Well, I\u2019m finding myself a bit surprised that I can finally say that the first half of my 2008-9 concert year is over, and that my musical 2008 (barring any last-minute calls) is done. I\u2019ll miss doing the Messiah this year, but I\u2019m glad to be finished. It\u2019s been a tough, rewarding and draining few months.<\/p>\n
Last night the Wrexham Symphony and I performed a rather daunting and intense Russian program which opened with Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s A Night on Bald Mountain. Once you\u2019ve learned or experienced Mussorgsky\u2019s original (which I conducted a few years back), it becomes impossible to think of this much-better-known piece as being by Mussorgsky. It\u2019s really Rimsky\u2019s creation- call it \u201cConcert Fantasia on Themes of Mussorgsky.\u201d Still, I\u2019ve loved it since my Fantasia days. I\u2019d avoided it for a few years since burning out on it after spending a little too much time on it, but it is a brilliant piece, and it conducting it feels like a visit with a very old friend. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was lovely to see the WSO again this Fall, most of all because of the progress they’ve made since we last worked together. They\u2019ve come a long way since our first encounter when I did a BBC clinic for them in 2005. In the year and a half since my last visit, there have been a lot of changes, all for the better. Every orchestra is a work in progress, and I\u2019ve had a lot of chats with the committee members about their goals for the near future. As\u00a0an orchestra grows, each step forward brings its own rewards, but also reveals how much more can be accomplished.\u00a0If they can continue to improve at the rate they have for the next three years, they\u2019re going to be a smashing orchestra.<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nAfter Prokofiev\u2019s Lt Kije, which must be the funniest piece of music I\u2019ve ever conducted, we finished up with Rachmaninoff\u2019s First Symphony. Like a great Russian novel, this piece does everything it can to scare the casual reader away, but draws in the devoted, revealing layer upon layer of meaning, and more than a generous helping of pain. Learning this piece has certainly been one of the eye-openers of 2008- it wasn\u2019t what I expected at all, but a work that is multi-layered, radical and heart-breaking. I\u2019ll be excited to do it again soon somewhere else. For being a piece that has always been controversial and has never made it into the mainstream repertoire, it was lovely to see the audience respond so positively to it. It\u2019s overtly tragic character bodes against it ever being a crowd-pleaser, but it at least ends loud. Okay\u2026. It ends, er, very, very loud\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n