Open Wardrobes

This is a little belated, but this past Saturday night I was able to make The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's concert which also featured the London Sinfonietta in Week 2 of the International Chamber Orchestra Festival (or ICOF as it is affectionately known). This concert was split up with the SPCO playing the first half, and the London Sinfonietta playing the second. For the SPCO's piece they played Beethoven's Emperor piano concerto featuring Pierre-Laurant Aimard on piano and as director. Aimard is my favorite of our current Artistic Partners, as he is so animated and so much fun to watch when he plays. Sadly, he wraps up his term as Artistic Partner in mid-February with Beethoven's 1st and 2nd piano concertos, so just one last chance to catch him here at the SPCO.


The Emperor was amazing and Aimard and the SPCO had me enraptured the whole time. The piece itself is lovely and flowing, going from soft quiet bits back into full-blown orchestral splendor in very Beethoven fashion. There was a very nice horn bit at one point that had a delicate feel to it (wonderfully done by Bernhard Scully and Paul Straka); moments like these gave such a beautiful texture to the whole piece. I'm not very familiar with Beethoven's piano concertos and hadn't heard this one before, and clearly I've been missing out. An absolutely flawless performance.


The second half of the program was given over to the London Sinfonietta (with members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the guest orchestra for week 3) and Goebbels Songs of Wars I Have Seen, set to text by Gertrude Stein. It was, to be sure, an interesting piece, though not always to my own particular taste. Working at the SPCO I have certainly become more adventurous when it comes to trying contemporary music (this piece was composed in 2007), but I am not a huge fan of atonal, or "crunchy," music. This piece certainly fit the "crunchy" designation, with much of it possessing a very random feel to the music, punctuated by more traditional, Baroque-sounding bits. By the second half of the piece, however, I was warming to it, especially the end where many musicians played not their regular instruments, but Tibetan prayer bowls which create a specific resonant note. This went on for some time towards, building in intensity, under the playing of other instruments and the effect was quite nice. The piece also calls for the female musicians to read the Stein text (selections from her journals) in addition to playing. These also came across to me as somewhat random, I didn't always see their connection with the music, and I felt like the readers were a little stilted in their delivery. To be fair they are orchestra musicians, not actors, and being an actor myself I am perhaps more critical of that aspect.


All in all the Goebbels was a unique experience and I'm glad I saw it, though I think I could have come in halfway through this 55-minute epic and not missed anything of note.