Tonight we heard a performance of Mahler's 9th, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. It was amazing. Vera, who is rumored to know something about Mahler, thought it was the best Mahler performance she has ever heard. The orchestra played with fearsome intensity and precision, and Salonen's conducting brought out all the intricate details in Mahler's scores that others smooth out. Dissonant inner voices, jarring juxtapostions, and Mahler's unique orchestrations were all very audible. There is really nothing like hearing a work like this performed live by an orchestra of this caliber. I am becoming an orchestral junkie!
And tomorrow night, the same forces will be performing "Wozzeck".
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Williamsburg
Last week I went to Williamsburg in Brooklyn, which I haven't been to in years. Williamsburg is now known as the hippest area of NY, where all the younger types go to live and hang out, and where the latest restaurants are. How hip is Williamsburg? When I stopped to get a coffee at a coffee joint, the barista, after serving me, when over to the cafe's turntable, and put on an LP of the Rolling Stones "Beggars Banquet". How many coffee shops do you know that play vinyl? (Though it is debatable whether geezer rock can really be hip...)
Williamsburg is mostly very low rise architecture, with very little of the predominant historic details that characterize area like Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. But a interesting mix of styles, nonetheless. Some Long Island style renovations...(vinyl siding?)
The most fun, though, was walking back to Manhattan on the Williamsburg Bridge, which was the longest suspension bridge in the world for 20 years, and lives in the shadow of its more famous neighbor. It has a great pedestrian walkway, for some reason painted in pink. You walk above the cars, and slightly parallel and above the subway lines. It lands you in Manhattan in the middle of the Lower East Side.
Some pictures (click to enlarge):
Graffitti, chain link fences and pink railings at the beginning:
The Empire State Building framed:
Strange metal things:
The walkway in pink, with decorations;
The end, as you descend to Manhattan:
The official nameplate for the bridge, as reconfigured by New Yorkers:
Some buildings in Manhattan, as you get off the bridge;
A building in Chinatown, with all windows filled with boxes:
Williamsburg is mostly very low rise architecture, with very little of the predominant historic details that characterize area like Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. But a interesting mix of styles, nonetheless. Some Long Island style renovations...(vinyl siding?)
The most fun, though, was walking back to Manhattan on the Williamsburg Bridge, which was the longest suspension bridge in the world for 20 years, and lives in the shadow of its more famous neighbor. It has a great pedestrian walkway, for some reason painted in pink. You walk above the cars, and slightly parallel and above the subway lines. It lands you in Manhattan in the middle of the Lower East Side.
Some pictures (click to enlarge):
Graffitti, chain link fences and pink railings at the beginning:
The Empire State Building framed:
Strange metal things:
The walkway in pink, with decorations;
The end, as you descend to Manhattan:
The official nameplate for the bridge, as reconfigured by New Yorkers:
Some buildings in Manhattan, as you get off the bridge;
A building in Chinatown, with all windows filled with boxes:
Brahms, part 2
I heard the NY Philharmonic play Brahms 3rd and 4th symphonies in a concerto-free program on Friday night, conducted by the very frail Kurt Masur. Both symphonies were an absolute pleasure to hear; Masur's tempi were very, very slow, which is fine with me, as it gives more time to savour the details of Brahms's orchestral writing. It is music which I used to know very well, but haven't listened to in years. It still strikes me as a wonderful battle between romantic impulses and Brahms's painstakingly worked out details and construction in the symphonic tradition.
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