How wonderful to have someone like Igor Stravinsky composing a work to commemorate your wedding anniversary and how even more fabulous to have someone like Wagner composing a birthday present like Siegfried Idyll! Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks is a delightfully tongue in cheek classical pastiche full of the composer's unmistakable thumbprints; those inimitable brassy staccatos, quirky woodwind passages set in a delightful take of baroque form. As successful and original as Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, this work deserves to be played more often. A more rhythmic stylishness and a couple of weaknesses in intonation in the open passages could have improved the overall effect which was otherwise delightful.
The Siegfried Idyll usually wafts me to sleep; especially when it is performed a la Karajan in a way that attempts to squeeze out every available drop of lyricism. The result is usually so therapeutic that no matter how beautiful initially, the sheer length of the work transforms it into a soporific. I was at first taken aback by the pace at which Beltran led the orchestra and then rather enjoyed it. The andante pace as opposed to the adagio, gave a more vigorous but nonetheless aesthetically emotional melodiousness to this very well known if reputedly verbose work. For the first time I actually listened to the idyll from start to finish without making any obvious effort to prevent my mind wandering which in my book is a definite plus point.
When a reviewer is faced with the challenge of assessing a new work the whole raison d'etre for being a critic becomes all that much more meaningful. Who cares what a critic may write about Haydn and Beethoven let alone Stravinsky and Wagner; all of whom have been acknowledged masters for a century and more. Today, many are those who question the role of a critic; and with good reason. It is an extremely debatable point; one that, I for one, am unable to answer because there are so many pros and cons that arriving at the kind of solution that our all so literal and pragmatic cyberworld demands is impossible.
What enables me to give an opinion about a mint new violin concerto? Nothing very much; apart from the fact that I may be relatively better informed and more perceptive than the average audience. Even there, in today's IT-dominated world, the amount of knowledge available to all is so colossal that the critic is basically a more sensitive and articulate member of the audience whose thinking-cap dominates emotional sallies into the unknown and forever seeks logical and comprehensible solutions to present to his readers. That is how I see it.
Karl Fiorini's Violin Concerto with the dedicatee as soloist was primarily yet another proof that contemporary music can be emotional, lyrical and coherent.
The question is whether I would wish to listen to Mr Fiorini's concerto again; a question to which I unhesitatingly reply, yes, definitely. There is plenty of material in the concerto that moved me; the rich and sometimes startling score, the poignant desolation of the adagio passages, the lilting scherzo-like rhythms and the rich harmonics. There was also a need to be more concise; possibly a little pruning to cut some of the repeats, or near clone-like passages, may improve the overall effect and enable the lyrical solo declamations that merge dramatically with the orchestral score remain mysteriously ephemeral instead of overworking them.
From the square-dancing Calibans to ostinato rhythms that reminded me of Louise Bourgeois's Spiders, what really hallmarks the concerto is the intense and molten lyricism of the solo violin score played spectacularly by Emanuel Salvador to whom Mr Fiorini dedicates the work. Salvador performed this work with great pathos and conviction projecting the most dissonant and spaced out tonal passages into sheer lyricism.
Today, works by composers like Lauridsen, Glass, Adams, Wallfisch, Andriessen and Vine, to mention but a few, are slowly but surely shifting popular perception of "contemporary" to the comprehensibly emotional and intellectual planes that determine all good music; in fact I will expand that to all good art. At the end of the day, it is Time and the Listener who will determine whether a work can and will survive or not; and that, despite us critics, is the truest test of all!
The Siegfried Idyll usually wafts me to sleep; especially when it is performed a la Karajan in a way that attempts to squeeze out every available drop of lyricism. The result is usually so therapeutic that no matter how beautiful initially, the sheer length of the work transforms it into a soporific. I was at first taken aback by the pace at which Beltran led the orchestra and then rather enjoyed it. The andante pace as opposed to the adagio, gave a more vigorous but nonetheless aesthetically emotional melodiousness to this very well known if reputedly verbose work. For the first time I actually listened to the idyll from start to finish without making any obvious effort to prevent my mind wandering which in my book is a definite plus point.
When a reviewer is faced with the challenge of assessing a new work the whole raison d'etre for being a critic becomes all that much more meaningful. Who cares what a critic may write about Haydn and Beethoven let alone Stravinsky and Wagner; all of whom have been acknowledged masters for a century and more. Today, many are those who question the role of a critic; and with good reason. It is an extremely debatable point; one that, I for one, am unable to answer because there are so many pros and cons that arriving at the kind of solution that our all so literal and pragmatic cyberworld demands is impossible.
What enables me to give an opinion about a mint new violin concerto? Nothing very much; apart from the fact that I may be relatively better informed and more perceptive than the average audience. Even there, in today's IT-dominated world, the amount of knowledge available to all is so colossal that the critic is basically a more sensitive and articulate member of the audience whose thinking-cap dominates emotional sallies into the unknown and forever seeks logical and comprehensible solutions to present to his readers. That is how I see it.
Karl Fiorini's Violin Concerto with the dedicatee as soloist was primarily yet another proof that contemporary music can be emotional, lyrical and coherent.
The question is whether I would wish to listen to Mr Fiorini's concerto again; a question to which I unhesitatingly reply, yes, definitely. There is plenty of material in the concerto that moved me; the rich and sometimes startling score, the poignant desolation of the adagio passages, the lilting scherzo-like rhythms and the rich harmonics. There was also a need to be more concise; possibly a little pruning to cut some of the repeats, or near clone-like passages, may improve the overall effect and enable the lyrical solo declamations that merge dramatically with the orchestral score remain mysteriously ephemeral instead of overworking them.
From the square-dancing Calibans to ostinato rhythms that reminded me of Louise Bourgeois's Spiders, what really hallmarks the concerto is the intense and molten lyricism of the solo violin score played spectacularly by Emanuel Salvador to whom Mr Fiorini dedicates the work. Salvador performed this work with great pathos and conviction projecting the most dissonant and spaced out tonal passages into sheer lyricism.
Today, works by composers like Lauridsen, Glass, Adams, Wallfisch, Andriessen and Vine, to mention but a few, are slowly but surely shifting popular perception of "contemporary" to the comprehensibly emotional and intellectual planes that determine all good music; in fact I will expand that to all good art. At the end of the day, it is Time and the Listener who will determine whether a work can and will survive or not; and that, despite us critics, is the truest test of all!