Listened to Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra the 510th Subscription Concert at Aichi Prefectural Theatre Concert Hall.
An incredible concert it was! It was worth going to Nagoya, which is 400 km far from my place. The first half was already quite interesting. But, Malcolm Arnold’s Symphony No.5 was superb!
The most remarkable one in the first half was a world premiere piece, Piano Concerto Cube by Kenji Sakai. A wide variety of sounds came out from the orchestra. The piano solo worked as the soloist at the same time. I felt some sections sounded like Bartók’s works as well.
The moment of listening to the live orchestra performance of Arnold’s 5th Symphony finally came in the second half. I’m familiar with this piece as I had listened to and even rehearsed a band transcription version so far.
The pieces sound more vividly in the concert hall. Metallic percussion instruments are quite effective.
Maestro Takeshi Ooi shapes the phrase of the second movement rather neatly, which draws out the beauty of the melody itself and enthusiasm in the fourth movement where the same melody is recapitulated. The quality of the maestro fully worked!
Probably, it was the first time I listened to Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra. Their ensemble is so neat and accurate, even though the modern-and-contemporary concert repertoire was pretty tough. It was quite aggressive toward music expression too! The fascinations of the works were fully brought out!
Cooperation of great pieces, the great conductor and the great orchestra made an extraordinarily impressive concert!
