jwg

Last night we went to Jordan Hall to hear Dubravka Tomsic play Mozart, Scarlatti, Prokofiev, Srebotnjak, Brahms, and Beethoven. Quite a concert it was. The Beethoven was the Appassionata, a magnificent piece that she played with great drama. Our seats were on the side fairly close so we had a good view of her hands and the keyboard. The ending was a bit like watching a bunch of skilled acrobats at the circus. The Brahms included Intermezzo in A Major Opus 118 #2 which I hear often since it is one that rsc plays.

She played a few encores - several unidentifiable. These days I'd be perfectly happy with no encores especially when the finale is something like the Appassionata. I do remember one of the very first concerts I went to on my own when I was a kid - Walter Gieseking at Carnegie Hall. He played 10-12 encores and it was really exciting to me especially since I didn't know that there was such a thing as encores.

Alojz Srebotnjak is Tomsic's husband. In the program notes (which he authored - perhaps the standard program note author Steven Ledbetter wasn't familiar with him) the first sentence was: "Alojz Srebotnjak is considered one of Slovenia's pre-eminent contemporary composers." The rest of the note was factual and included a description of the piece (Macedonian Dances). On the other hand there probably aren't many Slovenian Composers - Wikipedia lists 29 and Srebotnjak isn't included in the set.

This got me into the question about whether being pre-eminent is more eminent than eminent or the state prior to becoming eminent. And then there would be post-eminent for those people who have fallen out of favor. When commenting on this interpretation to Robert after he rolled his eyes I heard the phrase "normal people who use english to communicate"... as part of his response.