I sort of joked about it here. Or, well, I suggested it sounded like fodder for jokes. But I read somewhere that “it worked”.
You can watch a time lapse video and hear some of the music of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus & Euridice here.
The Olympic pool thing is just unattractive to me. But what do I know?
A P.S.: Just so any readers don’t misunderstand this … I DO like the piece. Quite a lot, actually. Even though it’s for clarinet and not oboe. 😉
In the remainder of the program, the orchestra was in excellent form. The strings traversed the Bizet with Mozartean lightness and clarity, and the second movement featured ravishing playing by both principal oboe Martin Hebert and his fellow oboist Karen Wagner.
How wonderful to see the second oboist get a mention too! It’s not often that the reviewer knows that the solo is played by both the principal and the second oboist. In some ways this is good; it means they match well enough that perhaps the listener can’t hear the exchange. But this savvy reviewer got it. Maybe the score was studied? Or maybe the reviewer is a former oboist. One wonders. Or at least I wonder.
