# SSO first season with Ludvic Morlot, concert Frank Zappa, Beethoven, Dutilleux



## clavichorder

First concert I'm going to this season http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=10650&src=t

Beethoven's Eroica along with Frank Zappa and Dutilleux. An interesting concert to be sure!


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## starthrower

clavichorder said:


> First concert I'm going to this season http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=10650&src=t
> 
> Beethoven's Eroica along with Frank Zappa and Dutilleux. An interesting concert to be sure!


Interesting, as I am a big fan of Zappa and Dutilleux. If only it was the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, I could go hear it!


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## bumtz

This is not a very well thought-out combination - more of a gimmick IMO. 
I actually also like both Zappa and Dutilleux (and don't care much about Beethoven), and just can't see it working out as a coherent program. In any case, it's good to see this music performed, and I hope the musicians give it eyebrows  .


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## clavichorder

bumtz said:


> This is not a very well thought-out combination - more of a gimmick IMO.
> I actually also like both Zappa and Dutilleux (and don't care much about Beethoven), and just can't see it working out as a coherent program. In any case, it's good to see this music performed, and I hope the musicians give it eyebrows  .


I just went to this concert bumtz and it worked really well. I just wrote a mini review: ""Dupree's Paradise" from "The Perfect Stranger." It had a neat theme and some interesting orchestration, with a cimbalom too(same with the Dutilleux), but I think it would require another listen, it lost me about half way through and I felt saved again when the theme came around, but there was something interesting about it, I hadn't had much experience with this sort of music from Zappa, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I liked the Dutilleux violin concerto, it sounded a bit like later William Schuman but with very lively wind orchestration, and transparent orchestral textures, it looked like hell to play. It was a good programming move on Morlot's part in my eyes."

The Eroica was the second half. I think the combination is a bit eccentric, but to listeners such as myself who like a variety of things, it was fascinating and I think it was quite well thought out, not intended to appeal to the public but as a coherent concert.


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## Sid James

Sounds like it was a great concert. I actually have the same violinist, Mr Capucon, playing that Dutilleux violin conceto on an EMI 2 disc set along with other things. I agree with you, it's a very colourful work. & a link between it & the Zappa piece (whose music I've not heard much/any of), as you've explained, is that they both have a cimbalom. Dutilleux is one of the greatest living composers of the really old generation, another one being Elliott Carter. I would jump at a chance to hear either of these guys' orchestral works done live here, that hasn't happened here since mainstream orchestral concerts went more conservative in the 1990's (see below), but fortunately their chamber & solo instrumental works do get quite an outing here at contemporary music concerts of that kind in particular.



clavichorder said:


> ...
> The Eroica was the second half. I think the combination is a bit eccentric, *but to listeners such as myself who like a variety of things*, it was fascinating and I think it was quite well thought out, not intended to appeal to the public but as a coherent concert.


I'm glad that your symphony orchestra there is catering to those eclectic listeners, as you say in the part above I have bolded. That kind of programming is more balanced than what some of our flagship orchestras are doing here, which is bland "bums on seats" programing churning out warhorse after warhorse for the most conservative listeners (people so ignorant, they would maybe turn up late to that concert and only go to hear the Beethoven, or maybe they would give the whole concert a miss altogether, it's not conveniently programmed so that they could leave during interval to avoid a "modern" work). Ignorant idiots. Anyway, this is my own "hobby horse." Many anecdotes from down here speaking to what these people do - eg. leave en masse during interval if something like R. Strauss'_ Metamorphosen _is coming up. How f***** is that? I, like your good self, am one of those people who enjoy BOTH old and new music, which is where the majority of classical listeners are at, as far as my experience tells me. However, it's those on the conservative fringe that seem to have the loudest voices & dominate the discourse with regards to some of the programming here, unfortunately...


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## clavichorder

I realize how lucky we are here in Seattle, Sid. I'm sorry you have to put up with that. Those programmers have less reason to not be more daring since those concert goers that aren't in the least bit interested in anything modern and only slightly curious about warhorses even, are going to be unreliable, they are not, in principle the demographic of the audience that should be catered to, so its best to program a warhorse with a lesser known or less "accessible" and more modern piece.


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## Sid James

^^Well, I don't put up with it, I haven't attended a flagship orchestra performance here in like 20 years, since things went "fringe" conservative in the way I described. Basically the most modern substantial work you're going to get here is like Mahler, and these people even have the nerve to walk out on that (like they did a few months back with his _Symphony #9_, this incident has become notorious).

Anyway, the concerts that I do attend mainly of smaller groups (in terms of size and budget, etc.), from across the spectrum - community/amateur, student, semi-professional or fully pro musicians or a combination of them all with professional direction, etc. - they are programmed very well, very imaginatively & catering for wide and broad tastes, not just those ignorant buffoons. Not a person leaves during interval at these concerts, and most are quite well attended. So there are good things happening here Down Under for sure, it's just that what we call the "mainstream" or "flagship" orchestras & groups are increasingly playing the "hard" narrow conservative tune. Good luck to them, it's not the future of classical to make it into a museum piece, the future is people like we are, flexible and inquisitive, broad and eclectic, etc. I mean I've heard things like by Cherubini, Alkan, Janacek, etc. which simply wouldn't get a foot in the "flagship" groups concert programs - they're too adventurous and risky for the boneheads.

Sorry, I'm venting here, but I'm also a bit bitter of what went down here last week, one of these kinds of people here calling my opinions into doubt as I don't fit a certain category of conservative listeners. I just hate this kind of rubbish attitude...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Sid James said:


> Sorry, I'm venting here, but I'm also a bit bitter of what went down here last week, one of these kinds of people here calling my opinions into doubt as I don't fit a certain category of conservative listeners. I just hate this kind of rubbish attitude...


As you now infer I am "one of these kinds of people" (solely by your judging of my posts here at TC), I might as well defend myself. Nice to see you keep bringing this up on, what is now, I think the third time in three different threads (one of which that got thankfully locked for its pathetic attempt to compare me with someone else). I think you are taking the internet rather too seriously. Real world exchanges of civility and opinions do not necessarily _have to_ mirror what happens here, hence the familiar terms "virtual world". And funny that mention you "had to leave" another forum. Again, all of this is your own doing: nobody was forcing you to leave that forum, you chose to leave just as you are choosing now to pollute in three separate threads something else that you couldn't handle.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

clavichorder said:


> First concert I'm going to this season http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/buy/single/production.aspx?id=10650&src=t
> 
> Beethoven's Eroica along with Frank Zappa and Dutilleux. An interesting concert to be sure!


Sounded like an interesting concert. Unlike what another member has suggested above that I, HarpsichordConcerto would leave early half way through, I would have attended the entire concert and not be the blame for its unusual mix of music, which I find interesting from a programme perspective.

I attend concerts for the music, not to pass judgement on others whom I know nothing about and to blame them for the discourse of concert programme.


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## clavichorder

I think you both have some good ways of thinking about music but are communicating contradictory aspects of them rather harshly to one another and its being read as doubly offensive due to the history of your argument. Lets cool down. I respect both of your tastes in music very much, I don't even see you as necessarily oppositional in tastes. Lets stop here in fact and not let the argument take its course yet again. Don't second anything I've said here anyone.


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## Sid James

I would like to add that from what I know of the city of Seattle, it has a very progressive image. It's been in the news here a bit on the non-classical radio stations lately, in terms of it being the place grunge and the band Nirvana were born. It has been exactly 20 years since their great album Nevermind was released. I always thought that this was one of the finest moments for this type of music in the 1990's, it really stood out, and still does. So there is a kind of receptive culture there to diversity and plurality. I think we had the same thing here up until sometime in the 1990's, when the men in suits, the bean-counters, began to dominate the boards of our flagship groups out of all proportion, and chief conductors, etc. had to tow the "hard conservative" line. But there are still good things going on here, as I said. Our Melbourne (or maybe even Tasmania, their symphony orchestra has made some very interesting & diverse recordings) are more like your Seattle, they are more artsy and cosmopolitan.

In terms of my "beef" with what happened last week, yes I need to take a chill pill, calm down. But I'm quite a bit suss when members use what they know about me against me. Of course the old objectionable members were worse, so maybe it wasn't a fully fitting comparison, but I was just feeling very bitter and angry. I don't like egg thrown on my face & I try not to do it to others. Skirting around the rules here to serve a blow to people you are arguing with is not the way to go, it's better to be direct, but it doesn't mean you have to be like an underground bully, it just requires balance, commonsense, etc. I like to say what I say, I'm uncompromising like that in reality, I don't like to tone things down, but nonetheless I try to do it reasonably...


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## clavichorder

Latest Ludovic Morlot concerto news: saw Edgard Varese's Ameriques, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and Gershwin's American in Paris. I'm very optimistic about Morlot.


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