3/15, Saturday, 8pm.
Seattle Symphony.
Brian Raphael Nabors ---- Upon Daybreak
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 22
Piano: Jan Lisiecki
Igor Stravinsky --------- The Rite of Spring
Conductor: Peter Oundjian
The new work "Upon Daybreak" is large, a lot of sounds. Not bad, but neither memerable.
Inspired by Maya Angelou's poem "A Brave and Startling Truth".
I didn't like this poem. Doesn't rhyme at all. Nor did I like the title of the poem.
I do like the title of this music poem, quite fitting to the work.
Mozart's Piano Concerto 22 has a very melancholy but pretty 2nd movement, a very familier and equally pretty 3rd movement.
The pianist today, Lisiecki, is very skillful, and full of dynamics.
However, he stares at the audience half of the time, very unnerving. Maybe he just wants to show off that he didn't need to look at his fingers.
I'm getting more and more comfortable each time I hear The Rite of Spring. Started to enjoy it, especially the first half. Today, the preconcert talk by the artistic director at Rainbow City Orchestra, made the work easier to understand. He also made us try to tap on the mark with a string of 3/4/5 beats, to appreciate the difficulty of dancing to this music.
