diary livejournal fossils
Revolutionary Spirit @ DCPA: Boettcher Concert Hall - Orchestra2:row O:seats 28 & 29 - Sunday September 22, 2002 at 2:30pm I only really went for the Shosty. I'm addicted. Fifth Symphony especially. Oh well. I got to see my first bit of Daugherty
We need a word for him: antimelody (n) amelodic, amelodious (adj) a theme lacking in melody in the common sense. Daugherty's music is, as described by my mom, a mish-mash of small themes, mostly harmonic, that sound alright individually, but don't quite fit together as a whole. His Phillidelphia Stories may have accurately described the city, but I've never been there, and after hearing such a chaotic piece, I'm not entirely sure that I want to. He has potential, though. A lot of the themes he explores are kinda catchy and I've caught myself whistling them once or twice.
The Beethoven was good. His fourth piano cto., performed by a tall pianist that looked like the director to the Rolling Requiem in Boulder. He said that the critics would say that he was better at playing the piano than speaking in front of the audience. He was better at playing the piano than speaking in front of the audience.
The Shosty was great, of course, being his fifth. I like the first and second movements especially, even though CSO played them kinda slow. Still well worth going.
On the ride home, we read about another show that we might want to go to...
The Big Bang @ DCPA: Boettcher Concert Hall - Orcestra2:row P:seats 44 & 45 - Friday November 15, 2002 at 7:30pm
With large screens at three points along the perimeter of the cylindrical hall showing scenes of shuttle launches and various 3d animations of space-stuff, the concert started out with a space-music medley. Beginning with Also Sprach Zarathustra and moving right into various themes from The Planets (Alsop, who made a sneaky entrance, is directing The Planets this weekend), for a satisfying and grand peice. The movie clips were kinda distracting, but it was still good.
After announcing that the concert was, from that point on, going to be recorded, Mrs. Alsop quieted down to let us hear an eerie noise that, at first, sounded like a recording from a horror movie. After a while of looking around, Evelyn Glennie appeared behind us and stole down the aisle with an odd contraption that looked to be a gourd with thick piano wires sticking vertically from the wider part towards the smaller handle. She was playing it with a violin bow that had a cow bell attached to the end. After she made her way to the stage, she proceeded to introduce the piece with all sorts of oddball percussion instruments including a hand-wound air-raid siren, a steel drum upsidedown with seashells in it, and a handheld radio with which she produced feedback while messing with the squelch.
It was all downhill from there. The Daugherty really started, with it's fractured antimelodies and "blowing strings" (still not sure what that is). Most of the rest of the concert was spend watching Glennie play around with percussion. She bowed everything from cymbols to her vibrophone, and used a lot of windchimes. For the second half/last third, she had a solo on an eclectic drum set that was mostly bongoes, cowbells, cymbols, buckets, and woodblocks. That was pretty neat. The symphony (The "UFO" Symphony) ended with her on the bongoes playing along with the strings playing a nice decending melody (he got it together near the end) that was very dramatic and a fairly good ending to such a piece.
Both Phillidelphia Stories and the UFO Symphony are coming out on CD (Naxos) soon, and I'm thinking of buying it to scare the babylonia admins with, and to show Andrew for the percussion side