Looks like they’re all giving us magical spells! Courtesy of UMS
The first thing that I could say is “Wow.” I was so pleased with their playing that I did not want the concert to end. Each and every note was performed with so many different colors, with tones that we often cannot find in American-based orchestras. I was especially drawn by the extremely wide range of dynamics that the orchestra was able to produce, and the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s ability to convey all of his artistic visions with just his body language.
I was most inspired by their performance of Ravel’s Concerto for Piano in G Major (1931), with Hélène Grimaud on piano. Ms. Grimaud’s technique was beyond words — her fingers flew everywhere but knew exactly where to land, and produced the right kind of sounds for particular parts of the pieces. I absolutely love this concerto, and I was looking forward to hearing it live — soloist Hélène Grimaud and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin all exceeded my expectations, and captured so many characters that this piece contains. They left me loving this concerto even more.
I also loved watching Maestro’s conducting style. A little bit of background story here: I am part of the conductor search for the orchestra I play in right now, and thus I’ve observed so many conductors in the past month. Through this search, I’ve realized that I really love it when conductors focus more on conveying the artistry rather than showing a steady tempo all the time. Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s conducting had just that — hand gestures that got the most out of the orchestra. How I wished he could conduct our ensemble! (Haha, right.) I had a lot to learn from the musicians in the orchestra as well, especially those in the woodwind section, who moved with the music to invite other players to play with them. It was beautifully done.
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was visiting Ann Arbor as a part of their U.S. tour, with the other stops at North Ridge, San Diego, Costa Mesa, Palm Desert, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. They performed the same program — Ravel’s Ma Mere l’Oye and Piano Concerto in G Major as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 — right before they left for the United States, in their hometown of Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is such an honor that an orchestra of this high caliber has visited Ann Arbor to share their art.
Ahh… where do I start to describe the magical evening with the CSO?
The program started with scintillating Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin (“a piece written as a memorial”). As was his style, Ravel composed each movement in memory of a friend. Originally a piano piece, Ravel made into a orchestral suite and it was simply superb! Though it is a memorial, it is so delightful and delicate yet at the same time carries weight. The prelude was so graceful. The rest of the movements are all based on dances and the outcome is so pleasant. That was a treat! I luuuuuuuuv Ravel’s music!
The second piece of the evening was the Flute concerto by Dalbavie. This contemporary piece was so different. The flute concerto had so much going on (so many twists and surprises) that you had to pay attention to it throughout ( unlike Ravel’s piece where you could close your eyes and be transported to your favorite ballroom and have a nice dance!). It had a mysterious feel to it and would have suited so well to a movie with a sober and dark theme. It is not my kind of music though!
Mathieu Dufour, Prinicpal Flute for CSO
As for the execution of the piece, Mathieu Dufour, the principal flute for CSO was absolutely mind-blowing.This piece is immensely complex with varying patterns that demand the best fom the flautist and my oh my, M. Dufour was just perfect. The high notes were so clear, his absolute control over the notes and his breath control- it was just a pleasure being there. It is so amazing to see someone who is so good at what he does. To me, he was the highlight of the show!
And then came the dessert of the evening’s program- Bluebeard’s Castle!
The awesome imagination of the composer Bartok, the perfect background score where the music described the surrounding so well,the great lyrices , amazing vocals of the lead singers
(Michelle DeYoung and Herr Struckmann were really at their best), the nice balance of tragedy and dark humor and of course the flawless execution under Mr.Boulez- it was just the best you could get from a symphony orchestra!
Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle was amazing in terms of musical as well as lyrical content. But would I listen it to it a 100 times?- No! It is just kind of creepy music that you associate with a horror movie. But it is so well-suited to the libretto it was written for!
Mr.Pierre Boulez, the emeritus conductor,led the orchestra so effortlessly through the complicated Bluebeard’s castle. It is so great to be in the presence of such greatness.
If you are a symphony fan, then attending a performance of the “Big Five” (more on this later) must certainly be on your must-do list. And guess what, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the “Big Five” is in town today! Another great thing about this performance is that the CSO’s emeritus conductor, Pierre Boulez, returns to Ann Arbor for the first time since 1972 as part of the CSO’s month-long celebration of his 85th birthday. He is such a celebrated conductor with a long trail of achievements and is considered one of the most important musical and intellectual figures of our time. I am really excited about seeing him performing live.
Pierre Boulez, emeritus conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
And what a treat they have in store for us- the less-heard, obscure but absolutely fascinating works of Ravel and Bartok.
Remember the fairytale Bluebeard by Charles Perrault? There are many versions of it. But when my mom told me the grim tale when I was about 7 years old, I had nightmares for days. Bela Bartok, a Hungarian composer with a unique perspective, created an opera based on the story. The story is about how Judith, Bluebeard’s wife uncovers Bluebeard’s grisly secret by opening the seven doors in her husband’s castle and her sad end as a result of her curiosity. The opera didn’t see much success and popularity in Bartok’s times. But it was revived later by young musicians.
The CSO will give us a very rare concert performance of the one-act opera. The pieces presented today are all relatively unknown and it will be great to see them being performed live.
A flute concerto, a relatively modern piece (it was released in 2006) by the avant-garde composer Marc-Andre Dalbavie, will also be played by the orchestra.
So this is a performance you will definitely not want to miss. Tickets @ the Michigan League Office or in the Box Office before the show.
Yours truly,
Krithika for art[seen]
Krithika is excited to be back and wishes to write more on the arts.
I buy my concert tickets ahead of time and earlier today morning, I thought that I would be losing precious time at a concert when I should be really working on the zillion other things on the to-do list. But then I had a “”brain freeze” (when you can’t think anymore and the brain is just dead -something like sleeping with your eyes wide open) and I could no longer stare at the code I had been working on the whole day! So the concert proved to be a blessing and a nice break .
I am comparatively recent to the world of Western Classical music and as I go to various performances, I get to learn more about the composers and their music. So today, it was an introduction to French Composer Ravel and his music.It also included a taste of the work of Brahms from his younger years.
French Composer Maurice Ravel
Ahhhh… the French! They are so different from the rest. Their language, cuisine, culture, style and of course, music- it ees something deefferent (trying to speak french in eengleez and that seems to be an attempt in vain). They stand a class apart as does M. Thibaudet’s superb playing.
The evening’s performance made it clear that Mr.Thibaudet loves Ravel. Contrary to what I had posted in the preview, his love for Ravel was majorly influenced by his teacher, Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel. As for M. Ravel himself, he is like a painter who evokes these images with a certain sensitivity of a poet. There is such a complex arrangement in his music and it is so full of color. Let me try to explain this more. Some directors show violence blatantly (for example, you can actually see a guillotine chopping off a person’s head and the head with the eyes wide open with terror falls down with a thud in the wicker basket). Other directors just hint that something gruesome had happened (they show the blood spatter on the guillotine and a wicker basket covered with a blood-soaked rag) and leave it to the audience to picture the violence. And the second approach proves so much more effective (and often gets the Oscars!). Similarly, Ravel falls in the second category. His music just leaves so much to the listener to interpret and the result is brilliant.
The first piece “Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) was very different in the sense that I would start forming a certain opinion about the mood of the piece and then suddenly, there would come an unexpected string of notes that would make me change my mind about it. The music felt as if the composer was trying to portray one’s wavering mind. I loved the ending of this piece as it just felt conclusive as if someone had finally made a decision. This is one of the pieces that just grows on you.
The second piece, Ravel’s “Miroirs”, a suite of musical portraits was something I was looking forward to. It just turned out to be fabulous. Each movement was so beautifully executed. I loved the third movement, “Une barque sur l’océan (a boat on the ocean) the most. Here’s my interpretation. There was a slow melody (like the red wave in the picture below representing the movement of the boat as it goes over the large waves) and then a complicated faster melody(like the green wave representing the rocking of the boat).As for the picture, maybe my mathematical mind wasn’t completely switched off yet. But, somehow, it seemed as if the composer was looking at this boat and was trying to portray the emotions of the oarsman as well. This movement was definitely the highlight of the evening for me.
Underlying theme for Ravel's third mvmt in "Miroirs"- my interpretation!
I feel that the skill of a pianist lies in how well he can create a distinction between the various sounds that can be made on a piano- for example, like pianissimo and fortissimo. M. Thibaudet is definitely one of those truly gifted pianists who can do this really really well (you should have heard him play the fifth movement, “Valley of the bells”). At the end of the pieces that called for a soft ending, M.Thibaudet would press the sustain pedal and you could hear the dying sounds so well. The clarity was amazing (I was seated in the third row, yeah!) and as for the staccatos and the legatos, they were so perfect that I wanted to just run to the stage and hug M. Thibaudet. Ravel’s work is very complicated and it is not for the faint. M. Thibaudet pulled it off with perfect grace.
The next program was Brahms’ sonata No.3 which Brahms had composed when he was still in his late teens (Wow,what a genius! It makes me feel so small and insignificant). This piece showed the difference between German and French music clearly. Brahms’ sonata was so full of a sort of authoritativeness and had a clear underlying structure and there was heaviness mixed with doses of high energy! Ravel’s music, on the other hand, had this fluidity to it and a certain grace that only the French know how to do ( You see this in Monet’s paintings and can hear it in Ravel’s music). The musical difference is as distinct as differences between the German and French languages themselves.
Somehow, in spite of Brahms’ excellent “teen” work and M. Thibaudet’s flawless playing, I wasn’t particularly attentive to this piece. Could be that I was so used to Brahms (I listen to his symphonies and concertos on a regular basis) and you know, “familiarity breeds contempt” or in mycase, “inattentiveness”. Isn’t that so strange that when we are tired, something novel immediately gets our attention and yet we always crave for the familiar during other times? Ok, that didn’t make sense to me either. Still in my “brain freeze” stage, people!
Anyway,the encores (one other piece from Brahms (which was more uplifting ) and Chopin’s Nocturne(Oh, I love this one)) left me so content and satiated.
At concerts like these, I just wish I knew more to comment intelligently as the great music critics do and I feel so small and stupid when I realise how little I know about Music theory and the technicalities of Western music.
As I walked back from the Hill against a gale of wind that threatened to blow me away, there was a car that went past that “honked” Jingle Bells (it was very good) and I just had to smile! And I had this epiphany that the real purpose of music is just to please the heart and sometimes it is okay to listen with the heart and not be a “cerebral” listener. At the end of the day, the arpeggios or the cadenzas or the 101 techniques the artist had employed don’t matter. What matters is the euphoric feeling with which you leave the concert.
The noted French pianist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet will be playing at the Hill Auditorium on Dec 12th, saturday @ 8 pm. Mr.Thibaudet is very talented and has earned quite a reputation for himself, both as a soloist as well as a performer at a symphony orchestra. He is known for his unique interpretation and his superb mastery of the piano. He studied with Aldo Ciccolini who was an ardent advocate for the piano music of French composers Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie (courtesy Wiki). So we will be getting a taste of Ravel’s music.
The program for the evening includes two solo piano compositions by Ravel and a Brahms sonata.
Now, Ravel, a famous impressionist music composer, is known for his intricate and chiseled compositions that are so precisely arranged. The first of Ravel’s works for the evening is “Pavane pour une infante défunte (“Pavane for a dead princess”). This slow piece is daunting and will test any pianist’s skills. It will be interesting to see how Mr.Thibaudet executes this!
The second Ravel piece is “Miroirs” (Reflections). This is such an interesting ( and apparently very difficult) composition. There are five movements in the suite and each piece is intended to make us visualise a reflection when a certain person looked into the mirror (hence “reflections”). Ravel dedicated each of the movements to five people he knew. What an interesting poetic approach to music! I am looking forward to listening to Mr.Thibaudet’s version.
Then we have Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in F minor, another challenging work that requires a lot of skill. Brahms often found himself in the shadow of Beethoven and this sonata, celebrates Brahms’ love for Beethoven as we can hear the motif from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Yipppeeeeeeeee…one of my favorites!) .
Tickets are available at the Michigan League Office or at the Box Office before the performance.
I could do with some end-of-semester stress-busting and listen to some good piano music (even if it means braving howling winds and the treacherous black ice). What about you?
Krithika, [art]seen reviewer
Krithika is now listening to Strauss’s “The Blue Danube Waltz”
