BPO PERFORMS STRAUSS; GUEST PIANIST TAKES ON TCHAIKOVSKY

Concert Review, Buffalo Philharmonic, February 12, 2012 (Buffalo Spree)

Buffalo was cold, snowy, and busy Friday night. At water’s edge the Sabres battled the Lightning (you can’t win if you don’t score goals) and Winterfest saw families playing in the shadow of City Hall. As for me, I was at a crowded Kleinhans Music Hall for the Buffalo Philharmonic’s performance of two Richard Strauss pieces for orchestra followed by guest pianist Barry Douglas performing Tchaikovsky’s famous Piano Concerto #1.

 The concert began with Symphonic Fragments from Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, an opera composed late in his life while living in Berlin during the death throes of the Nazi regime.  As if in defiance of the monumental evil in his midst, Danae is romantic (small "r"), pretty, and sweet.

Danae is filled with swelling major-key phrases in the augmented string section (which included members of the former Syracuse Symphony) soaring beyond their range into the winds, brass, and back.  Strauss’s complex orchestration and winding exploration of musical space seems to ma…