Summer's Crescendo: the August Concert!

Judy Kuan Confirming I'd like to play Chopin Op 23 live, ~10 minutes. Thank you!

I will play John Ireland's The Almond Trees ... hopefully a nice cool breeze to counter the summer heat :)

Sindre Skarelven Hello Sindre, hope you're well.  We heard Vikingur last November playing the Goldberg Variations with all 30 Variations.  There was a collective sense of release when we reached the return of the Aria, which was accompanied by a mobile phone ringing as Vikungur reached the final few bars.

The person was sitting in the seat next door but one to us.  They weren't with us!

There can't be many Icelandic pianists...

Roy James-Pike I am SO envious.  Wish I could be there.

Gail Starr Even better...tomorrow is our second trip to this year's Glyndebourne Festival.  

We saw/heard the "The Magic Flute a few weeks ago.  The orchestra was the Age of the Enlightenment Orchestra, which plays on original instruments.  There was no celeste, presumably because of either the lack of availability of a celeste player or the cost.  The celeste must have been on a track.

Tristan and Isolde tomorrow so I am exploring the 'Tristan Chord', which is fundamentally a half-diminished chord voiced by starting with a tritone (augmented 4th), with a major 3rd on top, and a perfect 4th on top of it. 

It consists of an augmented 4th, augmented 6th and an augmented 9th from the root up, i.e. starting on F natural.

The programme notes say that, "It's the most famous chord in musical history: the chord that changed the course of harmony forever."  My reading of this statement is that the lack of a diatonic tonal centre foregoes Schoenberg and Webern, who were writing a few decades after Wagner, broadly speaking. 

It inspired lots of composers including Britten and Messiaen. 

My background reading reveals that it was used by J S Bach (200 years before Wagner) and Chopin (40 years before Wagner).  I shall be following up on those sources later today to explore its previous uses.

I am really enjoying this chord.  It comes at a time when I have reached diminished scales in my jazz studies, and the use of diminished and half-diminished chords, which is a couple of minor thirds stacked with a major third on top, e.g. C, E flat, F#, B flat.  Jazz terminology is sometimes written as C min7 (flat 5), which, to me, is a lot easier to grasp.

Glyndebourne is wonderful.  The gardens open at 1pm.  There are restaurants for the intervals but they also provide tables in marquees for hire for picnics, which is much more affordable, of course.  We shall have afternoon tea before the opera begins.  There are two intervals, the second of which is a longer dining interval, when we have our picnic.   The curtain comes down at 9pm.

Two of the party are members, so they bought the tickets, which will be in the front row, no doubt!       

Roy James-Pike What a magnificent analysis and review!  I would love to attend someday.

Gail Starr Slight amendment to my previous thoughts, after seeing Tristan and Isolde at Glyndebourne yesterday.  It is accepted generally that the "Tristan Chord" did change the direction of classical harmony, but it is not 'modernistic'.  It does resolve after four hours of not resolving, which was Wagner's way of making his audience delay, and delay, and delay even further their gratification.  It's four hours in three acts of delayed gratification. It resolves finally into B major.

There were three young people sitting next to us, one of whom fell asleep through the first act.  I said to her at the first interval that it was difficult music harmonically but that it would resolve eventually after four hours.  I should have added, "You've done an hour and a half already so you're almost halfway there".  They didn't come back for the rest of the opera.  Those seats were £280 each!

Duncan, my husband, didn't enjoy the experience at all.  His comments were, "I wouldn't have minded if the seats were £30 each, but it's a revival of their previous production (18 years ago?) so it's the same grey set, with black and dark grey costumes and so much darkness on stage. There's an ongoing theme about the lightness and the darkness, but not much light as a contrast to the dullness of the darkness.  The only colour on stage was the tiny potion phial. 

The cast is eight people, one of whom is in the Glyndebourne Chorus.  There was an off-stage chorus, which could have been six people amplified.

The set was pretty dire.  It was a series of curves across the stage.  Stuart Skelton playing Tristan is a very large man.  Body diversity accepted, there were a number of moments when he struggled with his footing, which became a distraction from the opera.

Karen Cargill sang Brangane from the side of the stage as she was injured.  There was no explanation for why, but the obvious reason was that she must have fallen off this curving set at some point, probably during rehearsals.

I now have more understanding of the cult of Wagner, which is probably based on everyone surviving the ordeal: cast, orchestra, and audience.

Puccini and Rossini were calling me during Act 2.

he orchestral playing was excellent. The oboe solo (could be cor anglais) in Act 3 went on for 10-15 minutes non-stop, and then again for another 10-15 minutes.  It's slow and mournful but what an achievement to play pp for that length of time, twice and without any unintended squeaks!
My advice for producing Tristan is to do huge cuts to the love scene in Act 2 and then run Acts 1 and 2 together, then drop the waiting for Isolde to arrive at the beginning of Act 3 (a half hour of more waiting for something to happen) This Act should start with Isolde coming off the ship to find a dead Tristan, who she then blames for wasting her time in making the journey to try to revive him.  The sur-titles say something like, "Tristan! You've done it to me again! You're so unreliable! You've died before I arrived to revive you!"

This would reduce the living on the edge of the searching harmony down to around two hours. 

I had never realised before that the usual operatic voicings are absent in Wagner: soprano, mezzo, bass, baritone, tenor.  The men and the women are all singing in the same range for each gender, seemingly.         

Roy James-Pike What a brilliant recounting of what was, sadly, a very challenging evening for EVERYONE involved.  Because I was on the board of directors of the Atlanta Symphony for nearly 15 years, I've heard many, many reviews (our conductor was renowned for his Wagner).  But none as colorful as yours!

Gail Starr Thanks Gail.  I didn't perceive my comments as a review, but quite happy to accept your view!  

Juan Carlos Olite In Florida we would be delighted to hear some October music!

Yihan said:  Beethoven sonata no 7 first movement

+ He will decide later to add Bach Prelude no 5 book 2 or Chopin etude op 10 no 1

I'll play Kabalevsky op. 27 no. 2. It's pretty short, around a minute.