SFS & MTT - 3rd Concert
What a magnificent Mahler 10 that was! I was overwhelmed by it. The strings sounded totally different (eh, the lady on the last row of the first violin somehow disappeared!). The Mahler was so good that I saw MTT smiling to the members of the orchestra the moment when it was finished. I start to doubt two things: i) was it because of jetlag that their first performance was not good; ii) was it because of the location of my seat (rear stall) that affected the sound I got on the first night(this I am pretty sure)? The strings were so good tonight - together, sweet, bright. I heard MTT's Mahler was good, but I never thought it could be this good, and it was live! Perhaps affected by the Mahler, I think even the show-off piece, Dvorak No.8 in the second half, was also very good.
They played three encores tonight, two of which were repeated.
The concert hall was not full tonight. What a shame!
They played three encores tonight, two of which were repeated.
The concert hall was not full tonight. What a shame!
posted by Andy at 2/11/2006 11:17:00 PM
2 Comments:
This is the only concert that I've attended of MTT. I originaly didn't plan to go to any of them because of the uninteresting programme to me, but at the moment they changed to M10, I seized the chance to get it.
What a magnificent concert it is, and the orchestra is in very good shape, especially the brass and percussion have very good sound. In the pre-concert talk, it seems MTT put his emphasis on the Copland rather on the other pieces, with excerpts of the original piano version being played, making the listening of the orchestral one live very enjoyable. The band is full of blast and dynamics, with strong characters of different variations! I think even people never hear it before (like me) will surely like that.
Mahler 10, I can say it's the most alien piece to me. MTT put it with extreme contrasts between different musical materials and what comes together is a kind of friction and magic that drew all the audience's ears. The strings are quite sweet, and winds as well.
Dvorak 8 is always my favourite among all his symphonies and MTT put freshness, clarity and energy in it. He let every note clearly pronounced and wittingly put into context and layers. The brass chorales in the outer movements showed fine examples of orchestral brass playing. And the opening cornet passage of 4th movement is something I admire for a trumpet player - not just loud, but with 'pronounciations'.
The 3 encores are, except the last "Coloured Clouds chasing the Moon" (a surprise for me), all are different than previous evenings. (Finale of "L'arlesienne" Suite and Roe-Down of Copland's "Rodeo") Definite show-pieces of the orchestra and MTT seemed very generous in giving these encores.
It's really unfortunate that the seatings are not affected by the change of programme and only 60-70% of the seats are filled together with some studnets enrolled in the Young Friends scheme, though the audience are attentive and enthuastic in general. This concert made MTT and SFS one of the top bands in my mind, though I still have no plan to put an instalment to their recent Mahler CDs. Rather than, their American stuff should be always made available to be heard!
I also attended the pre-concert talk. It was a shame that MTT only talked briefly about Mahler, as I thought he is a specialist in Mahler.
The Finale of "L'arlesienne" Suite was played on the first night, so two pieces were "repeated" ones.
There would be even fewer people attend the concert if they had kept the original programme. The Mahler 10 did draw some more people to it. It's just not enough to fill the seats.
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