Fridays@7 at the Wiener Konzerthaus

This coming Friday (21.11) the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, together with the Wiener Konzerthaus, will introduce its newly created series: Fridays@7.

The concept is based on a Cleveland Orchestra’s original project, from which it actually took the name, it is especially aimed at a young professional audience, and is also a further step in the straightening of relations between the Konzerthaus and the VSO. It consists of an “after work” short concert (of about one hour) without intermission, followed by a post-concert informal gathering in the foyer for more music, drinks and food.

Definitely a concert aimed at rejuvenating the usually old Viennese audience (the somehow cheaper ticket prices might help here) and also introducing classical music in a less traditional context, which can only be seen as a positive move if one considers the much-commented aging of classical music’s audience. A problematic reality almost everywhere, but especially worrying for the future in a city with over 10.000 tickets on sale for classical events every single evening of the season and in which two of the main institutions (the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein, both private associations) are highly dependent on ticket sales and on “full” houses.

This first Fridays@7 at the Konzerthaus will feature the newly arrived music director of the Vienna Symphony, Philippe Jordan, and Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, both young and dynamic star musicians – seemingly a great pair for the launch of the project.

Credit: Julia Wesley

The Week in Concerts: Vienna and Lisbon (17-23.11)

A personal selection of the most interesting concerts to go to in Vienna and Lisbon on the week starting on 17 November 2014.

The Week in Concerts: Vienna and Lisbon (10-16.11)

A selection of the best concerts to go to in Vienna and Lisbon on the week starting on 10 November 2014.

Concert review: quartet-lab at the Wiener Konzerthaus (26.10.14)

The paraphernalia on stage was a clear sign that this was not going to be your traditional Sunday evening string quartet concert in Vienna. It could hardly be that way, anyway, considering that it was a quartet-lab concert, a string quartet recently founded by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pekka Kuusisto, Lili Maijala, and Pieter Wispelwey, all outstanding soloists in their own right and self-confessed adventurous musicians. The ensemble’s name was also a hint: more than four musicians, these are four performer-explorers on the stage-lab and the concert was their experiment.

It all started with a piece by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704) called Battalia, performed here in a version that alternated with pieces by Britten, Ligeti and Kurtág. The quartet’s approach emphasized the dramatic and programmatic aspects of the piece – the musical representation of a battle – and the quite remarkable modernist twists of some of the sections. With the insertion of the contemporary short pieces, and the resulting mix of musical languages, the whole performance gained a timeless and almost philosophical quality.