Lermontov - The Rock Ledge (1841)
Through the night, a golden cloud lay sleeping
On the breast of a gigantic rock ledge.
In the morning, early, off she hurried;
Through the azure, carefree, she went playing.
But a trace of moisture was still clinging
To the wrinkled rock ledge. Old and lonely,
He stood there as though in sad reflection—
In the empty spaces softly weeping.
—translated by Guy Daniels, 1965, in 'A Lermontov Reader.'
This is the poem which Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) placed at the head of a composition called the Rock which he did at age 20. When he first showed this work to Tchaikovki, he immediately agreed to conduct it and include it in his next European tour but died before he had a chance to do so. It's a strange mix of strength, bleakness, hope and then melancholy and was the first work of the concert last night under the energetic baton and large swinging motion of the tall, lanky Perry So, our up and coming local conductor as part of an all Rachmaninoff programme. When I listened to it, all I could think of is that it can't possibly be true that God is just. If he truly exists, he definitely practises the most extreme form of favoritism.
Our next piece of the evening was performed by a pianist soloist from Macedonia whom I adore since I first heard him in Hong Kong: Simon Trpceski. It was Rachmoninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor Op 40, completely different from the kind of romanticism which we have come to expect from him from listening to his 3 previous piano concertos. It's full of fire, of passion and a desire of striking out into new directions in the exploration of his musical idioms and style. There are huge and most dramatic contrasts between soft phrases from the piano which suddenly got smashed by the colossal and massive thundering sound from the orchestra and throughout the concerto. The mood changes were simply unbelievably enormous from one passage to another and from one movement to another but one thing remain constant throughout: its power. And Trepceski was simply wonderful. Needless to say, the aplauses were thunderous. The audience knew they were not wasted. We got not one, but two encores!
The last piece of the evening was Rachmaninoff 's Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op 13 whose premiere in Russia was completely botched up by the conductor Alexander Glazunov in 1897 and a work whom Rimsky-Korsakov found "disagreeable". The result was that Rachmaninoff ordered that the work should never ever be played again. But it was, after he died as an exile in America in 1943. It's another work typical of the composer, whose musical emotions were always strong and highly strung always clashing with each other, evident from the way he uses the brass and the percussion to jab into the sound of the other instruments, sometimes explicit, sometimes more subdued but one could hear the sound of something dark, something powerful, lurking beneath the surface, breaking out from time to time to disrupt the surface harmonies until it came to final explosion at the end. No wonder his music is often used in movies.
Our next piece of the evening was performed by a pianist soloist from Macedonia whom I adore since I first heard him in Hong Kong: Simon Trpceski. It was Rachmoninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor Op 40, completely different from the kind of romanticism which we have come to expect from him from listening to his 3 previous piano concertos. It's full of fire, of passion and a desire of striking out into new directions in the exploration of his musical idioms and style. There are huge and most dramatic contrasts between soft phrases from the piano which suddenly got smashed by the colossal and massive thundering sound from the orchestra and throughout the concerto. The mood changes were simply unbelievably enormous from one passage to another and from one movement to another but one thing remain constant throughout: its power. And Trepceski was simply wonderful. Needless to say, the aplauses were thunderous. The audience knew they were not wasted. We got not one, but two encores!
The last piece of the evening was Rachmaninoff 's Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op 13 whose premiere in Russia was completely botched up by the conductor Alexander Glazunov in 1897 and a work whom Rimsky-Korsakov found "disagreeable". The result was that Rachmaninoff ordered that the work should never ever be played again. But it was, after he died as an exile in America in 1943. It's another work typical of the composer, whose musical emotions were always strong and highly strung always clashing with each other, evident from the way he uses the brass and the percussion to jab into the sound of the other instruments, sometimes explicit, sometimes more subdued but one could hear the sound of something dark, something powerful, lurking beneath the surface, breaking out from time to time to disrupt the surface harmonies until it came to final explosion at the end. No wonder his music is often used in movies.
( ￣ ▽￣)o 星期日愉快
回覆刪除[自由熊回覆06/25/2013 21:55:10] Elzorro 放暑假未呀 ?
[版主回覆06/23/2013 13:44:50]Try to relax. It's Sunday!