We’re really excited to be part of the Edinburgh International Festival and are taking our tour with the brilliant Vladimir Jurowski to the Usher Hall tonight where he’ll be conducting a programme of Weber, Liszt’s dramatic Faust Symphony and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E with Alina Ibragimova.
Here’s a taster of what’s to come tonight, plus why the OAE can be compared to a very famous cat and mouse duo…
Tickets for the concert can be bought online or by phoning the EIF Box Office on 0131 473 2000.
4 comments
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August 27, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Peter
Concert was sh*t. Can any of your wind players play in tune? Why listen to this standard of playing when beautiful modern instruments are available? Not that the general audience knew…
(Editor – this post has been moderated slightly)
August 29, 2011 at 8:00 pm
oaeblog
Sorry that you didn’t enjoy the concert. Period instruments are often more temperamental than modern ones, particularly wind and brass. In addition they have fewer keys and often no valves at all, so the sound is indeed less ‘perfect’ than a modern orchestra. That said, many people still enjoy the timbre and character of period instruments, and enjoy our performances. Of course musicians are human and there are of course sometimes mistakes, but that can happen in any orchestra, period or modern. At the end of the day if you decide you don’t enjoy period performance, that is fine – there are many many excellent ‘modern’ Orchestras around that you can attend instead! Many people appreciate having the choice though.
August 29, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Pierre-Antoine Tremblay
Very good response to the first comment! I wasn’t at this particular concert but from what I heard in the rehearsals, the orchestra sounded great!
August 29, 2011 at 8:49 pm
James
I am astonished to read this evaluation of period wind instruments. Surely anyone who attends concerts of modern orchestras will notice that modern wind instruments have intonation difficulties too. They certainly don’t automatically play in tune as soon as one blows into them.
The attraction of the older instruments for the OAE is (I suppose) that they possess a variety of tone colour which is lacking from their modern counterparts. Modern instruments are designed to sound as even as possible from top to bottom. The price for this evenness is some loss of individual character and variety of tone quality in different keys.
Not having heard the concert in question, I can’t comment on the standard of execution. But having heard many orchestras in my life I can say that even the best of them can have their off nights, and such occurrences are not limited to period instrument ensembles.