Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra--Theofanidis, Beethoven (Bronfman), and Mahler's First
Anjali and I went to hear the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this Friday after a delicious dinner of Thai food--Andrew was our server. I heard my second Theofanidis performance of the season, this time of Rainbow Body, a spiritual piece that reminded me of music from the Cosmos TV series of the 1980's. Chris Theofanidis is the PSO's Composer of the Year in residence, and images from the Hubble Spacecraft were provided by Mario Livio. Anjali and I enjoyed the gently changing variety of themes in the piece.
Next was Yefim Bronfman at the piano for Beethoven's Concerto No.1 in C Major, Op. 15. He was, as usual, dynamic at the piano and played one of my favorite pieces, Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, as an encore. This is the second time that I have heard Bronfman perform with the PSO. The first was at last year's Mozart's 250th birthday concert at the PSO.
After intermission was the Mahler piece--I've found previous symphonies by Mahler to be rather dark and foreboding, but this particular performance of his Symphony No.1 in D Major was rather emotive, moving, with distinct themes that differ enough from each other to provide interest. Okay, okay, I admit it--I actually ENJOYED this particular performance of Mahler's First! Peter Oundjian conducted, and Anjali and I both enjoyed his animated direction of the orchestra.
After the long evening, we stood at the bus stop and discussed leg wear in the sub-zero temperatures while waiting for the bus. Meanwhile, we decided against attending the Lunar New Year Party in Squirrel Hill after the concert.
Labels: Bronfman, Mahler, PSO, Theofanidis
posted by Grace @ 2/19/2007 02:17:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hi. Just so you know, the PSO had a blogfest Sunday, so there are some other blogs that discuss the Sunday concert here:
http://pittsburghsymphony.blogs.com/inside/2007/02/blogfest_live.html
And mine (although not really about the concert) will be here:
http://pittsburghsymphony.blogs.com/outside/
Louis--
Thanks for sharing the first link, which sheds some light on the themes found in the Theofanidis piece. Comments written by the composer, Chris, included that the "Rainbow Body" piece was built on a fragment of music of the Medieval mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. Quite interesting!
I also enjoyed your blog post on the PSO website. Hey, you look snazzy in your black tie!
Grace
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