Review: Heras-Casado, Beethoven and Petrushka

Music has a pulse.

This is not to say that it ticks along at the same tempo and never alters. A healthy pulse changes tempo moment to moment with the tempo of life.

When I stand up from this keyboard, my heart rate will rise. And every part of my heartbeat, all the little subdivisions, will rise together and in harmony. When I exercise today, it will rise some more.

But a heartbeat with arhytmia will not do that properly or naturally.

Saturday night's performance by the Houston Symphony with Pablo Heras-Casado and Jon Kimura-Parker showed the difference between pulse (with and without rubato) and arhythmia. When the orchestra or the soloist laid down the pulse it worked. When they did not, it didn't.

Aftere the jump, one person's take.

Preview: Meet Jon Kimura Parker; Meet Beethoven

Jon Kimura Parker is proof positive that a Canadian can survive in Houston, Texas without dying of spontaneous human combustion.

On second thought, I don't know if he stays here in July and Augus, so that undermines my hypothesis.

Anyway, Jon Kimura Parker is one of several authentically world class musicians who live and work in Houston. I've known of him since I was a child and he appeared on the cover of my piano-teacher/mother's Clavier Magazine. Now, in addition to performing the world over, he teaches at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

He will join the Houston Symphony this week to perform Beethoven's First Piano Concerto. After the jump, a demonstration, by Mr. Parker himself, of 21st century tools put to great artistic use and a preview of the concerto.

Coming Soon: Pablo Heras-Casado

The Houston Symphony's next classical concert will bring Pablo Heras-Casado to the podium to lead the orchestra in a program to include Schumann: Overture to Manfred, Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1, and Stravinsky: Petrouchka (1947).

Jon Kimura Parker will be the piano soloist and the concerts will take place on April 13, 14 and 15.
Heras-Casado is listed among The Contenders to become the next music director of our HSO, so I have looked around for some resources to preview his upcoming performance.

You will find some of those after the jump.