Saturday, April 19, 2008

ERRATA ALERT!

I thought I had been anticipating the Bruch concert for a long time, turns out it was the last Rainier Symphony concert, the one we forgot to go to.
Sheesh!

This concert featured Beethoven's fourth symphony.
Program opened with Holst's St. Paul's Suite. for this performance the Rainier strings were joined by the Normandy Park Youth Orchestra Advanced Ensemble.
I was duly impressed.
Not only by the Normans themselves but also by how well the whole conglomeration of orchestras worked together.

Then they played Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and I was even more impressed with the strings.

During intermission, I ran into someone I knew from my volunteer days at the other
symphony.
I didn't finish my sentence about how good they sounded before she said "Illka"
So I had to agree with her although I had been hoping that she would agree with me.
Life's little chicanes.

Ludwig's fourth is a difficult piece.

They play once more in Tukwila tomorrow 3:00 pm at the Foster PAC 4242 S. 144th St.

How an all volunteer orchestra can sound that good with only one concertmaster is quite amazing.
Gosh, The SSO has four cooks stirring the broth, and they, well I can't really say what they sound like these days. So I will just assume they are bereft of the necessary organizational skills to become the second tier band that Paul Meecham said they could be if, well I forget what if.
It was at least four years ago.
Maybe it was if they got rid of me.

Speaking of coincidence, I was wearing a shirt, the one with the SSO logo on the front, that I had been given by another volunteer (back when they still liked me) and this was the first time I ever met someone in Renton from that part of my shadowed past.

Before the show, we ate at the Whistle stop in Renton Had a very tasty shrimp and salmon teriyaki bowl and Meredith had a wonderful looking chicken briata.
She said it tasted terrific. Go there sometime.

Hazelnut

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What???? Lane!!
Why are you propagandizing an organization that did you in????
Wearing a SSO "T"-shirt; shit!!!
Is the SSO person you mez at the concert and uttered "Ilka" still at the Cuckucks' nest??? Did she also wear a SSO "T"-shirt???
Perplexed,
Tschüß,
(The real) Anonomann

2:39 AM  
Blogger Glenn Buttkus said...

Geez, all that research on Max Bruch went for naught!

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 in B Flat Major, Op. 60, was written in 1806.

The work was dedicated to Count Franz von Oppersdorff, a relative of Beethoven's patron, Prince Lichnowsky. The Count met Beethoven when he traveled to Lichnowsky's summer home where Beethoven was staying. Von Oppersdorff listened to Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, and liked it so much that he offered a great amount of money for Beethoven to compose a new symphony for him. The dedication was made to "the Silesian nobleman Count Franz von Oppersdorf".

Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in B flat and E flat, 2 trumpets in B flat and E flat, timpani and strings.

Although all nine of Beethoven's symphonies are widely performed, the Fourth is less often performed than some of the others. Robert Schumann described Symphony No. 4 as a "slender Greek maiden between two Norse gods", referring to the 3rd and 5th Symphonies, both with towering reputations

Romeo and Juliet is a musical work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, subtitled Overture-Fantasy. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and by Shakespeare's play of the same name.

Although styled an 'Overture-Fantasy' by the composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata-form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story. The first strand, written in F-sharp minor, following Balakirev’s suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly Friar Laurence. Here there is a flavour of Russian Orthodoxy, but also a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. Eventually a single E minor chord with a D natural in the bass passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B minor, the agitated theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight. The forceful irregular rhythms of the street music point ahead to Stravinsky and beyond. The action suddenly slows, the key dropping from B-minor to D-flat (as suggested by Balakirev) and we hear the opening bars of the love theme, the third strand, passionate and yearning in character but always with an underlying current of anxiety. The battling strand returns, this time with more intensity and build-up. The strings enter with a lush, hovering melody over which the flute and oboe eventually soar with the love theme once again, this time loud and in D major, signaling the development section. A final battle theme is played, and two large orchestra hits with cymbal crashes signal the suicide of the two lovers. A soft, slow dirge in B major ensues, with timpani playing a repeated triplet pattern, and tuba holding a B natural for 16 bars. The woodwinds play a sweet homage to the lovers, and a final allusion to the love theme brings in the climax, beginning with a huge crescendo B natural roll of the timpani, and the orchestra plays homphonic shouts of a B major chord before the final bar, with full orchestra belting out a powerful B natural to close the overture.§

The Overture's love theme had been used in many TV shows and movies such as The Jazz Singer, Wayne's World, Scrubs, Seeing Double, Ren & Stimpy, South Park, Clueless,A Christmas Story, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Moonraker, etc.

A part of the love theme has also been used in the popular videogame The Sims when the sims kiss

I don't agree that you should always seek or want people to agree with you. It is a sign of weakness of spirit, a sign that your self image is not propped up properly, that your self confidence is not very confident. I hate it when people do not agree with me, reinforcing that my perceptions are The Accurate ones, but that's just me, enit?

OMG, SSO has four concertmasters? No wonder they can't find their puds with both paws.

If any of your dear readers ever go to the Whistle Stop, there in Renton, a stone's throw from the freeway (405), make sure you do not order the garlic lemonade. It will curl your colon, for sure. Even Meredith turned her nose up to it. Actually Doug drank it, just to show off; probably gave him terrible indigestion too.

As Val Kilmer might say, "I am your hazelnut."

Glenn

5:19 AM  
Blogger Lane Savant said...

Hey, anono, it was Jolie, she's alright. She was dressed very stylishly and looked sharp as usual.
I forgot to ask her if she was still incarcerated.
Isa Nelson gave me the shirt, she's alright.
I wear it with a sense of irony.
Besides I'm a forgiving sort.
Ought to be a hit with Christians.

7:29 AM  
Blogger Lane Savant said...

You're right Butch, absolutely right, I agree fully and completely, I shouldn't be such a wuss.

Tukwila is the Indian name for hazelnut.

7:32 AM  

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