The DSO concert Sunday afternoon was great. Hungarian dances by Brahms and a Bartok classic were the orchestral pieces while the featured Liszt piano concerto was awesome.
I had never heard most of the Dances by Brahms. I am very familiar with many other Brahms works including the symphonies and a piano concerto or two. These works are cornerstones of abstract Romantic literature and exemplary works of all of music history. The Hungarian Dances are billed as light orchestrations, which they are. However, Brahms, being the master composer he was, found a way to weave profundity with levity in the right proportions to avoid any hint of triteness.
Historically, I have been negative toward hearing live concertos. Generally I prefer more balanced orchestral works where instrumental lead is shared across many orchestral sections, dictated by the abstract needs alone. Concertos seemed to artificially put the spotlight on one instrument and favor virtuosity over pure truth and beauty.
However, Sunday's performance of the Liszt concerto may have changed my mind. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing a 21 year old Russian pianist perform masterfully. Perhaps the concerto itself was more integrated with the orchestra than typical classical concertos. Whatever the reason, the piano was blended as a perfect complement to the orchestra and the solo sections were virtuosic, yet musical. Maybe I will retain my discrimination toward violin or other concertos, but bend a bit for piano concertos, since the piano is like a mini-orchestra itself.
The Bartok composition was a great contrast to the Romantic orchestrations that came before. Nothing like a little early 20th century expressionism to sanitize any hint of schmaltz that might have been felt during the Romantic music portion (Romantic with a capital R as a classical period, not romantic with a little r that might resemble a soap opera :))
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