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Tonight's concert began with the performance of Franz Liszt's (1811-1886) The Black Gondola as orchestrated by John Adams (1947-). While perhaps the piece was not the best in the concert, it was performed very well. Maestro Yampolsky orchestrated what could have been seen as foreshadowing to Richard Wagner's death. Liszt had written the piece after seeing Wagner's ill condition, and shortly before he died. One could clearly see the "black gondola" swimming cleanly through water in an ominous surrounding taking the noted composer to rest.
Second on the program was Shostakovich's fantastical Violin Concerto performed with incredible dexterity by Gerardo Ribeiro. While his fingers seemed to fly across the strings in the later movement, perhaps it was masking the underlying lack of true emotion and movement that seemed slightly exposed in the slower movements. The orchestra, however, had a decided advantage with their conductor being one of the few to have heard the concerto before it was released. Yampolsky's father was a friend of Oistrakh, for whom the piece was dedicated, and as a young child, he was privy to the piece as it was constructed. The piece was undoubtedly performed as Shostakovich created it to be, and deserved the ovation that followed.
Perhaps the earlier criticism was simply because of the extraordinary performance of John Adams' Harmonium which burst of emotion and captured the required nuances to perfect the certain level of minimalism in the composition. For this piece, NUSO was joined by the symphonic choir. The first part of the piece is based on Negative Love by John Donne. The work here can clearly be seen as minimalist, yet is different from other works. Adams does not dwell too long on the same repetition, constantly have subtle changes which are exacted upon by the orchestra. The overall picture creates a collage of tones that have a certain mesmerising effect on the listener. The transition between the second and third movements really shows the talent of the orchestra. As the second part, Because I Could Not Stop For Death goes into Wild Nights both by Emily Dickenson, you can feel the dark death slowly coming to life. Throughout the finale, there was vivid imagery as the orchestra and choir united to become one. At the end, you left feeling very satisfied from an excellent performance.
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Server is back up! Spring break in Spain was great. I plan to work on making the site easier to be found by search engines.
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Unfortunately, from 03-18-06 to 03-28-06 the server will be down. I will be in Spain for spring break, and everything needs to be turned off. To listen to or download my music, you can visit my iCompositions site during that time.
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My latest piece Downtown Sedna is now available for download. I have also added some music related presentations and papers I have done.
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I found a new web forwarding place, freedomain.co.nr apparently through the country of Nauru, which is the smallest independent republic in the world. It seems to work great so far, so we'll see how it works out.
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