Post by erik on Aug 17, 2022 8:51:02 GMT -5
Last night's Hollywood Bowl concert was all about the great late 19th/early 20th century Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Louis Langree, conductor
Nobuyuki Tsujii, piano
Rachmaninoff: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2
Rachmaninoff: SYMPHONY NO. 2
Louis Langree, the French-born music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, stepped in for the recently departed Bramwell Tovey, who was to have conducted this concert before his untimely death on July 12th at the age of 69, and conducted this all-Rachmaninoff affair. The Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujji was a more than capable soloist for the extremely challenging Piano Concerto No. 2, especially considering that it is the piano by itself that starts the piece in the first forty seconds. The work's highly charged first movement, in the home key of C Minor, was then followed by the lush, ultra-Romantic Adagio, whose principal theme figures into one of the great pop-rock ballads of the 1970's, namely "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen. With a barely noticeable break, we were then launched into the work's finale, where quotations of "Dies Irae" were sprinkled throughout, but where everything concluded with a buoyant C Major declamation at the end. Given that we were outdoors, the Bowl's high-definition sound system mostly managed to dampen the effect of the three aerial intrusions that occurred during the work's 34 1/2-minute running time. Mr. Mtsujii came back on for a solo piano encore, which was "La Campanella" by Franz Liszt.
Following intermission, Mr. Langree came back to conduct Rachmaninoff's ultra-Romantic Second Symphony, a work that the composer finished in 1907, ten years after the unbelievably disastrous premiere of the First (disastrous became his fellow composer Alexander Glazunov, who conducted the premiere of the First Symphony, was sloshed). The fairly sizeable orchestration necessary for the work and the melodies contained in it obviously inspired more than a few film composers in Hollywood over the rest of the 20th century, including even John Williams in a lot of ways. The highly-charged second movement, a Scherzo in all but named (actually marked Allegro Molto), was followed by the work's famous Adagio, whose main melody is noted for having inspired another 1976 Eric Carmen hit, "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again". Everything was resolved in the work's splashy conclusion, with more quotations from "Dies Irae" and a piece of the Adagio's main melody, going from the high-calorie dark romanticism of the work's original key of E Minor the a triumphant finish in E Major. It may be noted that for the first sixty-six years of this symphony's existence it was performed with severe cuts to it, both in concerts and recordings, something that changed in 1973 with two recordings, one by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the other by Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Langree performed this uncut, which meant that the work ran to exactly an hour in length.
Much of the summer here in Los Angeles has been quite hot; and while there was a breeze that cooled things down a little bit, it stayed quite sultry throughout, which made things fairly labor intensive for conductor, orchestra, and soloist. But once again, it was another fabulous night under the stars in the hills of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Louis Langree, conductor
Nobuyuki Tsujii, piano
Rachmaninoff: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2
Rachmaninoff: SYMPHONY NO. 2
Louis Langree, the French-born music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, stepped in for the recently departed Bramwell Tovey, who was to have conducted this concert before his untimely death on July 12th at the age of 69, and conducted this all-Rachmaninoff affair. The Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujji was a more than capable soloist for the extremely challenging Piano Concerto No. 2, especially considering that it is the piano by itself that starts the piece in the first forty seconds. The work's highly charged first movement, in the home key of C Minor, was then followed by the lush, ultra-Romantic Adagio, whose principal theme figures into one of the great pop-rock ballads of the 1970's, namely "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen. With a barely noticeable break, we were then launched into the work's finale, where quotations of "Dies Irae" were sprinkled throughout, but where everything concluded with a buoyant C Major declamation at the end. Given that we were outdoors, the Bowl's high-definition sound system mostly managed to dampen the effect of the three aerial intrusions that occurred during the work's 34 1/2-minute running time. Mr. Mtsujii came back on for a solo piano encore, which was "La Campanella" by Franz Liszt.
Following intermission, Mr. Langree came back to conduct Rachmaninoff's ultra-Romantic Second Symphony, a work that the composer finished in 1907, ten years after the unbelievably disastrous premiere of the First (disastrous became his fellow composer Alexander Glazunov, who conducted the premiere of the First Symphony, was sloshed). The fairly sizeable orchestration necessary for the work and the melodies contained in it obviously inspired more than a few film composers in Hollywood over the rest of the 20th century, including even John Williams in a lot of ways. The highly-charged second movement, a Scherzo in all but named (actually marked Allegro Molto), was followed by the work's famous Adagio, whose main melody is noted for having inspired another 1976 Eric Carmen hit, "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again". Everything was resolved in the work's splashy conclusion, with more quotations from "Dies Irae" and a piece of the Adagio's main melody, going from the high-calorie dark romanticism of the work's original key of E Minor the a triumphant finish in E Major. It may be noted that for the first sixty-six years of this symphony's existence it was performed with severe cuts to it, both in concerts and recordings, something that changed in 1973 with two recordings, one by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the other by Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Langree performed this uncut, which meant that the work ran to exactly an hour in length.
Much of the summer here in Los Angeles has been quite hot; and while there was a breeze that cooled things down a little bit, it stayed quite sultry throughout, which made things fairly labor intensive for conductor, orchestra, and soloist. But once again, it was another fabulous night under the stars in the hills of Los Angeles.