Comments

An Evening at Carnegie Hall: Requiem for the 20th Century — 6 Comments

  1. Thanks for the interesting links, Sue. I love to hear conductors talking about the work they are going to conduct and also to attend orchestral rehearsals. It’s magic.

  2. Congratulations Sue, on your concert choice: not light-hearted entertaintment at all, rather heavy weight engagement, but worth the attendance. I’ll comment starting from the last composition.
    The most unexpected, to me, was the third piece, by Schnittke. I am more familiar with his serial works, most of them extremely challenging. His “Nagasaki” oratorio seems to me more traditional, easier to get into, therefore I could get more out of it, I felt it packed with emotions and rewarding.
    The atmosphere of Ligeti’s choral “Requiem” is powerful, redolent with suffering and war-like colours. The composer is one of my present favourites. In particular, I loved the rarefied “Lachrymosa”movement.
    I am not a fan of Ralph Vaughn Williams music, just a matter of taste, I suppose. Nevertheless, this Symphony is imposing, with its huge orchestration. Intriguing and challenging.
    I must confess that I don’t know the conductor Leon Botstein, I have never hear him conducting. What was your opinion?

    • Dani, Botstein is amazing. He gives a lecture an hour before his concerts and is funny, sardonic and brilliant. His conducting is wonderful.

      I found some interesting videos.

      You can listen to lectures here and get an idea of what they are like, many on youtube.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>