More good music

A few weeks ago I heard the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver then last weekend I listened to the Boulder Philharmonic. The CSO played Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and the Phil played Beethoven's Fifth. Since both works are so familiar and ingrained in my mind, your ear picks up anything out of the ordinary. The CSO's performance was crisp and clear. The brass seemed extraordinarily strong. The Phil's performance was nearly as crisp, but the first violins seemed a bit reticent and quiet. Still, while I prefer new and unfamiliar music, when the old warhorses are played, your listening is tested.

Two facility performances at the University of Colorado started off the new semester. The first was Lina Bahn, Judith Glyde, Daniel Silver and Alexandra Nguyen performing Paul Moravec's "The Tempest Fantasy" with Alexandra Lewis acting the role of Miranda and Lyndia McGaughey doing interpretive dance. For some reason Moravec's music reminded me of Leonard Bernstein. I don't know what it was, but in the middle of the piece that thought came to me and stayed throughout. The dancing did little for me, but that's normal. The spoken words were delivered well, but one phrase stuck out in my mind, summarizing my reaction to this whole work of art -- "thorns without roses".

The second faculty performance was by pianist David Korevaar. I've always been a fan of his and I have several of his CD's. He played Debussy and a Beethoven sonata "Pastorale" and ended with a favorite of mine, Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage: Switzerland". Someone commented last night during the intermission of the Metropolitan Opera's HD movie performance of "Der Rosenkavalier" that she thought the Liszt was so sad. I agree. On the morning when the Denver airport opened for the first flights after 9/11, I took a Japanese friend to the airport and saw her depart. On the drive back "Années De Pélerinage" was on the radio and it just exaggerated my sadness. Korevaar's playing confirmed that sadness with an excellent performance.

"Der Rosenkavalier" is one of my all time favorites. I've seen it live at Santa Fe and at Opera Colorado, but the music sticks with me mostly from Cd's. Just listening to the music doesn't do it justice, though. This performance with Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Christine Schäfer and Kristinn Sigmundsson was outstanding. I sat fairly close to the huge screen and got drawn into it. My German is rusty so the sub-titles helped me understand more about what was really going on. The Marschallin's sadness at her aging comes out more than you can get from just a musical performance -- and in the end of the first act you could see Fleming's tears on the big screen. Now I wish I had gone to the Saturday morning broadcast a few weeks ago so I would have seen it twice.