Is the ASO a Cover Band?
Classical fans have been fuming for some time about compilations like Best of the Millennium: Top 40 Classical Hits although they're still preferable to Shacking Up to Chopin. (As one person pointed out, we'll soon get "Haydn the salami" and "
Jacking Orff." Here in Atlanta, though, we don't need CD's because we can get the bloody hit parade live. This season ASO performs Saint-Saens' Third, the Rite of Spring and Mozart's 40th and 41st, all of which they've performed in the last three years. We also get Beethoven's third and fourth piano concerti and his sixth symphony. The only Sibelius symphony this season is his greatest-hit fifth, which nicely complements his greatest-hit second, which was performed last season. In addition, we get Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony (heard last season) and Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (heard three seasons ago). On a positive note, Pierre Ruhe, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution critic, noted that Mozart's 41st is "on the edge of overexposure."