My New Publicity Photos

Here's my new publicity photos. I'm having a hard time finding auditions, mostly because I'm awake at night and have a night job that requires me to visit people at night and give them a bit of a scare. However, it's just a job, and I'm just doing it to make ends meet until I can get more auditions. My musical interests are the Top 40 hits of 1253CE (it's tough to find them in print these days).

A Study in Differences of Opinion

I'm listening to two recordings of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mostly, I'm interested in the second movement right now, Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando for the eight bar excerpt at the beginning. I have the RCA Victor recording with Fritz Reiner from 1955, and the Deutsche Grammaphone recording with Pierre Boulez from 1994.

The Boulez recording uses a drum that is slightly lower in pitch and more muffled. The excerpt is played at approximately 84-86 b.p.m., and is a bit less strict to what is on the page. Whoever played the excerpt on this recording probably played more towards the center of the drum (thus, less ringing of the drum) and the player moves their stick towards the edge of the drum during the last 2 bars of the passage. This gives a substantial color change to the drum that is very noticeable when listening with headphones. I'm not certain it is what the composer intended.

The Reiner recording uses a higher tuned drum (probably a M2 to m3 higher than the Boulez recording) and is nearly perfect to the metromone at a more lively 92-93 b.p.m. (after all, Reiner was a stickler on tempo and rhythm). The decrescendo is performed without a noticeable move to the edge of the drum. However, there's quite a bit of ring, so I assume the percussionsist who executed it on this recording (Harry Brabec?) probably played halfway between the center and edge of the drum. Both players play the except with two sticks (one for the accented notes, and another for the unaccented notes).

I applaud both performances as they are both precise and well planned. My goal here was to show that there can be two different opinions on how to execute a passage. Take a listen sometime and see what you hear.

A Visit to Philadelphia

Last weekend I took a trip to Philadelphia, PA and had a chance to see the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center. The hall is magnificent; acoustically it's wonderful for the audience (unfortunately I wasn't on stage playing, so I can't comment on how it is on stage) and architecturally interesting. The concert (01 October 2005) was:

Midori Plays Prokofiev (cond: Christoph Eschenbach)

LINDBERG Chorale
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5

The Lindberg was an interesting soundscape, only lasting about 9 minutes. Our seats were in row G near the 4th stand of 1st violins. This wasn't the best location, as the sound was "string heavy". Alas, I don't hear that often (being in the back of the orchestra), so it was bearable.

Next, Midori absolutely stunned the audience with an amazing performance of the Prokofiev concerto. This performance is definitely one of the most intimate concerti I've heard live. Midori has amazing control and displays a picture of what, I feel, Prokofiev would have desired in his music. A much-deserved standing ovation was given to soloist and orchestra to conclude the first half of the concert.

To round out the concert, Eschenbach chose Beethoven's Symphony in C minor. From the initial knock of fate to the last chord, I couldn't help but think of all the music directors that have programmed the Symphony, including Ormandy and Stokowski. The strings, musically, brought the symphony alive in a way I'm not used to (being from Chicago), and the brass and woodwinds were smooth in their performance of both loud and soft passages. Timpanist Don Liuzzi gave an excellent performance as well, and was a pleasure to watch!

All in all, I can't wait to get back to Philly to hear them again. It's also a beautiful city, and one I'd recommend everyone visit.