I live here in Atlanta and love going to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), so at the end of next week, on
Friday and Saturday, they are playing two concerts of which I will only be able to see one (w/the girlfriend). I can only see one because I’m buying a house and I can’t afford to go see both. So I have to choose, but because they are both going to be so good I’m having trouble choosing. In answer to this the girlfriend said “ask the wonderful dopers for their opinions” so here I am.
The two concerts are: -Music and MANIA-
Friday July 27, 2001
LISZT: Mephisto Waltz No. 1
MUSSORGSKY: A Night on Bald Mountain
DUKAS: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
BARBER: Ballet suite from Medea
RAVEL: La Valse
-Music and SEX-
Saturday July 28, 2001
RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé - Suite No. 2
WAGNER: Wesendonck Lieder
WAGNER: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
RAVEL: Bolero
Wagner all the way. Jesus, is this even a contest?? Plus, that concert ends in the Bolero. If you don’t get laid after the Bolero, you just don’t get laid.
Go to the second one, and then rent “Fantasia”. You’ll get to hear the good bits of the first one, plus the animation for “A Night on Bald Mountain” rules.
Thanks to a single insipid line by a bimbo who is all but forgotten we are cursed to somehow think there is some sensual cornucopia hidden beneath its trite and repetetive phrasing. Bah!
Go with Liszt and Mussorgsky. If you’ve never seen Fantasia, you might even find some delight in The Sorceror’s Apprentice.
The only piece I would regret missing from the second concert is the prelude from Tristan und Isolde.
I’d say it’s a tough choice. Any visiting conductors or featured artists involved? Without that information, I’m inclined to advise the Saturday show.
Well, no, wait…, Friday’s got…; well, wait a minute now. Jester’s right in that you can rent, borrow, whatever Fantasia, and you can as easily hear Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz from recorded sources. Considering that my own local symphony, The Houston Symphony, has a guest conductor almost every time I go (~4 or 5 times a year), I think I’d lean toward Saturday - a perhaps more consistent program with the (possibly) guest conductor concentrating on artists he knows (besides, I really don’t usually enjoy sampler night at the symphony), and if you’ve got to choose, I’d prefer to hear Wagner live (although I’ll admit I’ve never heard any Mussorgsky live - although I’d like to).
Well, yes there will be a guest conductor Beatle but it’s the aso’s permenante guest conductor Donald Runnicles. As for the Wagner, well I really wanna hear it live to.
Go with the Saturday concert. The Prelude and Liebestod clinched it for me.
Is there a soloist for the Wesendonck Lieder? I’ve never heard this as an all-orchestral piece.
Now if only they’d substitute Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for the Bolero. I hear it, I don’t think of sex: I think of the poor hornist stuck on a high G for 3.5 pages, all in that infernal rhythm.
[screeching halt]
And is the girlfriend on the boards? If not, introduce her. We’ll be nice…
[/screeching hlt]
And you realize we do want a full report. (No, I’m not interested in after the concert; just the concert itself would be fine. I can get sex anywhere [sub]liar![/sub] anytime [sub]double liar![/sub], but hearing Wagner performed live is a real treat[sub]TRUE![/sub].)
