Saturday, November 21, 2015

Twin Cities Music: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the "Madwoman of Moldova"

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On the program:

-Beethoven's violin concerto; classical music, to be sure, but updated with notes from Beethoven's original scores to be far more daring and improvisational.  It was a strange listen for those in the audience familiar with how the piece is traditionally played, but even then, her enthusiasm for the piece was unmistakable.
 
-Haydn's 49th symphony; predictable and lovely. 

-Michael Hersch's violin concerto; a piece that spanned every possible type of grief, from the angry to terrified to inconsolable...not a piece for the faint of heart.  The soloist was Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and I feel like she must have looked at her part and said "I am not scared of you."  Add that to her presence onstage, barefoot in a white dress with red blood-like streaks, and she looked straight out of "A Woman In White," ready to take that piece exactly where she wanted.

The Pioneer Press started their review of the performance with this:

"If you're fortunate enough to have a ticket to one of this weekend's sold-out St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts, prepare yourself for an encounter with the madwoman of Moldova. And I mean that in a good way. Violinist and SPCO artistic partner Patricia Kopatchinskaja has an audacious program in store that will probably push you out of your comfort zone and challenge one assumption after another."

That's about right. 

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