Concert Review: Diamonds on Velvet

Rudolf Buchbinder joins the Vienna Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Rudolf Buchbinder played Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 at Carnegie Hall on Friday night.
Photo by Marco Borggreve.

In The Holcroft Covenant, a thoroughly mediocre 1980s film version of a Robert Ludlum novel, there is an apt description of everyday concert programming. In this Michael Caine vehicle, the main characters attend a rehearsal at the Philharmonie, the home building of the Berlin Philharmonic. They are invited to the concert that evening by the conductor:

Concert Review: On With the Revolution

The Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra plays Shostakovich.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Russian propaganda poster commemorating the rebellion on the battleship Potemkin
and the uprisings of the year 1905.

Like the people of Russia, the Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich have suffered since their premieres. Composed at the peak of the composer's considerable powers, these pieces as grand public gestures, written to commemorate the start of the Russian Revolution (in the Eleventh) and its triumphant conclusion in the Twelfth. Each symphony is a programmatic work in four movements, requiring enormous orchestral forces and considerable lung power from the woodwinds and brass.

Concert Review: The Highlander Way

The sounds of Scotland come to Fukuoka.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Maestro Shao-Chia Liu led the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn and Bruch.
Photo from the Taiwan Philharmonic.

The vast distance between Scotland and Fukuoka, located on the southern island of Kyushu, Japan narrowed on Friday, February 17, when the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra offered an evening of works inspired by that faraway country. On the podium, Shao-Chia Lu, a guest conductor visiting from Taiwan where he is the music director of the Taiwan Philharmonic.

Concert Review: Beyond the Zero

The Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra plays for peace.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
(A version of this article was originally published in Japanese translation by the Association of Japanese Symphony Orchestras, reused with permission)

Charles Richard-Hamelin plays the bombed piano, a Baldwin upright that survived
the nuclear blast. In the background looms the A-Bomb Dome, which was not as lucky.
Photo © 2017 Association of Japanese Symphony Orchestras and Hiroshima Peace Museum.

The city of Hiroshima, located on the southern end of the big Japanese island of Honshu, remains best known for one date: Aug. 6, 1945. This was where the American bomber Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy," the first of only two atomic bombs ever used against human beings. Since that fatal day, Hiroshima has returned from its ashes as a symbol of international peace. The Peace Museum, the Cenotaph and the A-Bomb Dome (a building that survived the blast) speak volumes by simply standing and saying nothing.