La Corda d’Oro is currently the only series that I’ve started and subsequently stopped with no desire to continue. I started because Brand New Breeze is pretty, and somewhere in the series description, there were the words “music” and “performance.” In between the four episodes I watched, Nodame Cantabile came along and I never looked back until I saw that the conclusion was out.
I watched the finale and the DVD special out of curiosity. I already knew that the series, more romantic relationships than Romantic (or Baroque, or Classical, etc) music, wasn’t for me. Still, I wanted to know if the execution got better, specifically if it got better at making contrived scenarios feel less contrived, using less exaggerated description. A sample size of two is a shaky basis to form any opinion on the matter, but given that I saw the same flowery fairytale all over again, I’m going to say “No” with some confidence.
A broad nitpick that I always had with the concourse setup is that it’s a competition, but not. Rankings are awarded, yet performers can play whatever they want. Lack of instrument commonality aside, there is no minimum standard of difficulty and the premise comes off as an effort to appear sophisticated, since competitions are clearly sophisticated events.
That we never find out who won just reinforces the notion that the concourse exists to maybe promote interest in music and parade the “contestants” in front of the audience. If there ever was a winner, though, Tsuchiura plays the piano card and thus gets my vote. La Campanella (yes, the end is botched) and Liebesträume (No. 3) make for persuasive arguments.
I’m also partial to clarinet, having played it for a few years, and Fuyuumi’s Clarinet Polka is solid, but Liszt drives a mean steamroller piano. I like oranges and apples, but having them compete against each other makes no sense.
Asides:
The quintet rendition of the ED splices in Bach’s Wachet Auf! Maybe I’ll get the OST.
Hihara is a good example of the price paid when trying to rearrange orchestral or band pieces into solo pieces. Maybe having heard and performed a much fuller arrangement of Wagner’s Under the Double Eagle, although not as fast as that and not as slow as this, colours my perceptions. Hihara’s Jupiter segment is also thin without support.