Cleveland Orchestra (4/27/07)



As you can probably tell from glancing through my music blog, I'm not much of a classical music aficionado. But I also believe in expanding horizons... A friend had a couple extra seats to this past Friday's show at the Cleveland Orchestra. Being that it's one of the best orchestras in the world, it's kind of hard to turn down the opportunity.

I'll dare not expose my ineptness by trying to write about what was being performed... instead here's the description:

Franz Welser-Möst conducts Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, about which the composer said, "Never yet has any of my orchestral works cost me so much labor, but I’ve never yet felt such love for any of my things ... it seems to me that this Symphony is better than anything I’ve done so far." The concert also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 28 and the world premiere of American composer Richard Sortomme’s Viola Concerto, a work commissioned by the Orchestra for Principal Viola Robert Vernon

The night started with Mozart, which of course is always good. The Sortomme Viola Concerto blew. Not from a technical / performance stand point, but it almost seemed to be a slap in the face from hearing Mozart. With Mozart, and eventually with Tchaikovsky, you hear purpose, emotion and drama. But with the Sortomme, all I heard was variations of instruments playing a work that felt like it was trying to be important. Now obviously, this is coming from a pure novice, but whatever, it's my blog. :) Now the Tchaikovsky piece rocked my world. The plucking of the strings in the 3rd movement and the dramatic opening of the 4th just made my night. It was simply stunning.

On the way home we were talking about what a great asset Cleveland has in the Orchestra. I truly think everyone should go to at least one show there. Students, you can get seats for $10!

Posted: Wed - May 2, 2007 at 06:48 PM           |

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