Earlier this year, I was looking into purchasing a 4-pack subscription to the TSO in order to guarantee tickets for certain concerts. I had a several picked out, of which Emanuel Ax was one of them, but unfortunately due to some hemming and hawwing over dates, the Ax show was sold out when I went to buy. So I didn’t end up getting a subscription.

Fast forward to last week, and I saw that the tickets for Ax were available. I sent some emails to gauge interest, but when I went to go back tickets not even 48 hours later, the tickets were unavailable! I didn’t think he would be that popular, although I do have one CD where he plays the Chopin concertos (include the one I heard recently). As luck would have it, a friend from high school, Sophia, invited Pauline and I to go since she had extra tickets. So even with all my bad luck in trying to get tickets; I was still able to go.

The programme was a trio of 4^th‘s. Beethoven’s 4^th Piano Concerto sandwiched between Mozart’s and Bruckner’s 4^th Symphonies. I was not familiar with any of the pieces, and for some reason it felt like winning the Chinese anti-lottery (we were one away from being spooky, as the concert happened on December 5^th). This time I was sitting in the Mezzanine level behind the orchestra where the choir usually sits, right under my usual perch in R7 and right above the trombones/tuba. It’s actually really close and I could make out a lot of details with my naked eye (i.e., see the music they’re playing). I kinda wish I had my camera and telephoto.

Kids have short attention span, and since Mozart composed his symphony when he was 9 years old, it was only 7 minutes long! The first movement was pretty good though. Then Emanuel Ax came out to perform. I thought that I wasn’t familiar with this concerto, but I recognized the theme from the first movement so I must have heard it on the radio at some point. I’m not familiar enough to comment on his interpretation, but technically he was amazing. Listening to the orchestra, the first movement moved in an average tempo, but the piano parts were deceptively vivace (but perfectly played). The runs were amazing, it sounded like an artist dipping his brush into paint, and then flicking a canvas — only to have the seemingly random notes fall into a harmonic pattern that fit the picture the orchestra was drawing.

The second movement was the reverse, with the orchestra driving the tempo, but the piano was holding back by playing slow, solemn chords. The third movement was also entertaining although nothing particularly stood out. Again, there was no encore. I guess world-renowned artists don’t need to impress crowds even more; although I thought that there would be because after the third time they came out, the clapping was dying off and they still came out a fourth time! It seemed like they were just having a fun time, in fact when Ax wasn’t playing, it seemed like he was an audience member with the best seat in the house — mouthing and mock composing the orchestra.

After the intermission, we heard the 70-minute long Symphony No. 4 by Bruckner, “The Romantic”. It seemed interesting because the themes kept changing and new ones were brought in or replayed from earlier movements, although I spent most of my time reading up on the notes in my programme. I was disappointed after the concert that Ax didn’t stick around to sign autographs, I even brought stuff for him to sign! But then if I were really desperate, I would have stayed around the doors and stalked him.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: concerts, tso