Still feeling under a considerable spell lingering from the recent SSO concert I went on a search for James MacMillan's Concerto for Orchestra - Ghosts and came across a full version from the LSO that confirmed my sense of how enjoyable the piece was on Thursday. Not sure if this is great music exactly or just extremely entertaining and I don't care. I like it.
As I did everything about the Thursday performance of Bartok's 2nd Piano Concerto which I'd now probably claim as my all-time favourite piano concerto. Now considering I've only heard it four times in full that's a bit of a facile judgement, but since most of my judgements are a bit thin I'll settle for it. Anyway, once you've had the pleasure of hearing Pierre-Laurent Aimard banging it out live all else pales in comparison. The Maestro is a force of nature. I'm not sure I've ever seen a mere mortal's hands move that quickly - or as slowly as they did for the gorgeous encore piece. (My musical ignorance is so deep that I'm still trying to find out what it actually was, but my friend Google isn't helping at the moment. I'm expecting a review in Monday's Straits Times will settle this for me.)
After the electrifying excitement prior to the interval I wasn't really expecting fireworks for the Prokofiev ballet stuff in Part 2 - bits from Romeo & Juliet. And there weren't any. Not for this listener, that is. It was all just satisfyingly lovely.
Now thoroughly stoked to listen to Stephen Hough in November. And feeling distinctly privileged to have access to live music of the highest order.
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