Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Angela Hewitt, how can you go wrong? One of my favorite compositions, from one of my favorite composers played by one of today’s piano superstars! What a great night of music! Angela Hewitt was terrific, her confidence, her strength, her technical skills, and of course it was a live performance. Sure she is competing with her own perfect recording and yes in the excitement of the climax at the very end she missed a couple of notes, but her physical presence, the energy of the orchestra and the excitement of the capacity audience made up for whatever minor missteps there might have been.
Guest conductor Hannu Lintu introduced us to Canadian composer Matthew Whittall’s Solen, a North American premiere. An interesting symphonic work that took a while to get me engaged, but it did keep my attention to the end. Afterwards we were speculating how this Canadian composer ended up in Finland, with an obviously successful career and has now taken on Finish citizenship. Our speculation ended with: “it must have been love or government grants”.
The final work on the program was Sibelius’ 5th Symphony. Only parts of the 3rd movement sounded familiar to us, but it was a great pleasure to be introduced to this magnificent work. And again, hearing and seeing it live made all the difference. What a workout for the TSO timpanist David Kent, a former client of our company Black Tulip. Conductor Hannu Lintu was literally jumping up and down. Bravo TSO, the evening inspired us to keep on coming back for more.
Joost - Always Moving Forward! 