Monday, February 4
It's true, the Super Bowl does not typically yield classical music connections. However, just past 9:00 last night you might've caught a minute-long ad featuring Houston offensive lineman Chester Pitts, who, it turns out, was an oboist (and moonlighting grocery bagger) before he turned on a whim to professional football. In the NFL's "You Should Play Football" spot you see Pitts playing his oboe - specifically, the opening of Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto. So that piece kicks off Midday Music at 11. As for the implication that football is so much more of a dream than oboe, well ... let's hope he has time for both! Read more about his story here or here.
Also on tap: the Atlanta Symphony's latest Grammy-nominated CD. As Performance Today aired two pieces from it, we'll hear the remaining two: Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony and his Serenade to Music, which sets lines from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice ("How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony... The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night... Let no such man be trusted...").
Briefly, a couple of concerts Tuesday evening: In Tifton, the Cypress Trio gives a free concert, 7:00, ABAC Chapel. In LaGrange, the LaGrange Symphony offers an American Celebration, 7:30, Callaway Auditorium.
11 AM
- Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. English Chamber Orch, Marsalis, Newman. Sony 66244.
- Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 in D major. Lark Quartet. Arabesque 6658.
- Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music. Atlanta Sym Orch & Chamber Chorus, Rivera, O'Connor, Spano. Telarc 80676.
- Albeniz: Suite Espanola. English Guitar Quartet. Saydisc 399.
- Rachmaninoff: Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 5, "Fantaisie-Tableaux." Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman. Sony 61767.
- Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor: Finale. Nikolai Demidenko, London Phil, Lazarev. Hyperion 66858.
- Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 in D major. Atlanta Sym Orch, Spano. Telarc 80676.
