Wagner- Liszt Recitative & Romance 'Evening Star' Thibaudet
The title should read Wagner-Liszt. Not Liszt- Wagner. Last Thursday, I heard Jean-Yves Thibaudet play Liszt's technically demanding "Totentanz" with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos at the Hollywood Bowl. Thibudet played the work with breathtaking virtuosity though a few wrong notes crept in toward the end. Nevertheless, it was a great performance of a Liszt composition that one is not too often likely to hear performed live. Thibaudet received a thunderous ovation and as an encore played Liszt's Consolation No. 3 in D flat. The concert also included Liszt's Les Preludes and Respighi's Fountains and Pines of Rome. Mark Swed, music critic of the Los Angeles Times, was present and wrote an article concerning the concert that appeared on the front page (albeit below the fold) of the Times the following Saturday. It seems that Swed finds the four new, brighter and clearer visual monitors distracting. He then goes on to suggest that they cause people who watch them to act "uncivilly" and that the cameras were responsible for setting " tongues wagging" because of the close ups pf Yuga Wang's "bare legs on giant screens as she played Rachmaninoff two summers ago." (Guess who wrote about her "tight tube like dresses" when she gave her recital at Disney Hall on March 25 where there are no monitors.) Also, Swed wrote vividly about Wang's appearance at the Bowl concert that set off the "tongues wagging" episode with absolutely no mention of monitors. (A little disingenuous?) Swed writes that "the orchestra needs to understand just how much the monitors determine the way we listen." I say, only if you are fixated on them, as Swed seems to be. He doesn't like the idea that someone is "forcing" him "to witness what somebody else wants (him)you to see." From where I sat, people were concentrating on what was coming from the shell of the bowl. They were listening to the orchestra and soloist and were not glued to the monitors. The monitors are nice to glance at occasionally, but they are not the main attraction that Swed is trying to make them out to be. The only distraction is Mark Swed.
The title should read Wagner-Liszt. Not Liszt- Wagner. Last Thursday, I heard Jean-Yves Thibaudet play Liszt's technically demanding "Totentanz" with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos at the Hollywood Bowl. Thibudet played the work with breathtaking virtuosity though a few wrong notes crept in toward the end. Nevertheless, it was a great performance of a Liszt composition that one is not too often likely to hear performed live. Thibaudet received a thunderous ovation and as an encore played Liszt's Consolation No. 3 in D flat. The concert also included Liszt's Les Preludes and Respighi's Fountains and Pines of Rome. Mark Swed, music critic of the Los Angeles Times, was present and wrote an article concerning the concert that appeared on the front page (albeit below the fold) of the Times the following Saturday. It seems that Swed finds the four new, brighter and clearer visual monitors distracting. He then goes on to suggest that they cause people who watch them to act "uncivilly" and that the cameras were responsible for setting " tongues wagging" because of the close ups pf Yuga Wang's "bare legs on giant screens as she played Rachmaninoff two summers ago." (Guess who wrote about her "tight tube like dresses" when she gave her recital at Disney Hall on March 25 where there are no monitors.) Also, Swed wrote vividly about Wang's appearance at the Bowl concert that set off the "tongues wagging" episode with absolutely no mention of monitors. (A little disingenuous?) Swed writes that "the orchestra needs to understand just how much the monitors determine the way we listen." I say, only if you are fixated on them, as Swed seems to be. He doesn't like the idea that someone is "forcing" him "to witness what somebody else wants (him)you to see." From where I sat, people were concentrating on what was coming from the shell of the bowl. They were listening to the orchestra and soloist and were not glued to the monitors. The monitors are nice to glance at occasionally, but they are not the main attraction that Swed is trying to make them out to be. The only distraction is Mark Swed.