This week’s subscription concert will, with no sarcasm intended, be delightful for the audience. What’s not to love? The most accessible Stravinsky score ever (Firebird Suite – 1919 version), a Haydn Symphony with a cute nickname (The Hen), a perennial top-ten end-of-year radiothon fave in the Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez, and a bit of downer filler by Busoni.
For the average orchestral drone, however, this is a deathly week to be in the orchestra, because most of us will just explode if we have to play the Firebird one…more…time. It’s fantastic music – but it’s also used for everything. Need a bit of fanciful storytelling for a youth concert? Firebird. Need some loud music to soothe a restless pops crowd before the headliner comes on? Firebird. Guest conductor that needs something flashy? Firebird.
As for the Rodrigo – I’m pretty much in the same boat. The balance issues with a guitar soloist are nearly insurmountable without amplification, and at that point I’m wondering why there is even a concerto for an instrument that can’t be heard in a large room with more than 10 people in it without amplification, never mind in a 2700 seat concert hall with a full symphony orchestra playing nearly the entire time. I’ve never been a Rodrigo fan anyway, so maybe I should just recuse myself from discussing it altogether. Yes, good idea that…
Haydn is great, I actually like his music more than Mozart’s, especially as a performer, because of his unpredictability and the slight tinge of the peasant that’s always lurking just under the surface (or just plain out in the open) which makes his music much easier to pull off than the perfect supermodel phrases of Mozart. Haydn’s more like the Kate Moss Amy Winehouse of the 18th century, I think, to Mozart’s Heidi Klum.
Kate Moss/Haydn
Heidi Klum/Mozart
The Busoni’s cool – I can deal with that.