"In Taberna" was very wudgy. If the conductor points at the violin section then, still looking at them, at the chorus, you know something's gone awry. This conductor had some unusual tempi, so my guess is he rehearsed it with the choir in advance so they were absolutely with him, but the Phil probably only had one or two rehearsals, and didn't follow the tempo changes quite right.
The soloists were fantastic. The Swan absolutely had the audience in the palm of his hand, and I was close enough to see his facial expressions. The bass was also acting up a storm. The soprano was on the far side of the stage, so I couldn't see her, but I am just awed at her "Dulcissime." She did a run up to the high note, just touching on each passing note, that sounded like those little fairies in Fantasia skipping over the surface of the water.
I had an enormous grin on my face practically the whole time.
The one thing that was slightly irksome is that they had supertitles. And I get that this piece is supposed to be the most accessible piece in the classical music canon, so it makes sense to do that, but I know the gist if not the specifics of the lyrics, so found it kind of distracting. If you're reading, you're not listening completely. So my favorite sections I listened to with my eyes closed. (And of course the person sitting next to me was extremely annoying and kept elbowing me, but when is that ever not the case?)
In conclusion, fantastic performance. If they put it up on iTunes, which they sometimes do, though I doubt they will since they had guest artists, I would definitely buy it.
The other thing on the program was Atlantida by Falla, a composer I've never heard of but the lecturer kept talking about as if we all knew, of course, all of Falla's music. Atlantida is almost never performed, which is why they tacked on excerpts from it to a concert whose program draw was the other piece, so that people were actually in the audience for it. And I'm sorry--there's a reason it's not played. it's not very good. And it's just dripping Spanish nationalism, especially with this idea of Spain's conquests in the New World being just a reunion with the Old World. Plus it was written during the Spanish Civil War, so there's some baggage there.
So--anyway--the Carmina Burana.
I was sitting in row J, which, since they'd extended the stage, was the second row. From this close, the acoustic is very odd. It's not just that I'm five feet from the violas and yards away from anything else, it's that the stage and and violists are in between me and most of the orchestra, so it sounds a bit like they're playing out of a well. I knew this when I bought the seats--I wanted to be close enough to feel the sound. And I was. The bass drum made the floor vibrate.
The performance was very, very good. It was a guest conductor, who brought a choir with him from Spain. As a chorister, I could tell they were doing an excellent job. I could hear every consonant. And of course I was close enough for the loud sections to blow my hair back. There was only one section that didn't quite pull together--"In Taberna" was very wudgy. If the conductor points at the violin section then, still looking at them, at the chorus, you know something's gone awry. This conductor had some unusual tempi, so my guess is he rehearsed it with the choir in advance so they were absolutely with him, but the Phil probably only had one or two rehearsals, and didn't follow the tempo changes quite right.
The soloists were fantastic. The Swan absolutely had the audience in the palm of his hand, and I was close enough to see his facial expressions. The bass was also acting up a storm. The soprano was on the far side of the stage, so I couldn't see her, but I am just awed at her "Dulcissime." She did a run up to the high note, just touching on each passing note, that sounded like those little fairies in Fantasia skipping over the surface of the water.
I had an enormous grin on my face practically the whole time.
The one thing that was slightly irksome is that they had supertitles. And I get that this piece is supposed to be the most accessible piece in the classical music canon, so it makes sense to do that, but I know the gist if not the specifics of the lyrics, so found it kind of distracting. If you're reading, you're not listening completely. So my favorite sections I listened to with my eyes closed. (And of course the person sitting next to me was extremely annoying and kept elbowing me, but when is that ever not the case?)
In conclusion, fantastic performance. If they put it up on iTunes, which they sometimes do, though I doubt they will since they had guest artists, I would definitely buy it.