Orchestra, Fall 2008

Each Wednesday night reminds me that playing in an orchestra is some kind of enigmatic healing ritual. Nothing consoles you about your terrible week and that ugly red 66 on your Math 33B midterm quite like pulling out a cello and playing some 20th century classical music. I am rejuvenated - orchestra is the only addiction of mine more powerful than sugar. It's a bit worrisome how much I enjoy it - I hope there are opportunities to continue it after college.

This quarter's program for UCLA Symphony includes the following:

Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
This summer was continuous hoping to play the overture to Candide, so seeing this on our program in September was a little disappointing. I have never been very fond of Brahms, but after five weeks I will admit reluctantly that this does have its moments. I try to think on the positive side: at least he doesn't screw over the trombones here like he does in his symphonies. At least it's not the overture to Don Giovanni. At least the original is better than that awful transcription for band...

Liszt - Piano Concerto no. 2
This is the kind of piece that I would have enjoyed a lot more about 3 years ago, when I lived on the seeping romanticism of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. But as soon as I heard the soloist I fell in love with it again. The soloist is fantastic and I like his interpretation more than Richter's. I find it amusing that I will have now performed three concerti with UCLA Symphony and all of them are for different keyboard - first an organ concerto by Rheinberger, then a harpsichord concerto by Poulenc, and now this. Our part is refreshingly involved accompaniment, unlike certain concerti I have played over the past few years (Saent-Saëns' first violin concerto comes to mind.)

Delius - Walk to Paradise Garden from Village Romeo and Juliet
The opera that this is from is pretty screwed up - it's like Romeo and Juliet, except instead of Romeo and Juliet it's Sali and Vrenchen, which are probably two of the least romantic sounding names imaginable. Fortunately that is quite the opposite of this interlude, which is strikingly gorgeous - Delius is like the English version of Ravel. The climax is one of those tutti string passages, where the celli play in the high tenor clef range, and we melt the audience. So pretty.

Prokofiev - Suite from Lt. Kijé
I have also never liked Prokofiev much. But maybe I just wasn't listening to the right pieces. This music is from the score to the 1927 Russian film, Lieutenant Kijé, and it's quite nice. Prokofiev orchestrates just how I love - like Poulenc, lightly and sparsely - everything shimmers. It's unique, and it's colorful - a string bass solo that isn't Mahler, a tenor sax that isn't Gershwin, and jingle bells!. The first movement even has some major sevenths. It's like this music was written for me.

All romantic and modern - I wonder how we get away with this.