Classical Life

I’ve been mulling over the following program in my spare thinking time the last couple of weeks. The Pacific Symphony performs it tomorrow through Saturday. I can’t make up my mind if it’s inspired, or lame. I suppose it’s somewhere in between. Here it is:

Daugherty: The Gospel According to Sister Aimee (2012) for Organ, Brass and Percussion (World premiere)
Daugherty: Radio City (2011) Symphonic Fantasy on Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in America (American premiere)
Barber: Adagio for Strings
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto

On the one hand, two pieces by Daugherty is too much. On the other, it’s nice to hear some new music. (BTW, I think Daugherty tries too hard with his titles.)

The order of the concert has changed. Previously the Barber came between the two Daugherty pieces. At any rate, the Barber and the Tchaikovsky are clearly on the program as sugar to make the medicine go down, or at least as names that will help sell tickets. The concerts are being marketed on the basis of the Tchaikovsky concerto, so I’m sure there will be a lot of audience members there who will be terrorized (if that’s the right word) by the Daugherty pieces. Not that he’s so wild. He’s kind of  a populist, in fact.

Anyway, I can’t decide. What do you think?

A chronological survey of the first two chords of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony in recordings through the years.

Hat tip: The Rest is Noise

In today’s Orange County Register online, I review last night’s performance by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony in Segerstrom Concert Hall. This review will not appear in print.

Click here to read my review.

I paid $6 for a small bag of nuts at the concert last night. They were out of cookies, which were cheaper. Ridiculous.

Conductor Chris Russell, a friend of Classical Life, will host the pre-concert talk tonight at 7 p.m. He’ll be interviewing the composer Mason Bates, whose new “Alternative Energy” we’ll hear Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony perform.

Bates participates in the performance of “AE,” by the way. He operates the electronics from a computer keyboard.

There has been some discussion about the program. Not many correspondents seem to have heard Honegger’s “Pacific 231″ in live performance. It is a rarity. As it happens, I have heard it live, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion conducted by David Zinman. I think it was the Baltimore Symphony, but it may have been LA Phil. At any rate, I was young and stoked about it, and purposely timed my very loud bravo for the moment of silence between the last chord and the applause. Many months later, I was driving around in my car and there was a recording of “Pacific 231″ on the radio. When it ended, I heard a loud “Bravo!” followed by applause. It was the performance I had been at.

Also, a couple of people say that they’ve never quite warmed to Franck’s Symphony, which closes tonight’s program. I had the same feeling, until I heard the recording made by the Chicago Symphony and conductor Pierre Monteux. I’ll wager it will convince you as well. It’s in my recommended recordings.

Finally, I’d like to pass along a very satisfying moment in my interview with Muti, which didn’t make it into the article. We were talking a little bit about “Pacific 231″ and I asked him if he had ever heard “Rugby” by the same composer. Muti said he knew the title, but had never heard the piece. So, I told him it was a very interesting piece and it was a kind of sequel to “Pacific 231.”

“Ah, so I will look at,” he said. “Maybe next time I will bring to you. … Thank you for telling me this.  I will ask immediately for a librarian to bring me the score.”

I have since been informed by the Chicago Symphony that Muti does indeed have the score to “Rugby” in hand. How cool is that?

The recording of “Rugby” (above) is by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

Not sure that I agree with him — I think it is important, and not just window dressing, for a conductor to inspire an orchestra — but Muti does have a point. Conductors should at least try not to overdo it.

Here’s my interview with conductor Riccardo Muti, who brings the Chicago Symphony to California next week.

photo: CSO/Todd Rosenberg

Click here to view a PDF that gives a chronological list of events in Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Click here to read my article. Be sure to click through the slide show to see all the programming details.

With Riccardo Muti at the helm, the Chicago Symphony will visit Orange County for the first time in a couple of decades on Feb. 17. I thought I’d share a Muti video or two in the next couple of weeks and perhaps something of the Chicago Symphony as well.

In this video, Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in a 1999 performance of the Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart.

I’ll share an interview with Muti in a few days.

Not incidentally, Muti and the Chicagoans will perform a boffo and unhackneyed program here consisting of Honegger’s “Pacific 231,” Mason Bates’s “Alternative Energy” and Franck’s Symphony. Hallelujah.