What are you listening to?

[Jared]

I attended the following all Strauss programme at Royal Festival Hall, part of the Rest is Noise festival:-

Also sprach Zarathustra
Four Early Songs
Notturno
Dance of the Seven Veils & Final Scene from Salome

Karita Mattila/Thomas Hampson/Vladimir Jurowski
London Philharmonic Orchestra

I do like Strauss. I sometimes seem to forget this and ignore him on my shelves (and random piles of CDs!). The concert was very good. I was in a box high up so the singers didnt carry all that well to my position. The orchestra, and organ, I could hear just fine though. I'm not sure what the LPOs current standing is internationally but reading the literature provided they seem a progressive outfit who are keen to educate and inform. Jurowski himself introduced a couple of pieces in a witty and informative style during stage rearrangements. I like this approach a lot especially when the evening is programmed for a single purpose.

Thank you for that report Darren, it seems like you had a very good evening! As a matter of interest, could I ask how much your ticket was?

[bombasticDarren]

Liszt - Piano Concerto No.2 (Lazar Berman/Carlo Maria Giulini, Wiener Symphoniker, Deutsche Grammophon)

[bombasticDarren]

^^ Jared, I paid £27 for last nights seat. This is more than I usually pay for any concert. I find at the RFH the 'cheap' seats, both at the very front and extreme rear are unsatisfactory acoustically. In the future for orchestral pieces I will look to pay a touch extra like last night and get a seat in a box. Are you planning a trip?

[bombasticDarren]

Stravinsky - L'Oiseau de feu (Kent Nagano, London Symphony Orchestra, Virgin Classics)

[Jared]

^^ Jared, I paid £27 for last nights seat. This is more than I usually pay for any concert. I find at the RFH the 'cheap' seats, both at the very front and extreme rear are unsatisfactory acoustically. In the future for orchestral pieces I will look to pay a touch extra like last night and get a seat in a box. Are you planning a trip?

No, I'm not, but Richard Egarr and the AoAM are playing up the road on Feb 9th, Bach's Orchestral Suites 1-4... (last few remaining) tickets are £26. I know I should support live music and RE doesn't exactly come this way very often, but really that's the price of an 8 CD boxset, which I could cherish forever and listen to in better sound quality than down at the Courtyard, where the acoustics aren't that great.

I've been in 2 minds for some weeks now.

my tickets for the Met screenings in the Studio are £12.50 (I splashed out on an 8 ticket season for £100) which I consider to be just about affordable, but £26 is a stiffer pill.

[bombasticDarren]

^^ Jared, I paid £27 for last nights seat. This is more than I usually pay for any concert. I find at the RFH the 'cheap' seats, both at the very front and extreme rear are unsatisfactory acoustically. In the future for orchestral pieces I will look to pay a touch extra like last night and get a seat in a box. Are you planning a trip?

No, I'm not, but Richard Egarr and the AoAM are playing up the road on Feb 9th, Bach's Orchestral Suites 1-4... (last few remaining) tickets are £26. I know I should support live music and RE doesn't exactly come this way very often, but really that's the price of an 8 CD boxset, which I could cherish forever and listen to in better sound quality than down at the Courtyard, where the acoustics aren't that great.

I've been in 2 minds for some weeks now.

my tickets for the Met screenings in the Studio are £12.50 (I splashed out on an 8 ticket season for £100) which I consider to be just about affordable, but £26 is a stiffer pill.

I can see your logic but I still think it would be great if you could attend the concert. A shame the only remaining seats are so steep in cost. I am going to Cadogan Hall in March to enjoy ASMF with Joshua Bell and it has only set me back £12 for a very good seat. I have certainly found that there is a buzz to be gotten from a good live performance that no amount of recordings can replicate. But then again, the recordings are 'forever', as you suggest. If you do go, let us know your thoughts

[Jared]

all the tickets were about the same price... that's the problem with rural venues out in the sticks; they cater for well-off retirees from Surrey and don't need to lower their prices, unlike London which tends to attract a younger audience, often on a budget, and so they can provide cheaper seats... if this concert was £12, then I'd have bought my ticket weeks ago...

...I'll think about it.

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - Symphony No.9 Choral (Eiddwen Harrhy/Jean Bailey/Andrew Murgatroyd/Michael George/Roy Goodman, Oslo Cathedral Choir/The Hanover Band, Nimbus)

[bombasticDarren]

all the tickets were about the same price... that's the problem with rural venues out in the sticks; they cater for well-off retirees from Surrey and don't need to lower their prices, unlike London which tends to attract a younger audience, often on a budget, and so they can provide cheaper seats... if this concert was £12, then I'd have bought my ticket weeks ago...

...I'll think about it.

Reminds me of Snape Maltings!

[Jared]

^^^ exactly.... it really is VERY similar.

average age of audience is about 75, generally well healed Telegraph readers, having retired from Surrey communter belt to Ludlow, Monmouth or a smal Herefordshire village (some villages, they've now completely taken over, having priced everyone out except the farmers). Whenever London Mozart Players or AAM etc come up here, the venues are always packed with them, there'll be less than 10 people of working age in the audience, and the tickets are always £25-£30, take it or leave it...

supply and demand always suggests that they don't need to ever cater for students/ tight budgets of a younger generation...