Minnesota

Review: Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony is the standout in Minnesota Orchestra's Pride concert

Published

7 months ago

June 20, 2024

Review: Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony is the standout in Minnesota Orchestra's Pride concert

Orchestra Hall is decked out for Pride.

At the Minnesota Orchestra’s home hall, they’re handing out buttons to assist others with your pronouns, presenting an exhibit on local LGBTQ musical groups, screening a documentary on local gay rights history, even offering a reading room full of literature in the upstairs lobby. Clearly, Minnesota’s largest arts organization is moving well beyond lip service to the cause of equality.

And music director Thomas Søndergård has chosen to conclude his first season on the job with the music of gay and lesbian composers. It proved a very satisfying program midday Thursday, introducing most of the audience to the evocative voice of early 20th-century Englishwoman Dame Ethel Smyth, delighting with the playfulness of Francis Poulenc and concluding with a very exciting interpretation of a Tchaikovsky symphony.

The entry point to the program was the windswept sea Smyth created for her 1906 opera, “The Wreckers.” The strings were lush and emotive as they sailed across surging waves of lithe celebration and discomfiting menace. Sounding something like Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes” 39 years before that work was written, it made me curious to experience Smyth’s opera in its entirety.

Pianist Francesco Piemontesi was slated to solo on Karol Szymanowski’s Fourth Symphony, but a Berlin bicycle accident last week left him with a broken collarbone. So Søndergård and the orchestra shifted gears and replaced their soloist with a duo, twin pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton, and brought another gay composer onto the program in Poulenc.

His Concerto for Two Pianos proved quite a brisk, lively conversation before morphing into a mesmerizing minor-key interlude, Michelle flamboyantly flowing up and down the keyboard before the two combined to create a peaceful dreamscape. The slow movement was full of rich orchestral colors, and the finale captured the composer at his most exuberant and the sisters’ chemistry at its more finely honed. Christina opened with a lightning-quick outburst of staccato notes, Michelle interjecting echoes of encouragement before her sister took flight on a jazz-flavored solo.

But the concert’s standout experience was Peter Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, delivered with nary a hint of the sentimentality and schmaltz that can too often afflict interpretations of the composer’s work. From the first notes of its gripping opening fanfare, there was a particularly admirable blend in the brass, a fascinating mix of forcefulness and subtlety. It introduced the idea that this would be a Fourth of drama, but without histrionics. Søndergård emphasized broadly ranging contrasts in mood and volume, the first movement’s lilting waltz remarkably quiet before the tumultuous strings almost drowned out the recurring fanfare with their full sound.

Each ensuing movement felt like further steps away from fate’s dark shadow, the sweeping main melody of the slow movement like a longed-for destination, the whispering plucked strings of the Scherzo a dance on tiptoes before the bright blast of the finale’s opening chords. But comforting quiet emerged even in that scintillating sprint of a movement.

If Søndergård is looking toward making Tchaikovsky a specialty of the house — this was the sixth of the composer’s works to find its way onto a program this season, including three of his symphonies — then this performance makes that a promising prospect.

Minnesota Orchestra

With: Conductor Thomas Søndergård and pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton

What: Works by Dame Ethel Smyth, Francis Poulenc and Peter Tchaikovsky

When: 8 p.m. Fri. and 7 p.m. Sat.

Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Tickets: $25-$106, available at 612-371-5656 or minnesotaorchestra.org

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.

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Minnesota

How to get tickets for Minnesota Vikings vs. LA Rams NFC Wild Card playoff game

Published

5 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

How to get tickets for Minnesota Vikings vs. LA Rams NFC Wild Card playoff game

The final game of the NFL’s Wild Card weekend is set to take the Minnesota Vikings to LA to face the NFC West champion Rams Monday night at SoFi Stadium. The game is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, and tickets are still available to catch the action live.

How to get Vikings vs. Rams NFC Wild Card tickets: Seats are available for the NFC Wild Card matchup between the Vikings and Rams on secondary sites Vivid Seats, StubHub, SeatGeek and Viagogo.

As of Jan. 9, the starting prices were as follows:

Vivid Seats starting at $87
StubHub starting at $92
SeatGeek starting at $92
Viagogo starting at $91

#5 Minnesota Vikings (14-3) at #4 Los Angeles Rams (10-7)

NFC Wild Card Playoffs

When: Monday, Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT)

Where: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, Calif.

The Vikings had a shot to win the NFC’s top seed in Week 18, but fell short against the Detroit Lions, losing the NFC North Division and slipping to the No. 5 spot instead for a road matchup on Wild Card weekend. They are listed as 1-point favorites against the Rams after finishing the regular season with a 14-3 record and nine straight wins prior to last weekend’s 31-9 loss in Detroit. Though all the ingredients are in place for the Vikings to make a run, just three of their 14 victories this season came against playoff teams and one of their three losses came to the Rams (30-20) back in Week 8.

Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Rams NFC Wild Card tickets: Vivid Seats | StubHub | SeatGeek | Viagogo

The Rams found their way through an injury-marred start to the season and closed it out strong with five straight wins before resting starters in a Week 18 loss to the Seattle Seahawks (30-25). The highlight of that stretch and their season as a whole was a 44-42 shootout win over the Buffalo Bills that was fueled by two Kyren Williams touchdown runs and a big day from the receiving duo of Puka Nacua (12-162-1) and Cooper Kupp (5-92-1). The same combination of playmakers around quarterback Matthew Stafford are central to LA’s path to victory against Minnesota.

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If Arizona hosts Los Angeles Rams vs Minnesota Vikings due to fires, it wouldn’t be a first

Published

13 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

If Arizona hosts Los Angeles Rams vs Minnesota Vikings due to fires, it wouldn’t be a first

There could still be one more football game played in Arizona this season. On Wednesday, the NFL announced that it has a contingency plan to potentially move Monday night’s wild-card game between the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams to State Farm Stadium due to ongoing wildfires raging across Southern California.

For now, the league is preparing for the game to take place at SoFi Stadium, the Rams’ home in Inglewood. But if a change of location is deemed necessary, the Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale would play host, giving Arizona its first playoff game — excluding Super Bowls — since the 2015 divisional round.

It would, however, not be the first time that NFL teams have had to move to Arizona. Here are the other times that similar moves have occurred:

2020: San Francisco 49ers

Due to the spread of COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, Santa Clara County briefly banned all contact sports. That forced the San Francisco 49ers to play three home games at State Farm Stadium. The team used fields near the stadium as its practice facility and stayed at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel and Spa across the street.

2007: San Diego Chargers

It would not be unprecedented if the Rams had to make Arizona home due to fires. The then-San Diego Chargers practiced at the Cardinals’ Tempe facility for three days in 2007 due to the Witch Creek Fire, which forced 40 members of the organization to evacuate their homes. The team returned to San Diego for their game that Sunday, defeating the Houston Texans.

2003: San Diego Chargers

Four years earlier, the Chargers had a Monday Night Football game against the Dolphins moved to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Again, the move was due to fires in Southern California, which caused poor air quality. The Chargers’ home field, Qualcomm Stadium, was also used as an evacuation center during the fires. Both teams flew to Arizona on game day for a game Miami won, 26-10. The NFL distributed 73,104 free tickets to the game.

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Minnesota

Boston Fleet fall to Minnesota Frost in overtime

Published

21 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Boston Fleet fall to Minnesota Frost in overtime

Taylor Heise scored the overtime winner to lift the Minnesota Frost to a 2-1 victory over the Boston Fleet on Wednesday night

The win is the Frost’s third in as many games this season against the Fleet, and the second in seven days by an overtime finish. Hannah Bilka scored early on for the Fleet, making this the first time Boston has opened the scoring against Minnesota this season.

Later in the first period, Denisa Křížová scored her first goal of the campaign, tying the game at one and ending the game’s regulation scoring. Heise’s winner came at 3:20 of the extra frame on Minnesota’s first shot of overtime on Emma Söderberg, who stopped 24 shots throughout regulation. Maddie Rooney picked up her fourth win of the season with a 26-save performance.

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