It has been a really long week and my favorite way to decompress when I am feeling stressed is by attending a Utah Symphony concert. The program last night was simultaneously soothing and stirring! The orchestra began with Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos No. 1 & 2 which are masterpieces of the Baroque era. Concerto No. 2 featured soloists Mercedes Smith, Flute, James Hall, Oboe, Claude Halter, Violin, and Travis Peterson, Trumpet, who were all amazing but I was especially impressed with Peterson's performance. I really enjoyed these pieces and I found myself imagining a stately ball scene in a Jane Austen novel and it was just lovely. In between the two concertos, the orchestra played a contemporary piece called Derive 1 by Pierre Boulez which has an incredibly modern sound created with traditional instruments. The juxtaposition between this piece and the concertos was really interesting and Maestro Thierry Fischer requested that the audience hold their applause until the end of the final piece to maintain the mood. After the intermission the orchestra played Symphony No. 3 by Aaron Copland. I have heard this piece performed live several times and I find it to be very evocative of the American west. I love the themes played by the woodwinds and, of course, the instantly recognizable fanfare played by the brass, punctuated dramatically by the timpani, is brilliant. I loved everything about this concert and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) to tonight's performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment