“Surprise” Symphony
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony will really come as a surprise tonight, pared down as it is for a chamber group of just four strings and a flute . . .
Haydn’s British contemporary, Johann Peter Salomon, pulled off one of the great musical coups by securing two London visits from the great and revered Franz Joseph. The twelve symphonies written by Haydn during these visits were greeted with enthusiastic applause, and caused Salomon to purchase the rights and then republish them in his own chamber versions, using just string quartet and flute. The “Surprise” is just one delightful example, performed tonight by Florilegium. Antonin Dvorak’s symphony, “From the New World,” receives a bravura but not surprising performance from Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Domenico Savino and the Rome Symphony bring us a non-vocal version of just part of Puccini’s “La Boheme.” Opera aficionados who’d like to see the real thing can do so on several dates this September at the New York City Opera.
Reich’s “Bikini” is not about a bathing suite! The Steve Reich Ensemble and Synergy perform this electrifying work that makes connections between creation stories from the book of Genesis and the atom bomb tests on the eponymous island. Other wonderful offerings include Brahms’s Piano Sonata No. 1, and Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs,” with the radiant Renee Fleming.
Haydn’s British contemporary, Johann Peter Salomon, pulled off one of the great musical coups by securing two London visits from the great and revered Franz Joseph. The twelve symphonies written by Haydn during these visits were greeted with enthusiastic applause, and caused Salomon to purchase the rights and then republish them in his own chamber versions, using just string quartet and flute. The “Surprise” is just one delightful example, performed tonight by Florilegium. Antonin Dvorak’s symphony, “From the New World,” receives a bravura but not surprising performance from Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Domenico Savino and the Rome Symphony bring us a non-vocal version of just part of Puccini’s “La Boheme.” Opera aficionados who’d like to see the real thing can do so on several dates this September at the New York City Opera.
Reich’s “Bikini” is not about a bathing suite! The Steve Reich Ensemble and Synergy perform this electrifying work that makes connections between creation stories from the book of Genesis and the atom bomb tests on the eponymous island. Other wonderful offerings include Brahms’s Piano Sonata No. 1, and Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs,” with the radiant Renee Fleming.
