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The Venezuelan maestro comes to Cardiff

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel, conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra. Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out.

We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really weren't that impressed, and even heard a few snores from elsewhere in the audience!

Anyway, after Mozart and a short interval, we returned for the final piece, Prokofiev's Symphony No 5. This was another amendment but pre-announced, and although neither of us knew much about the work, we were very much entertained. There seemed (certainly in contrast to the preceding Mozart) a lot of surprises. Certainly one I would wish to listen to again! It seems the audience would agree, a very enthusiastic response at the end of the programme, and I for one would like Mr Dudamel to return in the future.


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