Rediscovering Tchaikovsky’s sublime Symphony No. 5

I was thrown back in time recently, through music, while attending the San Francisco Symphony. The piece in question was a perennial crowd-pleasing warhorse, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Now, if you’re thinking, “been there, done that,” yeah, so was I. I’d chosen the concert not for the Tchaikovsky but for the opening work, Grieg’s Piano … Read more

Yuja Wang, Wittgenstein and Ravel’s curious Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

  I suppose it’s not all that curious. If you are a concert pianist and your right arm is a casualty in World War I, afterwards you have two options. One: give up your music career and calling, do something inferior and cry into your soup for the rest of your life. Two: tell yourself, “All … Read more

Eating Greens at the San Francisco Symphony

So, I went to San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday afternoon, a warm, sunny, Indian-summer-that-just-won’t-go-away kind of day that we here in Northern California seem to be experiencing without end. No coat, at least, to have to stow under my seat or by my feet during the concert. Which, by the way, nice weather … Read more