Concert Schedule

I finally got a good night's sleep last night, which means I'm over the jet lag. It wasn't severe, it just lasted a while. So I came out of my stupor and realised that I hadn't checked out the concerts at the Auditorio Nacional de Música for the month. And what an idiot I have been! I was planning on doing this for a couple of months, but just never got around to it. Turns out that they have a spectacular set of programs this month (possibly every month, how would I know?). I just missed a program of Josquin, Gombert and Ockegem on May 6! But never mind, I found my way to the Auditorio this morning and got tickets to:

• May 13: Orquesta de Cámera Reina Sofía playing Mozart Divertimento, K 136, Grieg Holberg Suite and Mozart Symphony 40.
• May 25: Orquesta Sinfonica de Radio de Frankfurt playing Beethoven Symphony 1, Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations and Stravinsky Rite of Spring
• May 26: Orquesta Nacional de España playing Bruch Violin Concerto 1 (violin, Pinchas Zukerman) and Shostakovich Symphony 10 (cond. Vladimir Ashkenazy)

There are lots of other good concerts that I may yet get tickets for like the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemans with Daniel Trifonov, piano doing Gubaidulina, Ravel and Schoenberg (the next day they are doing the Four Last Songs of R. Strauss with Renée Fleming). There is an all-Vivaldi concert, but it is sold out. There is also a concert of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli that looks good--and how often do you see that? The truth is that this is all the stuff I long to hear in San Miguel, but which you never can!

If you want to see what else they have, just follow this link:

http://www.auditorionacional.mcu.es/programacion/programacion/listado_programaciones

Those three tickets cost €100 all together. The expensive one was the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, but the others were very reasonable. I'm just going to miss two other of my favourite pieces, the Mozart Symphony 41 and the Schubert "Great" C major Symphony.

Anyway, I am very pleased indeed as there is so much music that I know pretty well from disc, but have never heard in concert. Here, in just a few days, I can fill in a lot of gaps.

Now what would be a good envoi for today? How about the Symphony No, 40 in G minor by Mozart? This is the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt: