Every
year,
I put together a
little pocket guide
to the Seattle Symphony
subscription
season
for my symphony friends to help them decide which
ticket package they want.
As before, you might find it helpful, you might not, but either way,
you're going to have to suffer through it.
Here's the at-a-glance season guide for the 2012/2013 season.
(Full brochure.
Seattle Times coverage.)
Week |
Program |
Comments |
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21 |
13 |
7A 7B |
7C 7D |
|
7E 7F |
7G |
4A |
BS |
|
SU |
WG |
09/20 2012 |
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture
Martinů: Symphony #6 Fantaises symphoniques
Debussy: Nocturnes: Nuages and Fêtes
Respighi: Pines of Rome |
Good Nervous Excellent Excellent |
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10/04 2012 |
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain
Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations
Sibelius: Symphony #1 |
Awesome Good Excellent |
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10/18 2012 |
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante K297b
Fujikura: Mina†
Haydn: Symphony #103 Drum Roll |
Awesome Excellent Wildcard Awesome |
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10/26 |
Sonic Evolution |
Wildcard |
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11/01 2012 |
Tchaikovsky: The Snow Maiden Suite
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Prokofiev: Symphony #6 |
Good Awesome Nervous |
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11/08 2012 |
Adams: Harmonielehre
Beethoven: Piano Concerto #5 |
Polarizing Awesome |
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11/15 2012 |
Brahms: Piano Concerto #2
Dutilleux: The Shadow of Time
R. Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel |
Awesome Nervous Good |
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11/29 2012 |
Berg: Violin Concerto
Mahler: Symphony #4 |
Polarizing Polarizing |
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01/10 2013 |
Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto #1
Mozart: Symphony #39 |
Excellent Excellent Awesome |
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01/31 |
Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony |
Polarizing |
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02/07 2013 |
Rossini: William Tell Overture
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Brahms: Symphony #4 |
Awesome Excellent Awesome |
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02/14 2013 |
(Rossini: William Tell Overture)
Faure: Pelléas et Mélisande Suite
Mozart: Piano Concerto #21
Ravel: Shéherazade
Szymanowski: Symphony #4 |
Awesome Good Awesome Nervous Nervous |
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03/14 2013 |
Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage: Ritual Dances
Bruch: Violin Concerto #1
Elgar: Enigma Variations |
Nervous Awesome Excellent |
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03/21 2013 |
Mozart: Don Giovanni Overture
Britten: Cello Symphony
Beethoven: Symphony #5 |
Awesome Nervous Awesome |
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03/28 2013 |
Liadov: The Enchanted Lake
Kancheli: Styx
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherezade |
Okay Nervous Awesome |
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04/13 2013 |
Mozart: Piano Concerto #9
Bruckner: Symphony #4 Romantic |
Awesome Excellent |
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04/18 2013 |
Antheil: A Jazz Symphony
Gruber: Percussion Concerto Rough Music
Bernstein: On the Waterfront Suite
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite |
Excellent Okay Good Excellent |
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04/25 2013 |
Sibelius: Karelia Overture
Sibelius: Violin Concerto
Zavaro: New Work†
Beethoven: Symphony #7 |
Good Awesome Wildcard Awesome |
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05/30 2013 |
Smetana: Wallenstein's Camp
Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Dvořák: Symphony #6 |
Excellent Awesome Awesome |
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06/13 |
Britten: War Requiem |
Nervous |
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06/20 2013 |
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto #1
John Luther Adams: Become Ocean† |
Nervous Okay |
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06/27 2013 |
Saint-Saëns: Organ Symphony
Wagner: Tristan: Prelude and Liebestod
Wagner: Tannhäuser Overture and Venusberg Music |
Awesome Okay Excellent |
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Week |
Program |
Comments |
21 |
13 |
7A 7B |
7C 7D |
7E 7F |
7G |
4A |
BS |
SU |
WG |
Legend:
21 |
Masterworks 21-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays) |
13 |
Masterworks 13-concert series (Choice of Thursdays or Saturdays) |
7A |
Masterworks 7-concert series A (Thursdays) |
7B |
Masterworks 7-concert series B (Saturdays) |
7C |
Masterworks 7-concert series C (Thursdays) |
7D |
Masterworks 7-concert series D (Saturdays) |
7E |
Masterworks 7-concert series E (Thursdays) |
7F |
Masterworks 7-concert series F (Saturdays) |
7G |
Masterworks 7-concert series G (Sunday afternoons) |
4A |
Masterworks 4-concert series A (Friday afternoons) |
BS |
Beyond the Score
multimedia lecture-concert (Sunday afternoons)
|
SU |
Symphony Untuxed (Fridays) |
WG |
WolfGang (Various evenings) |
† |
Premiere |
For those not familiar with the Seattle Symphony ticket package line-ups:
Most of the ticket packages are named Masterworks nX where
n is
the number is the number of concerts in the package, and the letter
indicates which variation.
Ticket packages have been combined if they are
identical save for the day of the week.
For example, 7C and 7D are the same concerts;
the only difference is that 7C is for Thursday nights, while 7D is
for Saturday nights.
The Beyond the Score concerts focus on only one of the pieces.
The WolfGang series is available only to members of the
WolfGang club.
This chart doesn't include "one-off" concert series such
as the Mainly Mozart or Distinguished Artists series.
A "one-off" series is a concert series which shares no concerts
with any other series.
Changes from last season:
- The Rush Hour series was redesigned and became the
Symphony Untuxed series.
- Symphony Specials was dropped.
- The
Baroque & Wine Series and
Mainly Mozart concerts still exist,
but I dropped them from the table since they are
now one-off series.
- WolfGang already existed but I added it to the list
now that there's room for it.
The comments column very crudely categorizes the works
to assist my less-classically-aware friends.
This is, of course, a highly subjective rating system,
but I tried to view each piece from the ears of my symphony friends.
Thus, I rated downward pieces that I personally like
but which others might not and rated up pieces that I may not
find musically satisfying but which nevertheless tend to be
crowd-pleasers.
These predictions have, of course, proven wrong in the past.
Here's what the comments mean.
Note that they do not indicate whether the piece is significant in
a musicological sense; they're just my guess as to whether my friends
are going to like it.
(For example,
I know that my friends don't like minimalism,
and I suspect they don't like serialism,
so I rated the Adams and Berg down even though I think they're quite good.
They also don't like vocal pieces.
On the other hand, it turns out that I overcame my
Bruckner jinx,
so I can at least give the Bruckner a positive score this time.
Let's just hope it's
not the Hass edition.)
- Awesome: Guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
- Excellent: You will definitely like this piece.
- Good: You will probably like this piece.
- Okay: You may like this piece.
- Nervous: I have a bad feeling about this one.
- Polarizing: Some people will love it; others will hate it.
- Wildcard: I have no idea what will happen.
In many cases, I am not familiar with the piece
and am basing my evaluation on what I know about the composer
(or am just guessing).
I was astonished to see "Nervous" next to "Shéherazade", but then realized that it's the Ravel, which I don't know, not the Rimsky-Korsakov, which I love.
I don't expect to be in Seattle for any of those performances, but I appreciate having a playlist of great music for today!
The problem with Bruckner is also that the first movement you may like, but the finale may get fumbled. I guess that's why he had to revise the finales the most. IIRC, for the fourth he wrote another entirely different finale (Volkfest?).
I was wondering when you were going to post this. You're pretty fast–the schedule was only released yesterday! After picking the concerts I definitely want to see, your annual list is the best resource for deciding how to fill in the rest. Thanks!
The Bruckner 7th this last year was amazing–the 3rd movement is what I loved, but the finale kind of lost me a bit.
You should rank all the Windows apis in the same way. One system dll per article. That'd be cool.
I propose "Stravinsky: The Firebird" as Polarizing.
"Mussorgsky: Night On Bald Mountain" is, I assume, the Rimsky-Korsakov orchestration? I looked in the original program and it doesn't seem to specify.