Words fail me!
Tonight I was at the Barbican to hear Daniel Barenboim play Brahms' 1st and 2nd Piano Concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra under the silver baton of Antonio Pappano.
Two very beautiful and powerful pieces of music, with which I am so familiar, having had them in my collection for over half a lifetime.
But this evening was a demonstration of why a live performance is so much vastly superior to a recording.
And I don't even know why. After all, it's just notes on a stave. What's the difference between adequate and utterly spellbinding? The difference is interpretation. When you have a truly great pianist, a superb conductor and an orchestra that's sizzling, what's the cause?
I'm not going to analyse, I'm not going to mention the odd dischord I thought I heard (After all, what are my ears...), because a great performance is far far geater than the sum of its parts. One of those rare occasions when you can't think about that great bit for the horn, or that moving cello passage, or that dramatic timpani phrase. Nor even about that piano. You just sit back and let the overall effect seep into the every pore and through the veins as the music actually makes you want to be a better person, with better thinking.
It's repeated tomorrow at 3pm and there are actually 7 seats left unbooked as I write. I'm almost tempted to book one myself to go again
Piano concertos are quite possibly the most supreme form of music.
BTW, the first photo was taken during the encore; I didn't do anything as crass as take photos during the actual concertos. If anyone hits this post via a search engine and can name the encore piece could you please leave a comment, because I know it but can't place it, and it made me cry
Update: The Independent says
Nor did it disappoint. With Antonio Pappano conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, the introduction of the First Concerto was steady, at times intense, but on the whole more lyrical than fierce. As soon as Barenboim began to play, the experience of the music was transfigured. It's a quiet arrival, but here it was full of restless energy, ebbing and flowing, possessed of a powerful sense of direction. A massive weight of tone soon made itself felt, yet Barenboim used the power of his left hand to create a dialogue with the right.
Also reviewed in The Times
