No chance of recovering my thoughts on Bard Weekend one. I have notes but my thoughts are lost forever. Music, lectures and bed pretty much summed up my weekend.
Weekend 2 has begun and Friday night’s concert was wonderful. The concert opened with Copland’s El Salon Mexico, as scored for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein, played by Richard Wilson who is a good pianist, and Blanca Uribe who is an excellent pianist. Wonderful, wonderful work.
The remainder of the first half of the concert did not do as much for me, the performances were excellent for the most part, the works less than inspiring. The content is already sliding into oblivion.
The intermission served as a much needed stretching-break and wake-up-call for the second half, which was spectacular and well worth waiting for.
Mario Davidovsky’s Syunchronisms #9 was wonderful and fascinating even if the computer generated portion was a tape and therefore dictated the pace of the concert — George’s main objection. Something always dictates the pace;, in a purely human concert it might vary more, but the interaction of man and machine generated music is still fascinating and the work was melodic, complex and interesting. This was a tour de force and Curtis Macomber was spectacular.
He was followed by more spectacular playing by Blanca Uribe, who performed the Danzas Argentinas by Ginastera. The audience was on its feet.
Villa-Lobos string quartet #17 was incredibly beautiful and the closing Ginastera songs were wonderfully performed by Lauren Skuce, whom we heard last year at Shostakovich, and who still strikes me as excellent, although her facial expressions somehow seem to be not in concert with the music she is singing some of the time.
Odd thing to notice.