Paganini & Beethoven
Once again, I attended our local orchestra, Wichita Symphony‘s subscription concert today. They really have pretty good sets coming up, and I’m really eager for them. A already wrote about my excitement about Rachmaninoff’s concerto from their last performance. Looking into their future concert… The next concert features our next music director (his last performance here, performing Respighi’s Pines of Rome was seriously awesome). The one after that is Mahler’s symphony, my favorite classical composer. Then they do Chopin’s piano concerto, which is Nodame’s orchestra debut piece. Etc. What a schedule.
Today’s concert started with Berlioz’s little concert overture, Le Corsair. I didn’t know this piece before today. I still don’t remember this piece all that well. It gave me pretty small impact to me. This piece actually had the largest ensemble of all the pieces performed today. That tuba player must have packed up and left the venue right after playing this 10-minute(?) piece. What a gig.
Next up was Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring violinist Ryu Goto. He’s the younger sister of Midori, and is equally amazing, IMO. And to know that he first performed this piece at age of seven? Simply unbelievable. But I didn’t know any of that before the performance of this piece. I was just amazed at his skill and the overall performance. I really couldn’t dig the piece itself, though. I love orchestral pieces. I love good orchestra writing. This piece did not have much of that. It really is a violin showcase piece. It’s a good piece for that purpose.
Nonetheless, the performance was amazing, and he was awarded with a big standing ovation. And he gave us a small encore piece – Paganini’s theme and variation on God Save the King. This was even more of a jaw dropper. I’m so glad I went to this concert, just to witness this performance. Right after this piece, someone behind me appropriately said “I didn’t know such thing was humanly possible.” I thought Ryu’s performance was even better than the guy in the YouTube I linked above, not forgetting to show some humor in different spots. Well done, bravo.
The concert concluded with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7—another piece featured in Nodame. I was pretty thrilled about this piece. After the concert, I’m more excited about Ryu’s performance than this one. It was pretty well executed. But I wasn’t 100% happy. Compared to the sample below, it was far more refined, but with less force. I don’t know what it was… but it wasn’t as exciting as I wanted it to be. It was still good to be able to hear this piece live.
One of my fave classical concerts is Guns n Roses’ November Rain. That was awesome use of orchestra.
But… but… that’s more of a cult classic, not classical.
Besides… not everything that has the name “orchestra” are classical either, like Trans Siberian Orchestra, et al. Or any of the jazz orchestra. Nor Star Wars music or any other John Williams film pieces. (for now. people like Shostakovich also wrote for film, and those are starting to be recognized as classical… so who knows.)
Haha, yah, it’s not technically a classical piece, but I still consider it one cuz it’s a “classic”, and it’s a piece that is classic, thus making it “classical”. Hurhur stupid puns.
What I don’t like about concerts is that they never play the songs I like, or at least, they don’t play them all. And that they’re insanely expensive.