等了多少年的西安新音乐厅终于于去年底建成了，没想到还是个大手笔，单看80音栓的Klais琴也算是国际级了。

这次回国在西安待了不到两周，能在新音乐厅听到来访的Philharmonia/Ashkenazy已经很令我满意了。

http://www.xianch.com/cn/shop.asp?ArticleID=381 (中文宣传资料很雷。。)

伦敦五大乐团里有三个中文翻译带”爱乐”的，分别是London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra再加上Philharmonia。其中国内Philharmonia的翻译比较混乱，宣传资料的英文也误印为Philharmonic Orchestra，让我一时摸不清究竟要来的是哪只乐团。Philharmonia历史上还是很牛X的，EMI御用录音团队，尽管这些年有些衰落。不过这次我对乐团期望本来也不高，主要是尝个新音乐厅的鲜。和国际标准相比，票价整体偏高。我买的￥380的票，在乐队背面合唱席，管风琴console前面，以前还真没坐过这个位置，也是尝鲜。

曲目实在没什么新意，柯里奥兰序曲，勃拉姆斯小提琴协奏，贝多芬第五交响命运，可能考虑大多数中国观众还是喜欢些老一套?

要说音乐会最令人惊讶的不是乐团，音乐厅，而是西安现场观众的素质。
满座，音乐厅背景却很安静。
我在音乐厅外时，黄牛都是问有没有多余票要卖，甚至有黄牛劝我别听了，把票卖掉。。。
几乎没有人交头接耳说话，更没有手机铃声或其他杂音。
没有小孩吵闹，乱跑。
开场前、后有个别拍照闪光。
上半场协奏，第一乐章后有鼓掌，我觉得还能接受。
下半场交响，乐章之间没有鼓掌。
总体来说，完全改变了我对国内观众的看法。到底是有文化底蕴，西安观众的素质很令人佩服。

要说座位声音效果，比较一般，左右音场颠倒其次，主要问题是前后音场颠倒。交响看来还是不能坐乐队后面。

乐队表现，上半场勃拉姆斯小提琴协奏，感觉乐队发挥一般，李传韵独奏和乐团配合也一般。
下半场，贝5，虽然没什么新意，乐团到是发挥的不错，铜管差些，弦乐还好，木管很好。
阿斯肯纳齐指的比较传统，没有跟本真演奏的潮流，个人觉得还好。老头第四乐章终结后，两次振臂庆祝，看来比较满意整个演出。爱乐如果演些英国曲目，应该效果会比这两个曲目强。

这个音乐厅我等了快十年了，来访乐团水平也因此有了巨大提高，希望西安本地的乐团也能相应提高，这样以后就不用愁没有高质量音乐会听了。

西安给我任何其他城市所无法比拟的历史与文化积淀，而又再一次让我看到了新的希望。

It seems to be quite a while I didn’t pen down a single word on music. Anyway I dun do this for a living.
Now is the time to show that I am never far away from music and log something for the past season.

I continued my almost routine concerts attendance, with my dearest or with my music buddies. I didn’t really count, but at least 40+ concerts/opera/musical for the past season. Of course, classical music still on the center of stage here.

SSO continued to be my daily meal. They did great job. However like most orchestras they have their own form, sometime excellent sometime so so.

Luckily visiting orchestras and musical travels are the supplements to my main course.During the past season, I’ve heard Los Angeles Philharmonic (LAP) and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, St. Thomas boys choir and more recently the Deutsche Symphony Orchestra, Berlin, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Dresden Staatskapelle.

For LAP, a top 10 in the new Gramophone ranking. I had a high expectation, maybe too high. The perfermance of "La Mer" was great, but I can’t say it’s better than what I heard from the SSO’s interpretation of "La Mer" on their SACD release. Of course, this recording is the best for SSO over the years and confirmed by many critics. And comparing live performance with recorded music does not make much sense.

RPO with Slatkin played a safer way here by playing the Enigma Variations. The "Nimrod" was so memorable that the applause immediate after was the most sincere I ever heard. Not an improper or naive one in between movements. Opening the night was William Walton’s suite for Henry V, another surprising work. (Realized choosing MacMillan’s "The confession of Isobel" my favorite contemporary classical music, I find myself towards the British music again. Yes, I’m a big fan of British pop/rock too!)

Though shadowed by their derby Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Deutsche Symphony Orchestra is also performing at high level as one of the major orchestras in Berlin. The horn section was superb. Strings was also refined and disciplined. Probably the only problem of that night was slightly lack of power for Bruckner’s symphony No. 7.

Japanese orchestras seldom tour. This is my first time hearing a Japanese orchestra live. Like other products from Japan, they are generally known for their quality, in musically terms technical skills and refinement of execution. Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra not only showed this but also a disciplined and wooden European sound. I guess credit goes to the conductor Kazuhiro Koizumi and their music director Inbal

Couple of weeks ago, I heard Dresden Staatskapelle (another top 10 in the gramophone’s new list) in Hong Kong. I’ll blog more together with my Hong Kong trip.

(All photos are from Internet)