Hello
I have just booked to see The Hampshire County Youth Orchestra play at The Anvil in Basingstoke....
They are playing Piano Concerto in G Major by M Ravel....
I read this piece needs a bit of listening to to appreciate it....Does anyone know it and is it available as a free download on the net anywhere....
Best Wishes Mike

Amazon

You can hear a few minutes of the Concerto at Amazon.
Personally I prefer Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand but although I also like the Concerto in G, it is an aquired taste. The whole concerto is characterized by its colourful and inventive orchestration. The 1st and 3rd movements are very rhythmic, quite quirky and often jazzy, almost improvisational sounding, with some comical, even grotesque orchestrational moments. Interspersed between these two movements is a slow movement of sublime beauty and meditative reflection. I'm sure you will enjoy it immensely.

Gae

QUOTE (Gae @ Feb 24 2005, 11:09 PM)

Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

... a sinister work? (With apologies to Latin scholars)

PlinkPlonkMan - does your local library have CDs (or, knowing what some libraries are like, tapes or LPs) you can borrow? Even if you don't get to know the work beforehand, enjoy the concert. You could always approach it from the other angle - after hearing it, do you want to get to know the work any better?

The Anvil's great, one of the few decent places in Basingstoke. How glad I am to have escaped to suburban Surrey!

Vermillion - not all youth orchestras are all bad. Admittedly, they can be a bit rough round the edges, but I went to a National Youth Chamber Orchestra concert a few years ago where they were playing Beethoven 5 under Norrington. It was a really exciting performanced (none of the cynicism of having played it 100 times in public already), and the sheer enjoyment the players exuded was fabulous.

QUOTE

... a sinister work? (With apologies to Latin scholars)

...care to explain?

Gae

Sinistra, Latin for left, and sounds a bit like sinister, because south-paws were considered evil once upon a time.

QUOTE (Gae @ Feb 28 2005, 10:45 AM)

QUOTE ... a sinister work? (With apologies to Latin scholars) ...care to explain? Gae

Sinister is the Latin word for 'left'. It's the root of the Italian word for left, 'sinistra' - hence m.s. (mano sinistra) indicating to use the left hand on scores.

As a historical note - the Italian m.d. (mano destra) is used for the right hand. destra is the root of the English word 'dextrous', whereas sinistra is the root of sinister. People really did used to think the left hand was evil....

ah, 'scuse my ignorance Guv'nor. I didn't have the privelege of learning Latin at school or going to a Public School like some people did!
Funnily enough I do speak a little Italian and know about Mano destra/sinistra etc but I didn't make the connection in this instance...it was such a tentative one!!

Gae