Frank Zappa: Dupree’s Paradise from The Perfect Stranger;
Henri Dutilleux: L’arbre des songes. Renaud Capuçon on violin;
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, in E-flat major, Op. 55.
Zappa is a noise maker. According to the online writeup, this is about a bar on Avalon Boulevard in Watts at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday in 1964, during the early morning jam session. For about seven minutes, the customers (winos, musicians, degenerates, and policemen) do the things that set them apart from the rest of society. No wonder.
Dutilleux's is interesting. Lots of percussion instrument, lots of color. The 34 year old violinist is superb. Morlot talked briefly before this 2nd piece and introduced the cimbalom and the oboe d'amore, and pointed out the tuning session in the middle of the work.
Beethoven's, of course, is a masterpiece. Somehow the first two movements of Beethoven's Eroica sound more familiar to me than the last two.
