One of the best kept secrets among music lovers is the series of free concerts and operas available during the school term at the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center.
Yesterday evening, Jeffrey Kahane conducted the orchestra in two rarely heard pieces of twentieth century music. The first was Samuel Barber's First Symphony, Op. 9, a relatively short piece with a huge debt, as the program noted, to the music of Sibelius. The symphony is a world away from the more romantic and much better known Adagio for Strings, even though both were composed at roughly the same time circa 1935.
The second piece was Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. 15, and featured Stefani Collins as soloist. This is a beautiful piece, much more romantic than most twentieth century music, and deserves to be heard more often. From its haunting percussive opening, the melodic music holds the audience spellbound. As soloist at this performance, Ms. Collins was wonderfully adept and appeared totally at ease playing even the most difficult passages.
There's not much that can be said about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that hasn't already been said a thousand times before. This is probably the most famous piece in all classical music. To his credit, Jeffrey Kahane led a vigorous performance that adhered to the composer's original metronome markings and fully evidenced just how revolutionary the piece must have sounded at its premiere.
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