WASHINGTON, IL -- The Heartland Festival Orchestra's all Beethoven concert on October 24 at Five Points Washington wowed the audience.
Soloist Michael Brown brilliantly played Beethoven's difficult and complex Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. Audience members near me were unanimous in their praise. They competed to describe what they had just seen and heard.
"Outstanding." "Marvelous." "Spectacular." "Awesome technique." "So much fun, you could see it in his face," they said.
"Humbling," one said. "Are these musicians the same species as us?"
Adding to the experience was the big screen above the stage, and the artistic videography, which focused on Brown's hands as he played, as well as on the faces of individual musicians in the orchestra and conductor David Commanday.
The screen gave the audience views they otherwise could not see, and was amazingly entertaining.
"It was a joy for us," Commanday told the audience, which gave Brown a standing ovation.
Brown plays again on Sunday, Oct.25 at 2:30 pm at The Chapel at Eureka College, 300 E. College Avenue in Eureka, IL. He is also a composer and will play his works, and those of Mendelssohn, Ravel and Bernstein.
Commanday opened the show with brief comments on Beethoven's 1807 Coriolan Overture, Op. 62, composed to open a play about the general Coriolanus, also the subject of the Shakespeare play. He explained how the music reflected the Coriolanus story.
Beethoven's 7th Symphony completed the program, appropriate for the Heartland's 7th season.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Someone discover some more Beethoven symphonies please. We're coming to the end. Great concert.
Posted by: Jim kidder | October 25, 2015 at 11:19 AM