Concerto

Who Needs Trumpets?

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Last weekend, I played for a wedding which included a stirring two-trumpet fanfare. This was followed immediately by an outdoor Richmond Symphony concert which featured John Williams’ main title music for Star Wars. Both occasions reminded me of the trumpet’s deeply celebratory and heroic connotations. Listen to another classic John Williams film score, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and you’ll hear how clearly the trumpet evokes the personality of the film’s protagonist: adventurous, heroic, impetuous, and slightly …

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Composers on Holiday: Five Pieces Written on Summer Vacation

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Summer is here. For professional orchestral musicians, that means a brief respite from the weekly routine of the main concert season. Soon it will be time for summer seasons and music festivals, many featuring outdoor concerts in such idyllic locations as Chautauqua, Vail, and the Tetons. Summer has typically been a productive time for composers. Gustav Mahler, one of the most prominent conductors of his time, retreated to isolated rural settings in …

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Spivakov Plays Tchaikovsky

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Here is a rare gem which deserves more recognition. It’s a slightly grainy archival recording of Russian violinist Vladimir Spivakov performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 1975. Spivakov is accompanied by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Israel Gusman. In June of the same year, Spivakov made his Vienna debut performing the rarely-heard Haydn Violin Concerto in C major. You can hear his recording of the Haydn here. …

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Schumann’s Musical Descent into Insanity

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On Monday, we listened to Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 “Spring,” a sunny piece written in the “springtime” of Schumann’s life, shortly after his marriage to Clara. Now let’s hear a different, darker side of Schumann: two strange, haunting works from the final years of the composer’s life, written as he descended into insanity. It’s now believed that Schumann suffered from tertiary syphilis, a disease which appeared gradually over time and produced a host of …

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Yuja Wang Plays Prokofiev

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Following a brief vacation, Chinese pianist Yuja Wang gets back to work this week. She’ll bring two Bartok piano concertos to Rochester, New York: the First Concerto tomorrow night, and the Third on Saturday, with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Recently, I ran across her spectacular performance of another twentieth century masterwork: Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The clip below features Wang’s performance with Claudio Abbado (her frequent collaborator) at the 2009 Lucerne Festival. In this …

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Every Concert Artist’s Worst Nightmare?

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Years ago, during a lesson, I remember my teacher Oleh Krysa telling a remarkable and amusing story about his teacher, the legendary violinist David Oistrakh. Oistrakh, who had a busy concert schedule, had arrived late and had not had time to rehearse with the orchestra. At the concert, he walked out on stage, bowed, and prepared for the long orchestral introduction which opens the Brahms Violin Concerto. Suddenly, the orchestra began playing …

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Bach Violin Concertos: The Freiburger Barockorchester

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The mission statement of Germany’s Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, founded in 1987, is to “enliven the world of Baroque music with new sounds.” Listen to their exceptional 2013 recording of J.S. Bach Violin Concertos on the Harmonia Mundi label and you’ll hear this philosophy on display. Yes, these performances feature period instruments, sparkling Baroque style, and occasional ornamentation. But they go far beyond historical performance practice. We’re reminded that, first and foremost, this is fun, …

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