Real Double-Header

Concert-style, not baseball-style. Yesterday (10/22) saw an afternoon of "The Songs of Franz Liszt" while the evening brought an orchestral concert with Dvorak, Patterson (more on that later), and Sibelius. [Note to self—bring HTML cheat sheet home from work!]

The lieder concert, on Liszt's 200th birth anniversary!, included 17 songs sung by a soprano, a mezzo, and a tenor, with superb piano accompaniment. Of the three vocalists, I liked the soprano, tenor, and mezzo in that order. The soprano seemed most at ease. The tenor, while good, struck me as more of a technique on display. And the mezzo sort of got short shrift in the programming, though her performance of "Die drei Zigeuner" was quite effective.

Highlights included "Im Rhein im schoenen Strome" and "Die Loreley" (soprano); two (of  three) Petrarch Sonnets (tenor—it was here that he created some freer singing); and "Ihr Glocken von Marling" and the aforementioned Gypsy song (mezzo).

It was nice that translations were provided. The concert ended with "O Lieb," a song/tune that most would recognize as Liebestraume #3.
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Shifting gears, the evening's program consisted of Othello Overture, Op. 93 (Antonin Dvorak), Concerto for Saxophone (Michael Patterson, b. 1947), and Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op 63 (Jean Sibelius).

The Dvorak was a real winner. In keeping with historical dates (see Liszt, 200, above), the Othello was given its first performance Oct. 21, 1892, in Carnegie Hall with Dvorak conducting—119 years ago, almost to the day.

Michael Patterson is a composer associated with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. This performance was the New York premiere of the piece, so I'm guessing Ohio heard it before we did. I enjoyed the three-movement work, with its jazz influences—and the soloist seemed to take the reverberating church-space sound into consideration, especially in a couple of cadenza passages.

The Sibelius takes a little bit of work to listen to. Even though I had read the program notes and was thus ready for some odd (though not abrupt) movement endings, they were still slightly ... unsettling. The four movements never quite jelled, for me. Some very nice sounds, some very nice playing, yet not quite equalling "very nice". Maybe I just need to give it another try. I mean, the program notes themselves read, "The work...bewildered the audience at its first performance [Helsinki]...[and] met with misunderstanding or outright hostility...in...Gothenburg, London, and Boston."

Yep, I owe it another listen. NY Public Library, can I check out a Sibelius CD, please?

ConcertMeister