It's Halloween e'en, and I am not down in the living room waiting for trick-or-treaters to show up. We haven't had any for several years. Our outside lights are off, and I'm upstairs at my computer listening to a livestream concert from the SF Conservatory of Music: Ravel, Shostakovich, and Brahms.
I have nothing to add to the news which others have not said, except to note that the party of DT is now rapidly seizing the opportunity to become the party of Alex Jones.
My auto registration renewal came today, which is a relief considering that, though I submitted the renewal request over a month ago, they still haven't deposited the check.
A bubble of irregularity has appeared in the ceiling of our foyer. An insect specialist came by appointment today and found no droppings, so he doesn't think it's insects. It must be water, and there is a bathroom directly above the foyer, but no fixtures directly over the spot, so if it's water it must be a pipe leak. There may be much tearing apart in our future.
Meanwhile, the automated garage door opener we had installed three years ago began to beep continually. This proved to be a sign that the battery had gone dead. Rather soon, I'd think. After some research, figured out how to find the battery compartment and pulled out the battery, a cube of about 4 inches and very heavy. Unplugged it and the beeping stopped.
Now to replace the battery. Manufacturer's web site was hard to navigate, person on the phone was of no help whatever and led me to order what turned out when it arrived to be the wrong battery: right shape and voltage and all, but wrong connector. Armed with that info I was able to figure out what must be the right battery, and a much more helpful person told me how to return the wrong one. Also told me I could purchase the right battery at Lowe's, Home Despot, etc. Turned out to be true - at least an equivalent knockoff - but it wasn't in stock, I still had to order it. At least it's less expensive than the manufacturer's, and maybe it will have fewer customer reviews complaining about its short lifespan. Fortunately we don't use our garage door much - garage is for storage, not a car - because the door's going to remain closed for a while.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Monday, October 31, 2022
Friday, October 28, 2022
two concerts and a play
1. I reviewed the Peninsula Symphony last week playing Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. Next week I'll be hearing the San Francisco Symphony playing Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. Good thing there's more to classical music than repetition. (FKB fans: "But not much!")
2. The Danish String Quartet, less intensely bearded than they were the last time I saw them, came to Herbst for my first quartet concert of the season. Mozart's K. 138 Divertimento permits more individual expression when played for quartet than for orchestra. Britten's Divertimenti leaned over to the light and perky end of the spectrum. Mozart's K. 428 was altogether more serious, and Schumann's Third was epically Beethovenian. But the best moment was their encore, a Haydn adagio played in memory of Geoff Nuttall.
3. I don't normally go out of my way to see plays that are being signed. I don't know ASL so I don't need the distraction. But Why Not Theatre's Hamlet, at Bing, was supposed to be transformatively imaginative. Mostly I didn't find it so: small cast, no sets, gender fluid casting (Hamlet, Horatio, and Polonius were women, Ophelia was a man), racially fluid casting also. Nor was having one character - in this case Horatio - be Deaf and communicate only in ASL unprecedented in my experience. But I stuck through the rather dully-played opening because Hamlet always gathers energy as it goes along. Later, dirt was spread over the stage, and in the mad scene Ophelia threw clots of it at the others - who flinch - to represent the flowers, which was striking in more than one sense, and even more arresting was the duel scene, narrated by Horatio in ASL as the other actors recited their lines while sitting on the floor mostly motionless facing her. The epilogue was completely silent, but you don't have to know ASL to figure out when she's signing "Now cracks a noble heart." Was this stuff worth sitting through the whole thing for? Uh, maybe.
2. The Danish String Quartet, less intensely bearded than they were the last time I saw them, came to Herbst for my first quartet concert of the season. Mozart's K. 138 Divertimento permits more individual expression when played for quartet than for orchestra. Britten's Divertimenti leaned over to the light and perky end of the spectrum. Mozart's K. 428 was altogether more serious, and Schumann's Third was epically Beethovenian. But the best moment was their encore, a Haydn adagio played in memory of Geoff Nuttall.
3. I don't normally go out of my way to see plays that are being signed. I don't know ASL so I don't need the distraction. But Why Not Theatre's Hamlet, at Bing, was supposed to be transformatively imaginative. Mostly I didn't find it so: small cast, no sets, gender fluid casting (Hamlet, Horatio, and Polonius were women, Ophelia was a man), racially fluid casting also. Nor was having one character - in this case Horatio - be Deaf and communicate only in ASL unprecedented in my experience. But I stuck through the rather dully-played opening because Hamlet always gathers energy as it goes along. Later, dirt was spread over the stage, and in the mad scene Ophelia threw clots of it at the others - who flinch - to represent the flowers, which was striking in more than one sense, and even more arresting was the duel scene, narrated by Horatio in ASL as the other actors recited their lines while sitting on the floor mostly motionless facing her. The epilogue was completely silent, but you don't have to know ASL to figure out when she's signing "Now cracks a noble heart." Was this stuff worth sitting through the whole thing for? Uh, maybe.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Tár baby
I found the film Tár frequently baffling, and I'm putting these notes out here in hopes that somebody else who's seen it who's more attuned to this filmmaking style can enlighten me. Semi-spoilers.
1. Some movies can establish location clearly without title cards. This is not one of them. At one point Sharon implies that Lydia is keeping another apartment in Berlin besides the one they live in. Is that where Lydia is seen sleeping on a couch?
2. If, as Lydia avers at the film's climax, Eliot has her Mahler 5 score, does that mean that he's the person who snuck into her home and stole it earlier? And if so, is he also the person who, even earlier than that, snuck in and turned on her metronome in the middle of the night, and made her refrigerator hum? If so, why? And what is he doing in Berlin all this time? I thought he was in New York. (See, I told you this film needed title cards.)
3. Lydia says she's bruised because she was attacked. It looked to me as if she just tripped and fell while running up the stairs. Did I miss something, or is Lydia lying? If so, why?
4. Lydia invites Olga, the orchestra's probationary cellist, to an introductory lunch, where Olga tells of playing the Elgar cello concerto at the age of 13. I thought Lydia was going to summarily fire her for her horrendous table manners. Is ignoring these supposed to be a sign of how obsessed Lydia is by Olga?
5. Why is Olga living in what looks like a building untouched since it was bombed out in WW2?
6. Is it actually believable that a conducting student would disdain Bach's music because he was a white male with 20 children?
My interest was attracted to this film largely because it's about classical music. But unfortunately I can't evaluate the music in it, as I'm not very familiar with Mahler's Fifth and even less so with the Elgar cello concerto, two works I've never much cared for. I can tell you, however, that it would be most irregular to pair them on a regular concert: the combination would be far too much music, and heavy music at that, at once. I found that much more unbelievable than the moment in the plot that several critics have cited as unbelievable, which though unprecedented seemed to me to fit with Lydia's character.
I can confirm, in addition, that all the performers (conductors and instrumentalists) not directly characters in the story (onscreen or, in a couple cases, offscreen), and all the composers, past and present (except for a couple of the latter I hadn't heard of), are real people. So is the onscreen critic who interviews Lydia at the beginning: he's a real critic. (A fictional one would be unlikely to be so smarmy.)
1. Some movies can establish location clearly without title cards. This is not one of them. At one point Sharon implies that Lydia is keeping another apartment in Berlin besides the one they live in. Is that where Lydia is seen sleeping on a couch?
2. If, as Lydia avers at the film's climax, Eliot has her Mahler 5 score, does that mean that he's the person who snuck into her home and stole it earlier? And if so, is he also the person who, even earlier than that, snuck in and turned on her metronome in the middle of the night, and made her refrigerator hum? If so, why? And what is he doing in Berlin all this time? I thought he was in New York. (See, I told you this film needed title cards.)
3. Lydia says she's bruised because she was attacked. It looked to me as if she just tripped and fell while running up the stairs. Did I miss something, or is Lydia lying? If so, why?
4. Lydia invites Olga, the orchestra's probationary cellist, to an introductory lunch, where Olga tells of playing the Elgar cello concerto at the age of 13. I thought Lydia was going to summarily fire her for her horrendous table manners. Is ignoring these supposed to be a sign of how obsessed Lydia is by Olga?
5. Why is Olga living in what looks like a building untouched since it was bombed out in WW2?
6. Is it actually believable that a conducting student would disdain Bach's music because he was a white male with 20 children?
My interest was attracted to this film largely because it's about classical music. But unfortunately I can't evaluate the music in it, as I'm not very familiar with Mahler's Fifth and even less so with the Elgar cello concerto, two works I've never much cared for. I can tell you, however, that it would be most irregular to pair them on a regular concert: the combination would be far too much music, and heavy music at that, at once. I found that much more unbelievable than the moment in the plot that several critics have cited as unbelievable, which though unprecedented seemed to me to fit with Lydia's character.
I can confirm, in addition, that all the performers (conductors and instrumentalists) not directly characters in the story (onscreen or, in a couple cases, offscreen), and all the composers, past and present (except for a couple of the latter I hadn't heard of), are real people. So is the onscreen critic who interviews Lydia at the beginning: he's a real critic. (A fictional one would be unlikely to be so smarmy.)
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Henry V
Tuesday, as Jacob Rees-Mogg helpfully reminds us, is St. Crispin's Day, the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt and memorable as such for Henry V's famous speech about it in Shakespeare's play. Our online Shakespeare reading group, having crawled through Richard II and Henry IV last spring, and then taking a detour through Windsor with its merry wives, has just finished Henry V, and here's the historic notes I wrote for the first half of the play:
Prince Hal of the H4 plays has succeeded to the throne as King Henry V. Domestic rebellions behind him, he chooses to offer plot excitement to his realm by making an appearance in the French wars. This, according to Shakespeare and his sources, was gingered up by the Church so that they'd have something they could offer to finance the king and distract his attention away from confiscating church lands, which kings were wont to do. But there's a genealogical justification for this too, and in Act 1 Scene 2 the Archbishop of Canterbury offers it at tedious and numbing length.
I believe I can put it simpler. England had been fighting for territory in France since Henry II's time, but the current conflict has a more recent origin. Nearly a century before the time of this play, the direct father-to-son line of French kings had died out. The French had, or invented on the spot, a rule that the throne could only descend in the male line, so the crown was handed over to a cousin, Philip of Valois.
However, the last French king of the old line had had a sister. The English said crowns could descend through the female line, and lucky for them, that sister had married an English king and her son and heir was ... the then-current English king, young Edward III. So Edward declared his claim to the French throne, which his successors kept up. The French, of course, were having none of it. Active fighting, off and on, went on long enough that the conflict became known as the Hundred Years' War. Edward III and his son the Black Prince had won mighty battles in France, but the war fell into abeyance when Richard II tried to make peace, to be revived here by Henry V who takes the field against the current Valois king, Charles VI, who is not known for his mental stability.
The French King is accompanied by his son and heir, Louis the Dauphin, and his daughter Katherine, whom he offers to Henry as dowry. (Slinging daughters around this way was standard practice for centuries to come.) King Henry is accompanied by his brothers, of whom John of Lancaster of the H4 plays is now Duke of Bedford; the others are the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. The Duke of Exeter is his uncle who was of illegitimate birth and is not in line for the throne. The Earl of Cambridge, the conspirator against the king, is Henry's cousin, son of that nasty old Duke of York you remember from R2. And that about sums up the royal families.
Prince Hal of the H4 plays has succeeded to the throne as King Henry V. Domestic rebellions behind him, he chooses to offer plot excitement to his realm by making an appearance in the French wars. This, according to Shakespeare and his sources, was gingered up by the Church so that they'd have something they could offer to finance the king and distract his attention away from confiscating church lands, which kings were wont to do. But there's a genealogical justification for this too, and in Act 1 Scene 2 the Archbishop of Canterbury offers it at tedious and numbing length.
I believe I can put it simpler. England had been fighting for territory in France since Henry II's time, but the current conflict has a more recent origin. Nearly a century before the time of this play, the direct father-to-son line of French kings had died out. The French had, or invented on the spot, a rule that the throne could only descend in the male line, so the crown was handed over to a cousin, Philip of Valois.
However, the last French king of the old line had had a sister. The English said crowns could descend through the female line, and lucky for them, that sister had married an English king and her son and heir was ... the then-current English king, young Edward III. So Edward declared his claim to the French throne, which his successors kept up. The French, of course, were having none of it. Active fighting, off and on, went on long enough that the conflict became known as the Hundred Years' War. Edward III and his son the Black Prince had won mighty battles in France, but the war fell into abeyance when Richard II tried to make peace, to be revived here by Henry V who takes the field against the current Valois king, Charles VI, who is not known for his mental stability.
The French King is accompanied by his son and heir, Louis the Dauphin, and his daughter Katherine, whom he offers to Henry as dowry. (Slinging daughters around this way was standard practice for centuries to come.) King Henry is accompanied by his brothers, of whom John of Lancaster of the H4 plays is now Duke of Bedford; the others are the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. The Duke of Exeter is his uncle who was of illegitimate birth and is not in line for the throne. The Earl of Cambridge, the conspirator against the king, is Henry's cousin, son of that nasty old Duke of York you remember from R2. And that about sums up the royal families.
Monday, October 24, 2022
two concerts
1. Thursday I reviewed the San Francisco Symphony again. I'm not sure why they wanted this concert covered: it was as close to a pops concert as an SFS regular season program will get. I decided to say so boldly at the beginning. I thought about comparing EPS's approach in the Symphonie fantastique to MTT's in a fabulous recording that he made with SFS, but it didn't fit comfortably in the review. Nor did a reference to the fleeting reminiscences of Saint-Saëns that I heard in the Liszt, when, of course, the reminiscence is the other way around. Saint-Saëns was a great admirer of Liszt.
2. Friday B. and I ventured over to Stanford for a song recital by a couple of voice students, Jin-Hee Lee (soprano) and Danny Ritz (billed as a tenor, but he sounded more like a light baritone to us). Is this the first time I've been to Campbell, the Stanford Music Dept's tiny recital hall, since before the pandemic? Maybe so.
We were attracted to this because of the heavy offering of musical theater songs, especially Sondheim and Rodgers-and-Hart. There was also a chunk of French art songs, most of which B. knew. Lee was better on the art songs, Ritz at the musical theater. Most of the songs were on the theme of love. In the duets ("Tonight," "If I Loved You"), the singers' friends who made up most of the audience hooted and cheered whenever the singers ventured to act a little, holding hands or gazing into each other's eyes. You can venture your own view on whether that means they're also a couple offstage or not.
2. Friday B. and I ventured over to Stanford for a song recital by a couple of voice students, Jin-Hee Lee (soprano) and Danny Ritz (billed as a tenor, but he sounded more like a light baritone to us). Is this the first time I've been to Campbell, the Stanford Music Dept's tiny recital hall, since before the pandemic? Maybe so.
We were attracted to this because of the heavy offering of musical theater songs, especially Sondheim and Rodgers-and-Hart. There was also a chunk of French art songs, most of which B. knew. Lee was better on the art songs, Ritz at the musical theater. Most of the songs were on the theme of love. In the duets ("Tonight," "If I Loved You"), the singers' friends who made up most of the audience hooted and cheered whenever the singers ventured to act a little, holding hands or gazing into each other's eyes. You can venture your own view on whether that means they're also a couple offstage or not.
Sunday, October 23, 2022
computer adjustment
I bought my computer a new mouse. The old one had begun to double-click: you press the button once but it clicks twice. Actually it had been doing this for some time, but whap the thing a few times and it'd stop, for a while. But then the whaps stopped working. I opened it up, which I hadn't done before, and took out a wad of cat hair that had become wedged in, but that didn't stop the double-clicking either. It was just the most-used left button, so I was pretty sure it wasn't a software issue, just a very old mouse.
Actually it wasn't a mouse. It was a Logitech wired trackball, and so is the new device replacing it: fortunately they still make them. I've always preferred a trackball; they sit still on the desk and don't require room to move around, or friction to respond to. And wired, despite the nuisance: that means it's always physically attached to the computer and can't wander off, with or without feline assistance.
At about the same time an alarming software issue arose. I lost access to Outlook, which is pretty grim because that's where I keep all my e-mail. I'd quite recently run a backup, but that wouldn't help with subsequent arrivals. I closed the program and restarted it, but that didn't fix the problem. Before considering taking the computer in, I shut down and restarted that. And I noticed, even though I'd closed all the running programs first, that the shutdown said Outlook was still running and the shutdown program would have to close it. I bet that two copies of Outlook had somehow opened and were interfering with each other and that's what caused the problem, I thought. And sure enough, after the restart it worked fine.
Actually it wasn't a mouse. It was a Logitech wired trackball, and so is the new device replacing it: fortunately they still make them. I've always preferred a trackball; they sit still on the desk and don't require room to move around, or friction to respond to. And wired, despite the nuisance: that means it's always physically attached to the computer and can't wander off, with or without feline assistance.
At about the same time an alarming software issue arose. I lost access to Outlook, which is pretty grim because that's where I keep all my e-mail. I'd quite recently run a backup, but that wouldn't help with subsequent arrivals. I closed the program and restarted it, but that didn't fix the problem. Before considering taking the computer in, I shut down and restarted that. And I noticed, even though I'd closed all the running programs first, that the shutdown said Outlook was still running and the shutdown program would have to close it. I bet that two copies of Outlook had somehow opened and were interfering with each other and that's what caused the problem, I thought. And sure enough, after the restart it worked fine.
Friday, October 21, 2022
Tolkien Studies supplement
Subscribers have begun to receive printed copies of what's labeled as "Volume XIX, 2022, Supplement" of Tolkien Studies. This is the special issue containing Tolkien's "Chronology of The Lord of the Rings" edited and with commentary by William Cloud Hicklin.
And they're wondering, so what about the regular Volume XIX? Fair enough: you deserve an explanation and here it is.
Originally we were planning to have this be a supplement to Volume XVIII, but because it came out in 2022 it was attached to Volume XIX instead. It was delayed because of the complexity of working with it, and Volume XIX, which had to be put off to make time for the Supplement, got put off even more. The contents have been chosen and submitted, but it's still in the editing process.
West Virginia University Press policy for selling journals is on an annual subscription basis. That is, once you pay your annual subscription fee, you will receive any issues that appear that year, for no additional cost. Thus, if we do get out two issues this year - the supplement and the regular - anyone who's purchased the supplement, at the full annual cost, will receive the regular issue as well. That, at any rate, is the plan.
More I can't tell you; I have to get back to editing ...
And they're wondering, so what about the regular Volume XIX? Fair enough: you deserve an explanation and here it is.
Originally we were planning to have this be a supplement to Volume XVIII, but because it came out in 2022 it was attached to Volume XIX instead. It was delayed because of the complexity of working with it, and Volume XIX, which had to be put off to make time for the Supplement, got put off even more. The contents have been chosen and submitted, but it's still in the editing process.
West Virginia University Press policy for selling journals is on an annual subscription basis. That is, once you pay your annual subscription fee, you will receive any issues that appear that year, for no additional cost. Thus, if we do get out two issues this year - the supplement and the regular - anyone who's purchased the supplement, at the full annual cost, will receive the regular issue as well. That, at any rate, is the plan.
More I can't tell you; I have to get back to editing ...
Thursday, October 20, 2022
whisk
So in another most entertaining twist in British politics - and I remember the spasm that ejected Mrs Thatcher; this is even more baroque - Liz Truss is resigning. This time it'll supposedly take only a week to name a successor - if they can find one! - which will leave her at less than two months in office.
To my mind Truss's reign will be summed up by Commons leader Penny Mordaunt stating, in a debate, that "The Prime Minister is not under a desk."
(This was in response to an opposition MP claiming that she was cowering in fear of making decisions, and asking that they get someone else instead. Well now they will.)
Depending on criteria that may be the shortest term as PM ever. George Canning died after 4 months in 1827, but the most elaborate succession crisis in British history was 1834-35, when King William IV fired the Whig government of Lord Melbourne - the last time a monarch tried such a move - and put in the Tories. The Duke of Wellington, the previous Tory leader, insisted he had retired, and had passed the torch to Robert Peel. But Peel, with uncharacteristic bad judgment, had chosen this time to vacation in Italy, and in pre-railroad pre-telegraph days it took 3 weeks to fetch him back, during which time Wellington acted as interim caretaker. If that counts, that's a shorter term. (Wellington had been PM before, for just under 3 years.)
But the Commons was still dominated by the Whigs, so Peel gave up after four months - just a day or two more than Canning's term - and the Whigs came back in. The gradual crystallization of the party system out of the amorphous masses it had been in the 18C is what made the selection of a government a matter of nose-counting and no longer monarchial selection.
Although that was still always tempered by whether Parliament will accept them, which is why the real shortest Prime Ministership - so short it's not always included in the lists - was that of William Earl of Bath in 1746. He formally accepted office but found that gaining support was futile, and gave up after two days.
To my mind Truss's reign will be summed up by Commons leader Penny Mordaunt stating, in a debate, that "The Prime Minister is not under a desk."
(This was in response to an opposition MP claiming that she was cowering in fear of making decisions, and asking that they get someone else instead. Well now they will.)
Depending on criteria that may be the shortest term as PM ever. George Canning died after 4 months in 1827, but the most elaborate succession crisis in British history was 1834-35, when King William IV fired the Whig government of Lord Melbourne - the last time a monarch tried such a move - and put in the Tories. The Duke of Wellington, the previous Tory leader, insisted he had retired, and had passed the torch to Robert Peel. But Peel, with uncharacteristic bad judgment, had chosen this time to vacation in Italy, and in pre-railroad pre-telegraph days it took 3 weeks to fetch him back, during which time Wellington acted as interim caretaker. If that counts, that's a shorter term. (Wellington had been PM before, for just under 3 years.)
But the Commons was still dominated by the Whigs, so Peel gave up after four months - just a day or two more than Canning's term - and the Whigs came back in. The gradual crystallization of the party system out of the amorphous masses it had been in the 18C is what made the selection of a government a matter of nose-counting and no longer monarchial selection.
Although that was still always tempered by whether Parliament will accept them, which is why the real shortest Prime Ministership - so short it's not always included in the lists - was that of William Earl of Bath in 1746. He formally accepted office but found that gaining support was futile, and gave up after two days.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Geoff Nuttall in memoriam
Startling news, that Geoff Nuttall - violinist (usually first violin) of the St. Lawrence String Quartet - has died, aged only 56, of pancreatic cancer. Memoriam is up on the quartet's web page right now.
I knew his work well; the SLSQ has been the resident ensemble at Stanford for over 20 years now, hosting seminars and workshops as well as putting on their own concerts, and Geoff was usually the front man for this. What they're going to do without him I can't imagine. Two other positions in the quartet have changed hands over the years, and the ensemble has adapted, but without him it will truly be a different group.
He was a notable player, with an expressive curlicue sound particularly well suited for the elaborate first violin parts of the quartets of Haydn, his favorite composer. He moved around expressively, even excessively, while playing, bending over (even while seated), shifting his feet constantly.
And he spoke for the quartet, in a folksy, even twangy, but learned and above all enthusiastic way, keyed to conveying to a general audience what was great about the music he was discussing while neither oversimplifying it nor talking down. He was a great communicator as well as a great chamber violinist. Here, have an example of both:
I knew his work well; the SLSQ has been the resident ensemble at Stanford for over 20 years now, hosting seminars and workshops as well as putting on their own concerts, and Geoff was usually the front man for this. What they're going to do without him I can't imagine. Two other positions in the quartet have changed hands over the years, and the ensemble has adapted, but without him it will truly be a different group.
He was a notable player, with an expressive curlicue sound particularly well suited for the elaborate first violin parts of the quartets of Haydn, his favorite composer. He moved around expressively, even excessively, while playing, bending over (even while seated), shifting his feet constantly.
And he spoke for the quartet, in a folksy, even twangy, but learned and above all enthusiastic way, keyed to conveying to a general audience what was great about the music he was discussing while neither oversimplifying it nor talking down. He was a great communicator as well as a great chamber violinist. Here, have an example of both:
Monday, October 17, 2022
concert review: Winchester Orchestra
B. liked the program, so she came along with me to this concert by a community orchestra of which she was briefly a member a while ago until deciding against spending all her time rehearsing orchestral music she hadn't chosen and playing it at breakneck speed (which they're still doing).
I'd heard that music director Scott Seaton had resigned to take another post, but he was still there.
The strings sounded lovely, the winds were placid instead of piquant, but the brass were bold and coarse. This worked well in a hopping dance from de Falla's Three-Cornered Hat and the stark opening chords of Sibelius' Finlandia, not so well for a haunting horn theme in Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending.
Soloist for the Lark was the orchestra's concertmaster, Bill Palmer, who played with a wonderfully sweet tone. For all his technical imperfections, and there were more than a few, this was a generous and rewarding performance.
For a big concluding work, Schumann's Fourth Symphony, my favorite of his, a performance strong on the dark and brooding and light on the coy and fluttering. Glad to have had this.
I'd heard that music director Scott Seaton had resigned to take another post, but he was still there.
The strings sounded lovely, the winds were placid instead of piquant, but the brass were bold and coarse. This worked well in a hopping dance from de Falla's Three-Cornered Hat and the stark opening chords of Sibelius' Finlandia, not so well for a haunting horn theme in Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending.
Soloist for the Lark was the orchestra's concertmaster, Bill Palmer, who played with a wonderfully sweet tone. For all his technical imperfections, and there were more than a few, this was a generous and rewarding performance.
For a big concluding work, Schumann's Fourth Symphony, my favorite of his, a performance strong on the dark and brooding and light on the coy and fluttering. Glad to have had this.
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