Last night (21 May) I attended a concert by the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban. (This always means an 80km late night drive back to Pietermaritzburg). They played Peer Gynt 1, Grieg's piano concerto and then Sibelius' Symphony 4. I listened to my CD recording of the latter twice before going, and I wonder what listers think of this work. I find it pleasant to listen to, but very odd. It comes from a man who does not worry what his audience might think, for coming from a lesser soul an audience might boo. There is no strong theme, snatches of unrelated passages, an abrupt end that one thinks Jean decided 'Well I'm fed up with this, off to the publisher today', the use of 'Glocken' (could apparently be glockenspiel or bells) for nice but unmotivated four-note passages. Or am I missing something here? Gerhard http://skoongrappies.com *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html