This evening, Kent and I attended a performance of the Utah Symphony featuring Tabea Zimmermann, a viola virtuoso. Say that six times fast! It was pretty highbrow. The Symphony started the program a Rimsky-Korsakov piece and finished with a Tchaikovsky piece, both of which we really enjoyed. The pieces featuring Zimmermann were not our favorites. One of them, Emergences-Resurgences was completely non-lyrical. It was a Utah Symphony commission and is, in the words of the Swiss composer Michael Jarrell, "a direct reference to the pictorial art of Henry Michaux." I looked up the pictorial art of Henry Michaux and better understand the composition. The non-lyrical nature of the music is in direct harmony (non pun intended) with the non-representational nature of Michaux's art. The art is weird and the music was weird. Zimmermann was an enthusiastic performer, very demonstrative and expressive, obviously fantastically talented, and it was exciting to watch her perform. The second piece she played with the Symphony was more enjoyable.
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