It's a sad night for me when there are multiple concerts occurring, both of which I had hopes of attending, and neither did I attend. Reason was, 1)the birth day of my father 2)my own practicing taking, as usual, much longer than I anticipated 3)i live in oak park
I've been putting my own music first lately, which I feel is good for me, but ultimately I just wish there was more time in the day, or that our bodies didn't TRULY need sleep, and I could just do everything!
Shout outs to Tyler Beach's Leafbirds at the Empty Bottle, I'm positive it was good music, and to the Hungry Brain on Belmont and Western(ish) for having a solid Sunday night series.
Last night I attended a Chicago Symphony Concert. Ravel's G Major Piano Concerto and Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, the Leningrad Symphony, made the program. I completely enjoyed the concert. I will say the pianist could have been MUCH more exciting and excited, but he's young, like 25, and while his technique was flawless as far as I could tell, the music was, eh. It was nice to have a light piece though before the big Shosty symphony. Which was wonderful. I thought that Bychkov (the conductor...) did a great job of interpreting, allowing for moments of calm lightness when possible so as not to make the loud heavy parts entirely overwhelming. The Symphony SHONE in this piece. I would say that every single section, particularly winds, harp, piano, percussion, BRASS, VIOLINS... had moments of noticeably wonderful music. Special props to the piccolo player who played a hard part like it was nothing.
A little bit of history: this piece was written as World War II was overtaking Russia. When it premiered in Leningrad, there were only 14 members of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra left alive and though orchestra members were given special food rations so they could have the energy to rehearse, 3 of them died of starvation before the performance.
I feel like I'm being constantly reminded lately of the horrors of war and how removed we Americans are from it. Lucky us.
"What is the What" by Dave Eggers talks about the Sudan Civil War told firsthand by one of the Lost Boys, and damn.
Look at me and my stream of consciousness.
Goodnight.
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2 comments:
The CSO does seem to really hitch it up for Shostakovich. I just can't get into how allusive and ironic and programmatic his musical gestures are. In his defense, though, it must have been pretty hard to compose in an era when they'd send the gestapo to your house in the middle of the night if your latest symphony was deemed counter-revolutionary.
Anyway, I hope the Allies won. I guess a really bad performance of the Leningrad Symphony would mean the Nazis conquer all of Eastern Europe, and we can't have that.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I think he's a great programmatic composer though, and for me, I enjoy being able to think of what he is portraying during his intense, long winded symphonies. Also, to me, that music is part of history, you know? He was responding to what was going on in his country and protesting mean people such as Stalin. I like it when composers do that; they're reacting to their time in a way most people can't, ya know?
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