Holliger at 92nd Street Y tonight and tomorrow
Swiss oboist/composer/conductor extraordinaire Heinz Holliger will be in New York City for two concerts on April 21st and 22nd, honoring both his 70th birthday and the recent 100th birthday of Elliott Carter .
The concerts are at the 92nd Street Y.
Wednesday’s show features a “preconcert” concert at 6:30 with several recent shorter works by Carter.
To celebrate Holliger’s 70th (which occurs May 21st), ECM will release Romancendres on May 19th. Two important Holliger pieces, both of them inspired by Robert Schumann, are combined with a chamber work by Clara Schumann. They all intersect in the year 1853, when 20-year-old Johannes Brahms first visited the Schumann couple in Düsseldorf.
ECM just recently released Canto di Speranza, an album of three works by the German post-war composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, conducted by Holliger.
The Holliger was very good. Energy-wise, it’s like a “U” before hitting the epilogue. With the exception of some terrific impetuous passages (sections I and IV, I think), Holliger does tend to dwell on single ideas too long; the piece loses steam in plenty of places. But the good times are never far from rolling again, the “elaborated canon” is just what the quartet needs at its center, and something happens at the opening of the epilogue–I won’t spoil it for you–that is simply magical.
Hi David and Christian,
Glad to see your excited about the performances. We are too! And we agree, the 92Y IS a great place for concerts. The walnut walls and acoustics make for fantastic sound.
If you were interested, we have a Facebook page for our concerts, you can see that here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/92Y-Concerts/35066369211 We post videos, offer special discounts, post new events, etc…
As well, as I imagine you know, our 09/10 concert season subscriptions are now on sale. We’re very proud of this new season and produced a video in honor of it. If you have not yet viewed it, you can here: It really is very enjoyable to watch: http://www.92y.org/shop/category.asp?category=Tisch+Center+for+the+Arts888Tisch+Center+Music+Programs888Tisch+08-0988809%2F10+Concert+Subscriptions888
Thanks again for your nice post, and comments. You can always stop by the blog at http://blog.92y.org to see what we have cooking, or send an email to pmastrangelo@92y.org if you need information, have any questions, or just want to say hi!
Thanks David. Let me know what you think of the Holliger SQ #2.
I’ll be checking out tomorrow’s concert!
I’ll be there tonight. Beethoven 135 and Bruckner C-minor also on the program. Looking forward. BTW: the 92Y is a great place for concerts. Maybe not necessarily for new stuff, but the programming is excellent.