Friday night I attended my final performance of the Utah Symphony 2014-2015 season. It has been a fantastic year (go here, here, and here for some of my favorite concerts) and I certainly picked an amazing concert to end with! The orchestra began with A Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky. I have heard this piece performed many times and I always picture a coven of witches dancing around a large bonfire. It is very atmospheric! The concert continued with Symphony No. 5 by Alexander Glazunov. I was completely unfamiliar with this piece but I really enjoyed it. I thought is was very dramatic and I especially loved the themes played by the brass section. After the intermission, the orchestra played the Organ Symphony by Camille Saint-Saens (who is becoming one of my favorite composers). This piece featured Richard Elliott, the principal organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Several years ago, I saw the orchestra perform this piece with the same soloist and I enjoyed it so much that this one was one of the first concerts I picked when creating my season package. I absolutely loved it! There is a section in the second movement where the organ plays in unison with the strings, punctuated rather dramatically by the timpani and cymbals, that is so incredibly stirring I had goosebumps! The guest conductor for the evening, Kuzuki Yamada, was absolutely brilliant and there was a particularly touching moment when he ran over to embrace Elliott at the end of the concert. It was a very enjoyable evening of music, as always.
Note: The Utah Symphony still has a few concerts left in the season and they will be performing in many outdoor venues throughout the summer. I already have tickets to a concert at Red Butte Garden and I am really excited about some of the Deer Valley concerts! Go here for information and tickets.
No comments:
Post a Comment