The Classical Music Guide Forums

Heck148

Yes, lovely stories. Is the implication of the late arrival and wrong shoes that conductor and soloist were making the beast with two backs before the performance? Sorry, you need to spell it out for uncouth Australians... :D Yes, that was indeed the "implication"!! :mrgreen: Walter Hendl was known...

Heck148

When I was at music school, Rosalind Elias came to appear as guest artist with the Philharmonia, the school's top orchestra...She sang a number of selections from "Carmen", and a couple other numbers - but the Bizet arias were most memorable...Walter Hendl conducted...obviously they had worked toget...

Heck148

Some of the "Asian" orchestras are quite good...there is a huge proliferation of Asian string players, mainly violinists, and many young Americans wind players have sought and gained positions in these orchestras...they are well-funded, and vacancies in US orchestras are few, and competition is brut...

Heck148

Heck148-- Thanks for such a deeply informative post! Glad to know you're still lurking. Please post more often, when you can. :) I would say that, as halls have gotten larger, especially in America, the decibel level to fill them has also grown. Yes, indeed!! larger concert halls have certainly mad...

Heck148

It's true that orchestras have gotten louder....this is certainly true post WWII - this was definitely true in America, but it occurred in Europe as well... Imo, this trend began developing before the war - orchestras like NBC, NYPO, and then Chicago began producing unprecedented sound levels...some...

Heck148

I've always been drawn to that second theme in the finale. I found it the catchiest part of it. I was a teenager when I was first getting to know it, and I found that little syncopation really charming. "Hey, Tchaikovsky's gettin' jazzy!", I thought. And then when he really goes to town with it in ...

Heck148

so sorry to hear this....I met John when he was in Boston....very fine visit. John was very intelligent, knowledgeable and articulate..he will be missed...

Heck148

Like orchestras in general, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't . No matter what the music director, guest conductors and administrative staff in charge of programming choose in any given season , someone will complain bitterly . The NY Phil. either doesn't play enough new music or ...

Heck148

I very much appreciate this information and your comments. Thank you. Another good piece by Corigliano - Flute Concerto "Pied Piper Fantasy" ['81] - an extensive tour de force for the soloist and orchestra....the final section - "Children's March" stands alone quite well as an individual presentati...

Heck148

This is a performance I don't have on record, the Symphony No. 1. I very much enjoyed his Fantasia on an Ostinato and have prepared pianos for this work. But the Symphony No. 1 has a number of recordings. I am thinking about the RCA with Slatkin conducting. Another with Barenboim conducting, and ye...

Heck148

Thanks so much for this. I'll check them out and see if they're available on U-Tube as well. It should be noted, and this might help your presentation - might make an effective contrast - The Last Gazebo Dance [1972] - Tarantella- was used again by Corigliano in the 2nd mvt [Tarantella] of his Symp...

Heck148

Some good Corigliano works - - Gazebo Dances - 4 short dances, quite readily approachable - 17 mins - Circus Maximus [Sym #3 for large Wind Ensemble] - neat piece, pretty wild - 35mins/8 mvts [Naxos Disc - Jerry Junkin - Univ of Texas WE] - Three Hallucinations [from Altered States] - good stuff, pr...

Heck148

This link comes courtesy of Australia's LIMELIGHT. https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/features/the-13-strangest-composer-deaths-in-classical-music/ 2 other odd deaths of composers - Wallingford Riegger - (April 29, 1885 – April 2, 1961) - died when he became entangled in the leashes of two fighti...

Heck148

Schumann Sym #2 is an excellent work...I don't know if it's my favorite Schumann - but as with Brahms - whichever I'm listening to is my favorite at the time!! :) Bernstein/NYPO and Szell are very good - Barenboim/Chicago is excellent and has the best mvt II Scherzo I've ever heard - crackling fast ...

Heck148

I agree with everything you say except for two words: "except Toscanini." Time after time he demanded that his musicians play the music come è scritto, as written. He was famous for that and praised for it by his enthusiasts. but Toscanini was not a rigid purist, enslaved to merely the notes on the...

Heck148

I've looked a little further to find out which conductors Toscanini did criticize, if not Furtwängler. "He calls Stokowski and Mengelberg 'clowns' because of their thirst for publicity" - note, not because of Mengelberg's performing style Toscanini thought Mengelberg talked too much on the podium. ...

Heck148

My point is that Toscanini wanted to establish a universal understanding for how music should go, i. e. basic rules of the road No he didn't! He established the rules of his road, and other conductors (except for WF) submitted to the powerful influence of his music-making as they heard it. Yes, Joh...

Heck148

I believe Toscanini, Weingartner's motivation for "going by the score" was primarily a reaction to the perceived excesses, and mannerisms that had developed during the Romantic Era - the so-called Austro-German [Liszt-Wagner-Bulow] tradition....in which the conductors sought to insert themselves int...

Heck148

Well there it is. We probably wouldn't be having this discussion, or it wouldn't have gone on this long, if you and Heck148 didn't dismiss performances I think well of as "erratic," I don't regard Furtwangler's performances as "erratic"...I believe he had what he thought were very sound reasons for...

Heck148

By the way, concerning fidelity to the score: Furtwangler's extremely fast tempo for the very end of the 9th symphony is controversial, and it's not how I'd like to hear that music. But I got out my score and find that Beethoven marked the passage "Prestissimo" as well as fortissimo, and prestissim...

Heck148

Also, it seems that the softer, more elegant sound of rotary trumpets would be more difficult to balance with the other brass instruments in the climactic moments of Bruckner and Mahler. Am I right? Orchestras that use both, such as the Staatskapelle Berlin are a mystery to me. yes - I think so. A ...

Heck148

Heck, the kind of vibrato ridden , blaring trumpet sound may be ideal for Gershwin , but it's grotesquely wrong for composers such as Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler and Richard Strauss etc . It's like an actor playing the role of a German or Austrian aristocrat and using a Brooklyn accent . It was the pr...

Heck148

The NBC's principal oboe from the beginning to 1943 was Robert Bloom, an excellent player who was a Tabuteau pupil and sounded like it. Nothing harsh about that. The principal flute was John Wummer, who went to the New York Philharmonic in 1942. The clarinetist Augustin Duques wasn't so great. Duqu...

Heck148

a few years back played some of his Greek Dances for Orchestra....very fun to play, a bit like "Greek" Bartok!!

Heck148

for years, my primary orchestra booked up and coming soloists thru this program....fine artists, many of whom went on to have very successful careers...too many to name...

Heck148

The main source of coarseness in sound in Toscanini's NBC symphony recordings are the crude, blaring ,vibrato ridden trumpets . The woodwinds also have an unpleasant fluttery rapid vibrato which may have been induced by fear of playing under him for all I know . This interferes with orchestral blen...

Heck148

That's just guessing. The orchestra's four Jewish players had high-quality replacements; the new concertmaster, Gerhard Taschner, appointed by Furtwängler in 1941 when he was only 19, can be heard on YouTube in solo works and he sounds excellent. If you like you can compare the many wartime perform...

Heck148

People asked how performers in Germany were able to rehearse and keep up that standard in the middle of the war. Though doubtful about all this, I'm sure these musicians were a 'protected' species, but as to regular rehearsals.... I think the quality of the BPO did suffer during the war...they lost...

Heck148

Toscanini partisans always say that his tempos were flexible, but while that may have been so in the opera house and in recordings before 1936, it isn't really true of most of his NBC Symphony concerts. His tempos may not have been metronomic but I certainly wouldn't call them flexible. Toscanini c...

Heck148

....I don't think orchestras such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic etc played all that sloppily " for him . But he wasn't concerned with neatness and accuracy..... for sure...I find that a distraction....I know there was "method to his madness", but it really doesn't click with me. Most of Tos...

Heck148

.....Furtwangler may have been "Hitler's favorite conductor," but he's not mine......Some may admire him. I do not. Thanks, John, for posting Alex Ross's most informative review. I tend to agree with you, Maestro...when I first started listening seriously to music I was most impressed by Furtwangle...

Heck148

Sir John Barbirolli was quite popular with musicians...I had a good friend, violinist, who played with him in Houston...he loved Sir John, and had great respect for him. Barbirolli, child of Italian father, French mother, was born in London and grew up there... Sir John was very fluent in at least 3...

Heck148

VWms Tuba Concerto is a good piece, excellent solo work for tuba....the orchestration, done by one of his students, IIRC, is a bit thick and overdone, but it does not subtract much from the solo piece.... I've played it a few times, once with soloist Sam Pilafian, a virtuoso player [Empire Brass 5te...

Heck148

John F wrote: ↑
Tue Apr 30, 2019 1:45 am
I have it on a 10" LP coupled with RVW's oboe concerto played by Evelyn Rothwell, which was actually billed above the tuba concerto on the HMV record jacket.

Evelyn Rothwell, oboist, was Sir John's wife, IIRC...

Heck148

One of my favorite Barbirolli discs is his Sibelius works with Halle Orchestra [EMI 1/66] - the "Karelia" Suite ,and "Leminkainen's Return" are real highlights... Halle was perhaps not the greatest orchestra, but they are good, and Sir John has them playing with great panache, bravura, on this disc....

Heck148

This is a source of aggravation to me!! I'm was planning on going to Chicago next week - to hear 2 concerts - the Also Sprach Zarathustra, Bluebeard's castle concert 4/2; then the 4/4 program with Shostakovich Sym #2, Borodin #2... The April 2nd concert is already cancelled...no word yet on 4/4, but...

Heck148

Barenboim's actions seem pretty lukewarm when compared to some of the past tyrants - Toscanini, Reiner, Szell were all domineering tyrants - perhaps worst of all was Rodzinski, who had a volcanic temper and would execute summary firings....Toscanini, for all his histrionics was not known for summary...

Heck148

Might they be looking for anything and everything that may led to her leaving the orchestra? Will they continue to feature her as they have in the past? We'll see, but one would hope that there wouldn't be any retribution as such....it would certainly be grounds for Ms. Rowe to file an action for m...

Heck148

The Berlin Philharmonic label has just released a 22-CD set of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s wartime recordings with that orchestra, remastered in SACD. This is probably the most pointless set of recordings ever released. .......Secondly, given that all of the Jewish members of the orchestra had been dis...

Heck148

How I do want to hear it is as conducted by Furtwängler with the Berlin Philharmonic in a DG studio recording. But from the versions you prefer, I guess you wouldn't like it. I'm not much of a Furtwangler fan these days. When I first got into classical music -high school - I was greatly attracted t...

Heck148

I latched on to a real prize – one that I did not know existed – Schubert – Sym #9 in C Major “Great” – Reiner/ChicagoSO – 12/57 - recorded at WGN TV Studios, live broadcast on WBAI Radio NY – http://www.norpete.com/c1632.html This is a great “Great” Symphony performance, and has moved to the top of...

Heck148

I heard the premiere of this work, live in Chicago with Salonen conducting, Ma as soloist...

Heck148

I saw the NY Phil. new year's eve concert on PBS conducted by the new man Jaap Van Zweden , and to my ears the brass section was on its bets behavior and at least on television, nothing was harsh or too loud . I heard van Zweden conduct Shostakovich 5 and Prokofieff 5 in Chicago a couple of years a...

Heck148

I, too, did not attend many Mehta-led concerts during his tenure, nor did I buy many of his recordings, due to my prejudice against the (to my ears) harsh sound of the Philharmonic, both live and on disc. his "Rite of Spring" with NYPO [9/77] is very excellent, however...Mehta certainly has that pi...

Heck148

Interesting long quote from Mehta, John.... Pretty "brassy" on his part to insist that the LAPO trumpets change horns, and adapt to an entirely different sound....no doubt, Chicago, New York would have told him to go stuff it...also his absurd remark about bringing Wobisch's mouthpiece along is real...

Heck148

....Depending on equipment/performer, a piston trumpet can sound even more mellow than a rotary trumpet. agreed, piston valve trumpets have a very wide range of tonal possibilities. mostly go piston, but have heard some fine rotary action, for sure. The VPO gets a pretty good sound out of the rotar...

Heck148

Agreed. That's why I kept the old Barenboim/Chicago Bruckner cycle on Deutsche Grammophon. I cannot stand the Bruckner Seventh and Eighth Symphonies with wimpy brass. (And that goes double for Mahler and Shostakovich!) you got it!! Solti's CSO Bruckner #8 - recorded live in Leningrad, 1/90 - the bi...

Heck148

The brass section was waaaay too loud and destroyed the piece in that section. It was recorded too, that evening, and I didn't learn this till later. Sometimes Harnoncourt went overboard. Harnoncourt, ?? Try Solti or Bernstein ....the sound pressure levels could be unbelievable...balance is critica...

Heck148

big, brassy and loud I reckon that's why the Chicago is my favorite American band. Yup!! :D same here - My training was at Eastman School [Rochester, NY], which was real Chicago, New York, Cleveland territory... I've always loved these orchestras....When the big climax comes, I want to get blown ou...

Heck148

Maybe so, I don't remember, though not from me. In an interview at the time Masur cited Bruno Walter as an important influence on him, and I'd say Masur's Bruckner bore that out. Walter liked it big and brassy - full woodwinds and brass - of course, he was most influential during the post war perio...

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