The featured performer for tonight's concert is Emanuel Ax, which is perhaps why this morning's rehearsal was a mob scene. I was told when I came in that the upper levels would not be available, but by the time the rehearsal began, those upper tiers were required.
Emanuel Ax, uncredited photo, via Kennedy-Center.org
The first two pieces worked on by conductor Hugh Wolff were Dvořák's Symphony No. 5 and Albert's Rivering Waters, about which much more is probably in the program handed out to the mobs who pay.
Ax didn't come in until the third piece to be rehearsed, which was Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2. The funny thing was, he started warming up and playing during the intermission; people weren't paying any attention to the guy on stage, because, as you'd expect at a working rehearsal, all the musicians were in working clothes--they all looked like us! Somehow, that made it all so much more human and approachable. Ax could have been your favorite professor meeting you for coffee.
I overheard someone behind me during the intermission say that it must have been his encore piece that Ax was rehearsing just then. I didn't hear enough of it through the chatter to tell what it was--only that it wasn't the furniture mover playing it. And then, when the real rehearsal began, Ax's light, lyrical, commanding touch on the Chopin piece was simply thrilling, especially the more familiar second movement. (That's the one people will be humming along with. Stupid people.)
I also didn't hear enough of the Albert piece to make much of it (bad ushering; some of us thought there was an intermission after Dvořák, and we got locked out until Wolff paused the orchestra). (And speaking of bad ushering, they need to go all Metro announcer on people and force them to move to the center of the row. In the unreserved seating scheme, the aisle seats were prime targets.)
So that was the morning's share of my cultural day. When the mobs were released into this bright, cold cherry-blossomless April day, I decided to skip the line waiting for the shuttle to Metro and hiked on up to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It wasn't a bad walk at all, up through the GWU campus and various other institutional structures - American Institute of Architecture, Organization of American States, etc.
The Corcoran has been going through some hoo-hah about its future and all that, but I received the members' e-mail yesterday announcing some pretty sturdy plans: a partnership with the University of Maryland to keep the education side running and an agreement with the National Gallery of Art to display modern and contemporary works from its collection while NGA's East building is renovated over the next three years.
The thing I like about the Corcoran is the mix of old and new, familiar and the startling. The "Next" exhibit, which I presume is the current graduating class's work, wasn't available today--I think it opens on Saturday. But I got to peek in through the door. There was this cool interactive sculpture (force-sensing resistors, micro-controller, and speaker) called the Heptachord by Gabriel Mellan:
But what really says "Corcoran" to me is my favorite sculpture, the Veiled Nun by Guieseppe Croff:
And more "sight for sore eyes" from Washington Colorist Gene Davis in Black Popcorn:
Davis's other painting on display in the grand staircase is Junkie's Curtain, and it offered this sweet sculpture an interesting backdrop:
The Sons of Gods Saw the Daughters of Men That They Were Fair, Daniel Chester French, 1923
encultured
No comments:
Post a Comment