a couple of spectacular concerts

The first was spectacular not for the music, but for the thunderstorm. I went to hear Leonard Slatkin conduct the Aspen Festival Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, about the time they started the 1st movement, a great wind blew up and a storm started coming in. By the end of the movement, you couldn’t hear the orchestra (and they were pretty loud). I have never heard rain that loud. And the thunder! It echoed and reechoed through the valley, sounding like the most enormous bass drum. Obviously, things were bad. Mr. Slatkin stood there awhile after the 1st movement, waiting for the storm to subside a bit. It didn’t. Then he sat down on the podium and started talking with the front desks of strings. Then he went and got a microphone. He informed us that if it didn’t stop very soon, they would do a very unusual thing: They would skip the quiet middle movements and play the loud 4th. Then, if things were better, they would go back and play the middle movements. The parts of the last movement that I heard were very nice :-), but there was to be no 2nd or 3rd, alas. It was just a very interesting experience.

The second was a much more pleasant experience. Tenor Anthony Griffey and horn player John Zirbel joined forces with conductor James Conlon and the strings of the Festival Orchestra to give a splendid performance of Britten’s Serenade, Op. 31. It’s been one of my favorite works since I discovered a great recording of it sung by Ian Bostridge a couple of years ago. This was my first time to hear it live, and it was great. The orchestra also played Shostakovich’s huge, dark 8th Symphony, which weighs in at over an hour. Overall, it was a great concert.