Intermezzo

Mahlerization

London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski / Alexander Markovich / Melanie Diener / Thomas Hampson - Royal Festival Hall,  26 January 2010

At this stage in the anniversary celebrations, I'm all for a few bars rest from Mahler wherever possible. But it seems there is no escape, even when he's not on the menu. As Vladimir Jurowski explained during a brief furniture-reshuffling break, this Mahler-free programme should be considered as contextualisation for the LPO's next concert (centrepiece: Das klagende Lied). Nice sales pitch Vlad, maybe it won over some of the fidgety teenagers padding out the stalls.  

Louis Lortie's Lisztathon

 
Ice buckets at the ready!

The Canadian pianist Louis Lortie plans to perform the whole of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage collection in one go (yes, all three hours of it) in LA on Sunday - with a leisurely dinner break half way through to sustain all parties involved.

The LA Times asked him why.

 

Budapest Festival Orchestra plant one for Hungary

Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer / Stephen Hough - Royal Festival Hall, 16 January 2011

Yes, it's the Royal Festival Hall, and yes, it's a tree.  Sneaked on during the interval, it was the first of the surprises Iván Fischer had in store for Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The second was to scatter the woodwinds individually amongst the string section as if they were too naughty to sit together. In a more acoustically refined venue, this might have created unique spatial effects; in the Royal Festival Hall it was business as muddy usual.

Tannhauser condensed

Jorge Bolet plays Liszt's transcription of Wagner's Tannhäuser Overture, from a CD called Bolet Rediscovered, which also includes more Liszt. It sounds slow to begin with but stick with it to see how immaculately Bolet judged the tempo relationships.