24 February 2012
Nathaniel Anderson-Frank writes: If you were able to get a ticket to last week's sold-out Philharmonia concert with Christoph von Dohnányi, or if you tuned in to the live Radio 3 broadcast, you were hearing the culmination of an intense few days of preparation. Working with Dohnányi is always a lesson in refinement and a reminder of the intense level of self-scrutiny required from each player that goes into the creation of a world-class orchestral sound. Like the previous concert in the Still Point of the Turning World series, this one paired a Beethoven symphony alongside another large-scale work involving choir and soloists, Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem this time. Incredible German music in the hands of a great German maestro!
I spent my undergraduate years studying in Cleveland, where Dohnányi's legacy as music director of that orchestra still looms large. To find myself on stage in London and shaking his hand at the start of last week's concert was a singularly surreal experience. His relationship with the Philharmonia extends back almost two decades, of course, and I feel privileged to be joining that continuing collaboration.
The concert itself was extremely exciting, from the opening chord of Beethoven Symphony No. 4 right through to its sizzling finale (did we really play it as fast as it sounded on the radio?!). And the Brahms Deutsches Requiem is always a treat to perform. The violins get to sit back and listen to quite a lot of it, which is a rare treat given how many notes we usually play! My main challenge there was trying not to cough and splutter into the BBC microphones - the cold I seem to have picked up that morning has taken the best part of the last week to get over. And now that I'm better our time off is done and it's back to work with Vasily Petrenko!
28 January 2012
Nathaniel Anderson-Frank writes: And we're back! Over the next six months Amy and I, your intrepid blogging duo, will be bringing you backstage for the Philharmonia's new series at the Royal Festival Hall, "The still point of the turning world": Music that defines an era.
The series began on Thursday night with a rather unusual juxtaposition - Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the opera Il prigioniero by Luigi Dallapiccola. I thought it was an inspired bit of programming, pairing one of the most jubilant, life-affirming works in the repertoire with a tale of imprisonment, despair, and ultimately 'torture by hope' set in the Spanish Inquisition. Cheery. But I have to admit, I really enjoyed it. The music is intensely motivic; once you have heard the three-note 'fratello', as Esa-Pekka said, you will never forget it. Sung by the Inquisitor, it makes your skin crawl.
We're on the Eurostar back from Paris now. A quick jaunt over for another concert last night (Bartok and Debussy with Esa-Pekka). There were a few birthdays that had to be feted, so it's a rather more muted train ride then the way out. It seems appropriate to start this blog up again now as my last post last November was filed from the Eurostar. Life on the road! We'll keep you posted.
