Recent Concerts in London!

1. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle
Amanda and I went for this at the Barbican and it just blew us away! Stravinsky is an absolute genious. The Rite of Spring was so gripping that we (well, I) didn't want to miss a single second of it. You could also feel the motion of the piece and could tell that all of the LSO were completely immersed in it (as well as the great Valery Gergiev!). What made the concert even better is that I now recognise many of the players in the LSO, my favourites being Chi Yu Mo, the principal Eb clarinettist, Emmanuel Abbuhl, the principal oboist, the principal bassoonist, the horn players, trombonists, few of the strings and also the percussionists! Love them! Such a fantastic interpretation of a fantastic piece.

However with regards to Duke Bluebeard's Castle..... I wasn't impressed. The piece was rather lengthy and tedious. You could tell the orchestra wasn't very excited (having just performed the Rite of Spring earlier). But hats off to the great soprano and baritone though.

2. Copland's Appalachian Spring and Stravinsky's Petrushka
I loved the Copland. Such a beautiful piece that gives you this feeling of fresh air and the beauty of nature. However I think we were sat too close to the stage (hence it was rather hard to hear the wind section as they were projecting more upwards). I loved looking at the principal cellists who were extremely expressive and looked like they were just in love with their wonderful jobs.

Now, in between the 2 pieces was this weird Japanese piano concerto (world debut). It was extremely odd and quite horrible in all honesty. Frankly speaking, if I was the pianist, I would've refused to be humiliated like that (although it was received with thunderous applause). To start with, it just looked so funny to have a bright red toy piano on stage next to the massive Steinway. Once they started playing, I just thought to myself that it sounded like it was from horror film. All the harmonies were peculiar, the strings were doing weird glissandos and weird 2 finger pizzicatos. The trumpeter was just playing something that had the effect of "hey look at me I can play this one note really really loud!". 3 quarter way though the piece, the pianist got off the Steinway and sat on this tiny red stool to play the toy piano. She was basically squatting to play this weird song. Anyway, thankfully it ended after 25 painful minutes.

Next, the piece of the night!! Stravinsky's Petrushka. I loved this piece the most. The orchestra seemed to think so too. There was evidently a lot more expression and most of them seemed to be lost in it. Love Stravinsky! Although it was a shame we were sat too close to the stage.

Future concerts I shall be going to
1. Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6 and Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no. 3 by the LSO
2. Tan Dun's Internet Symphony and Piano Concerto (world premiere) and Mahler's Symphony No.1 'the Titan' by the LSO

Can't wait!