May 8, 2013 - 10:16 PM
The Buffalo Philharmonic performed Reinhold Gliere’s Symphony No. 3 at Carnegie Hall tonight. View a photo gallery of the BPO's concert and Mary Kunz Goldman's review later tonight.
May 8, 2013 - 7:52 PM
The Buffalo Philharmonic held a rehearsal at Carnegie Hall in preparation for tonight's concert. View a photo gallery of the orchestra's rehearsal held earlier in the day. The News' music critic Mary Kunz Goldman will be reviewing the BPO's concert later tonight.
May 8, 2013 - 5:48 PM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
Had to take this picture backstage at Carnegie Hall, just had to.
The Maestro Suite backstage at Carnegie Hall has been occupied by many of the greatest conductors, whose portraits are on the walls. Fritz Reiner. Charles Munch. Leopold Stokowski.
JoAnn Falletta!
Cheer on the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director JoAnn Falletta as they sweep into Carnegie Hall tonight at 7:30 as part of the hall's Spring For Music Festival. If you cannot be there, the concert will be aired live on New York's classical station WQXR and in Buffalo on Classical WNED-FM, 94.5.
May 8, 2013 - 2:35 PM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
NEW YORK -- Today the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra ascended to prime-time billing. Here is a picture of the poster that, even with the glare and the scaffolding, gives you an idea of the glory.
Here is a picture of the poster with BPO communications director Susan Schwartz. We played tourist.
Poor Yuja Wang and her short skirt are hidden by the scaffolding.
It is time for rehearsal and BPO musicians are entering the building.
Buffalo has arrived!
May 7, 2013 - 5:11 PM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
At the Buffalo Airport today, it did not take long to find other Buffalonians headed for Carnegie Hall. Everyone was! That is a neat collage up above, by the way, that we admired on the Internet. The photo of BPO Music Director is by fashion photographer Cheryl Gorski. At left is Gliere, whose huge Symphony No. 3 the orchestra is performing on Wednesday night.
More than 24 hours before the concert, emotions are already running high. People were recalling the last time the BPO played Carnegie Hall, in 2004. We have some repeat attendees!
Joyce Wilson, for one, remembered the impromptu gathering that followed that concert almost a decade ago.
"People were lining up to see JoAnn [Falletta]," she recalled. "She was saying hello to all of them." And she remembered the speech Falletta gave, congratulating the musicians on their performance. "She wasn't just crying," she said. "She was sobbing."
I remember that, too. There is something about Carnegie Hall, something about this atmosphere.
And this time around, with this big symphony, is sure to bring its own memories.
I am sure we will see drama Wednesday night.
May 7, 2013 - 10:30 AM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
The Gliere Society on Facebook is buzzing about the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra's Carnegie Hall performance of their hero's Symphony No. 3.
It has only 33 members so far but then they are picky; you have to be approved in order to join.
I love the thought of this society focused on this late-Romantic Russian composer, pictured above. The Gliere Society has a bunch of scholarly types who exchange information and rumors on Gliere performances. I have already been in touch with the man who seems to be the chief Gliere-head, a gentleman named Kirill Novosselski who lives in Moscow. The Internet, got to love it!
One Gliere fan, Ed Schweibacher, describes Gliere's Symphony No. 3 thus: "414 score pages in 4 volumes. Ideally over 100 instrumentalists, including 5 trumpets and nine horns, plus two harps and a full percussion battery. Over 75 minutes of music. Like hearing 'Zarathustra' and 'Heldenleben' back-to-back!"
He is talking about Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" -- the theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- and "Ein Heldenleben," or "A Hero's Life."
Schweibacher, who lives in Rochester, attended the BPO's Friday morning performance of the piece. He has been providing details of it to the folks in Russia, who are full of questions.
A Gliere fan in Utah is reputedly flying in from Salt Lake City specifically to catch the BPO's Carnegie Hall performance.
It is the symphony heard 'round the world!
May 7, 2013 - 9:00 AM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
If you're going to be at Carnegie Hall Wednesday night to hear the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra wowing the Big Apple with Reinhold Gliere's Symphony No. 3, great!
If not, WNED-FM 94.5, Buffalo's classical station, will be broadcasting the performance live so you may listen to it there.
Whatever you do, do not neglect to watch "Composer Gliere."
It has a classic Cold War look. And it is great how they consistently refer to him as Reinhold Moritsevich Gliere. Russians always have those long names! I like that convention they have.
I also like the insights into Gliere.
"His melodies are so light-winged that they are very comfortable to dance." That is a dancer speaking.
Anyway, enjoy! Hit "CC" at the bottom of the video for English subtitles.
May 6, 2013 - 1:54 PM
Kem closes out the first weekend of Buffalo Place Rocks Canalside with a concert at 6 p.m. June 29 at the Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf.
Tickets are $15 advance and $20 day of show and go on sale at 10 a.m. May 10 through www.tickets.com or charge by phone at (888) 223-6000. Tickets are also available through Buffalo Place office at 671 Main St. between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
For more information, visit www.buffaloplace.com.
May 4, 2013 - 8:42 AM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
New York Times music writer James Oestreich, who has written before about the Spring For Music Festival at Carnegie Hall (pictured above), has written an interesting assessment of the orchestras performing at this year's festival.
Besides the BPO, the 2013 installment includes the Detroit Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra.
Going over the programs as Oestreich describes them I am proud of the BPO. Our orchestra's program is cheery compared with the others' ... it's unusual, and tremendously challenging, but not onerous. Much as I admire the Detroit Symphony for tackling four Charles Ives symphonies, that seems to me like kind of a lot to swallow. I prefer our overblown Russian romantic symphony by Gliere. I can't wait to hear it at Carnegie Hall.
It is fascinating to go over the lineup and chew on it. Programming fascinates me. I admire Spring For Music for encouraging the unusual even if I do not always agree with the choices. And it's fun to see how the different orchestras step up to the plate.
Oh, by the way, the New York Times also writes: "The award for civic spiritedness this year should probably go to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, which raised $700,000 from sponsors to cover expenses and has attracted more than 1,500 traveling companions."
We rock!
May 3, 2013 - 3:56 PM
By Mary Kunz Goldman
This great video I found on YouTube lets you preview Gliere's fantastic Symphony No. 3 from all its outrageous and supernatural angles. That is the symphony that the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is bringing to Carnegie Hall next week. The BPO also is playing it Saturday (May 3) at 8 p.m. at Kleinhans Music Hall.
The video -- while the performers are not the BPO -- immerses you in the symphony by taking you through the legend of Ilya Muromets, the fantastical Russian warrior hero that inspired Gliere's music. The music is very programmatic ... you can hear what the pictures say is going on. And there are not so many pictures that it distracts you too much from the listening.
The Russian imagination can be overwhelming. Among the figures Ilya Muromets encounters are:
-- A knight on horseback who towers over the treetops
-- A creature called the Nightingale Monster who kills and threatens people with his whistle
-- The Russian emperor Vladimir who tells Ilya: "You are now a Bogatyr."
A Bogatyr is a special kind of Russian knight.
The stakes are high. Gliere is a lush and hugely expansive symphony. It requires supreme endurance on the part of the musicians. It also requires a lot of musicians -- one of a number of reasons that it is so seldom performed. And the musicians all have to work extremely hard.
But the hard work is worth it. The music brims with color and imagination. You do not have to be a scholar to be able to tell that Gliere was a master orchestrator. A scene set in a forest with birdcalls is tremendously, hauntingly realistic.
Saturday's BPO performance is preceded by two things not to miss:
At 7 p.m., Roman Mekinulov, principal cellist, has been prevailed upon to give a pre-concert talk. Mekinulov is from St. Petersburg, Russia and his parents, who now live in New York, will be at the Carnegie Hall performance.
At 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Seaton Room, there will be a champagne toast to the BPO's return Wednesday to Carnegie Hall.
To victory!
