Word: bartok
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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April 2 marked the performance of what just could be the new soundtrack for The Phantom Menace. Not exclusively modern, the program did include Brahms' "Piano Quarter in minor, Opus 25" along with Bohuslav Martin's more contemporary "Memorial to Lidice" and Bela Bartok's "Violin Concerto No. 2." Even this was tainted by the great Modernist Arnold Schoenber who re-arranged the chamber piece for orchestra. According to the program notes, "Johannes Brahms and Arnold Schoenberg are [not-so] strange bedfellows" in a filigree of 20th century musical fracas that indeed would have made Obi-Wan proud...
...remaining pieces were also excellently executed. Perhaps the most famous of all child prodigies, Midori, like many one name phenoms (Madonna, Cher, etc.) has a style that is hardly replicable by any other. Playing what was once considered the Bartok Violin Concerto (before the discovery of the First Violin Concerto), one was led to a feeling of extreme awe. Awe at the masterful execution by this petite Japanese virtuoso, awe at her apparent humility, and just plain heart-thumping, jaw-dropping...
...Shaham has survived the hazards of prodigyhood to become the outstanding American violinist of his generation. His forthright, incisive playing can be heard at its youthful peak in this remarkable new recording (which also includes Bartok's First and Second Rhapsodies). Shaham's soaring interpretation, at once fiery and nobly lyrical, is a near perfect realization of a modern masterpiece; Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony provide lucid support...
...classical music that we hear in television commercials and Au Bon Pain's front foyer. His allegiance is not to music that is popular, but to music that is earth-shattering. And indeed, the BSO's last concert, featuring Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Bela Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin, might have been earth-shattering enough to crack fault lines into Symphony Hall...
Expanding on the theme of mortality, the concert opened with Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin, Bartok's own exploration of life and death. This one act opus was more of a pantomime than a musical suite. In fact, it was almost a miniature play. While there were no actors, no costumes, no sets, there was one staple of drama--an unmistakable storyline. Ozawa took the role of the narrator and the instruments assumed the voices of characters. The Miraculous Mandarin's format was vaguely reminiscent of the children's symphony, Peter and the Wolf. Its plot, however, was drastically different...