I’m sitting at the computer with my afternoon latte beside me, and am reflecting upon the fact that this is the last week of the Oregon Symphony’s 2009-2010 season. It truly has gone by in what seems like the blink of an eye. Last night we concluded our three concert traversal of all six Beethoven piano concertos and his three Leonore overtures. It might not seem like it, but the festival will most likely turn out to be a huge growth experience for the orchestra. We were forced to give polished, cohesive performances with much less rehearsal than we’d normally get for a series. This will provide the impetus for artistic growth through the seasons to come. It was also a pleasure to spend two series working with the excellent cellist Quirine Viersen, to see our great concertmaster Jun Iwasaki tearing up the Beethoven Triple Concerto, and to traverse all of the Beethoven concertos with the indefatigable pianist Arnaldo Cohen. He really was the hero of the weekend!
This coming weekend brings the great ‘Titan’ Symphony No. 1 of Gustav Mahler and Benjamin Britten’s great Violin Concerto with violinist Elina Vähälä. Already, after just two rehearsals, Carlos and the orchestra are shaping what looks to be a great and memorable interpretation of this first of ten symphonies by the great Viennese master. It will be an awesome and inspiring way to send both us and our audience out into the northwest summer and close the season.
5 replies on “final push”
I thoroughly enjoyed Monday night’s concert. I’m curious to know something, though.
Usually, you all perform a piece at least twice (often three times) as part of the weekend concert series. In this case, you only performed each piece once (in front of an audience). Did that make a difference in the rehearsals and performance?
Cesar – yes, in this case we basically had three programs of repertoire compressed into the rehearsal time for one standard program. So there was not the usual time to revisit pieces as often as one would like. It made for retaining lots of minutia from the initial rehearsal to the concert.
Wish I could be there to hear the great viola section solo!
I’m curious to know, too, Charles, how the orchestra felt about not getting to really live inside those concertos. Your usual rehearsal schedule allows a good opportunity to get to know a work, then having three chances to perform the program three times… was this a less satisfying musical experience for the musicians?
Well, we do know these concertos well from having performed them individually over the years, so it was more a matter of entering Arnaldo’s conception of each of them as well as seeing them as a grand cycle that spans Beethoven’s output as a composer. Overall, it was a much more satisfying experience, I think.