Nice little concert this evening. The London Philharmonic under Paavo Berglund.
I looked at my diary and wasn't that sure whether I particularly wanted to go. But I did, even though that meant missing the rival attraction of Joseph Calleja at St John's Smith Square.
First up was Beethoven's Leonore Overture. Oh, it does go on. Not unpleasant, but Beethoven, I mean, a genius... This was his third version; he revised it again. He tried writing an opera called Leonore, but failed so he rewrote it as Fidelio. I wonder how often it would be performed if it wasn't by Beethoven.
After the interval was Sibelius's Symphony No 2 in D. Not a bad piece of music, in places quite, you know, interesting. In fact, if it fell off free from the front of a glossy mag, I wouldn't bin it. And if it was programmed again in the future with something desirable, I wouldn't mind hearing it again. But with life being so short, and so many pieces of music around, I don't feel I really need Sibelius's Second in my life.
The highlight of the evening was Elgar's Cello Concerto. I went to a concert of this last year and was singularly underwhelmed, so I think I booked this evening in order to expunge the memory.
Oh, it was really quite wonderful. A piece that I really do like, played with amazing skill by Pieter Wispelwey. He really got into the whole dialogue with the orchestra bit; the orchestra were very good. I loved the way he seemed to play each note as if each note mattered. Quite unlike how I've heard it before.
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