We left at the interval...

Théatre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Friday October 5 2018 Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen. Philharmonia Orchestra. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde , Prelude and Liebestod Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht Bruckner: Symphony N°7 ' Giving Wagner's Tristan , Bruckner, then Schönberg's Transfigured Night , in concert, is one way of staking out a certain history of atonality using three works. (...) The chord that opens this opera plunges the listener into tonal uncertainty verging on neurosis. (...) This masterstroke by Wagner would feed the post-romanticism of Bruckner and Mahler, then that of the first Schönberg, Zemlinsky, Korngold and Richard Strauss, the last romantic, astray in the age of radical modernity .' (Translated from the notes on the theatre's website.) As I stood up to leave for dinner after enthusiastic applause I remarked to my neighbour, of Bruckner's 7th as conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, "That was super-interesting." At the same moment...

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Saturday January 28 2017 Conductor: Andris Nelsons.  The Philharmonia Orchestra. Bruckner: Symphony N°5 Bruckner My job takes me to all manner of industrial plants, and I well remember, in a German distillery, coming across the most beautiful machine I have ever seen: a complex, automated assembly of stainless steel and orange gloss, kept in splendid, pristine isolation in a glassed-in room. No photos were allowed, the process being a trade secret, and to my disappointment, not even on omniscient Google could I find a souvenir picture of this magnificent precision object. I was reminded of this memorable piece of modern engineering on Saturday night, as Andris Nelsons conducted the Philharmonia in Bruckner’s 5th, in which every detail was perfectly honed and calibrated. Nelsons’ conducting gives the impression he has studied the score intensely, given every bar thought, and taken decisions at every step; and that on the night he i...

La Philharmonie, Paris, Thursday September 8 2016 Conductor and piano soloist: Daniel Barenboim. Staatskapelle Berlin. Mozart, piano concerto n°26 Bruckner, symphony n°6 I know nothing about acoustics and will only try to describe what I thought I heard from my single seat the other night. But scouting round the web for better-informed opinions about Paris's Philharmonie, I came across a blog called From The Sound Up , by an acoustical and architectural designer working in New York, and an article there entitled Why I can’t review the Philharmonie de Paris but why it’s worth trying anyway: a meditation on variability , which gives the impression that the sound in the new hall is especially varied. “Variation in the sound field is the topic of this post,” he writes, “because it is all I could think about after my experience in the brand-new (or, more accurately, yet-to-be-finished) Philharmonie de Paris. During a single concert, I experienced what might have been the w...

Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris. Philippe Jordan, conductor. Anton Bruckner: Symphony n°2 in C minor Franz Schubert: Symphony n°8 in C major ("Great"), D 944. From Wikipedia, re the Scuthbert : "There continues to be some controversy over the numbering of this symphony, with German-speaking scholars sometimes numbering it as symphony No. 7, the most recent version of the Deutsch catalog (the standard catalogue of Schubert's works, compiled by Otto Erich Deutsch) listing it as No. 8, and English-speaking scholars often listing it as No. 9". I had no idea. I thought the "8" on the Paris Opera's website was a mistake, and I wasn't the only ignoramus in town... Bruckner Over the past few years I've got out of the habit of booking orchestral concerts (that will change next season). But when I did, living in France my policy was to book for big-name visiting orchestras, preferably with a relatively modern programme....

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris , Monday November 14 2005 Dohnanyi anyone? Does anyone here have a firm opinion on the conducting of Christoph von Dohnanyi? I can’t pin him down. His conducting sounds somehow “plain,” which may not necessarily be a bad thing; what I mean is it’s hard to hit on or grasp anything you can describe or comment on. It’s like a “reading” rather than an “interpretation.” Is he letting the music speak for itself? Last night I heard him conducting Bartok’s Divertimento for strings and Bruckner’s 7th. He didn’t choose to bring out the potential warmth or “local colour” in the Bartok, which sounded quite like plain old English folk songs; nor did he choose to bring out any potential religious intensity or Viennese morbidezza in the Bruckner. Moderate tempi throughout: no reckless presto in the Bartok, no foot-dragging in the adagio of the 7th. Basically, it sounded like Bartok and Bruckner performed by a highly professional but no-nonsense north German radio orchestr...