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Tag: Emanuel Ax

February 10, 2012

Brahms piano concerto no 1 in D minor, opus 15‏

this morning as I washed the dishes – nary a butler had 
managed to show, nary a merciful maid – I thought I’d,
as often I do, put on some Classical music, Romantic,
Impressionist, something, to tide me through the tedium  
 
there was a Brahms Piano Concerto no 1 to look into I’d
set aside, his opus 15, in D minor, Emanuel Ax with
Bernard Haitink
 
Emanuel Ax – a man I’ve come to admire above all other
musical giants for his humble roots, Winnipeg trained, and
for the dizzying heights he’s reached in the musical 
firmament, humbly, not so austere, not so patrician as his
European counterparts, and obviously, maybe consequently,
finding joy in, not empire over, the music – does the pianistic
honours
 
Bernard Haitink conducts in perfect synchronicity, leading
the impeccable Chamber Orchestra of Europe, at London’s
Royal Albert Hall, August 18, 2011 
 
 
by the third movement my hands were out of the water,
dry, my undivided attention was riveted, ready to all out 
applaud a thrilling concert, which indeed I did, long, loud, 
and with all my heart
 
you too likely will 
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
 
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September 4, 2011

Beethoven, Triple Concerto in C major, op. 56

recently trying to familiarize a friend of mine with the idea
of the concerto, something I’d been working at with him for
quite some time, along with the related concepts of the
sonata, the trio, the quartet, quintet, sextet, and, following
those numerical indices, the symphony, when to count the
multiplicity of instruments involved would be asinine, I
asked, what do you think you’d hear if I said a triple concerto

after some polite leeway I answered for him, you’d need
a symphony of course, another word for an orchestra but
perhaps with some pedantry, showcasing in this case not
one, not two, but three soloists in conversation with
the band, another word again for orchestra, this time
connoting perhaps less pedantry, calibrating prestige
as it moves from the bar to the nightclub, to the more
rarefied air of the concert hall

most often a concerto will spotlight one only performer, one
must consider temperaments, finances, compositional ability,
three musical variables instead of the usual, and less demanding
but still impressive, hypothetically virtuosic, one

and indeed I knew of only one triple concerto then, Beethoven’s,
though I’ve since learned of another by Mozart, but that’s another
story

not only was this a triple concerto, I exhilarated, but one by
Beethoven, Nietzsche’s very superman, an entity of supreme
musical authority

and in my collection I had it performed by Yo-Yo Ma, the superstar
cellist, who needs no other introduction, Emanuel Ax at the piano,
whom I’ve admired for many years, dominating some of the most
difficult piano pieces in the catalogue with elegance and majesty,
often accompanying Ma, and Gil Shaham, an internationally famous
violin virtuoso of the very highest order

I trembled at the very thought, and hoped my friend would also thrill
at the opportunity

we watched

Ma, Ax, and Shaham did their usual unforgettable stuff

Alan Gilbert conducts the New York Philharmonic, another word for
symphony, that one, with perhaps a nod to a congruence of many
harmonies instead of merely an assemblage of sounds, both here
striving equally however for the undifferentiated sublime

my friend later found me the corresponding online video

watch

Richard

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