historical recording question

Nashvillebill · Post by **Nashvillebill** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:12 pm

ok, So I've got a question for everyone.

If you had access to any/every performace in the recorded era on video who would you like to see and which performance?

I ask because there are so many historical cd's out there but very few videos or visual options to see these masters of their day perform. For me when I can see people perform it brings a great intensity to the performance aside from just listening to it.

piston · Post by **piston** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:40 pm

Ballet music, mainly. Listening to the music of a complete ballet on CD can prove a somewhat drrrrawn out experience because we miss so much action, the whole choreography. Case in point, the ballet Spartacus by Khachaturian, some great melodies but so much repetition. Which ballet would I be inclined to begin with? I have seen the Firebird by Strav, several performances of Tchaikovsky's ballets, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette... I would probably be drawn by works I have never seen:
--La boite a joujoux (Debussy);
--Semiramis (Honegger)
--Daphnis et Chloé (Ravel)
--Parade (Satie's "lunatic" ballet

)
--La tragédie de Salomé (Florent Schmitt)
and more....

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:48 pm

There are two DVD volumes of Great Conductors from the past. I think one is called Great Conductors of a Golden Age and one Great Conductors of the past (or something like that). They both contain video clips of many of the great conductors of twentieth century. Some clips are excerpts from longer pieces and others are complete performances of shorter pieces.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:51 pm

Just checked Amazon. Here is one:

link

The other is listed as currently unavailable, so you'd have to find it used.
But here's what it looks like:

link

And there were similar collections put out of pianists and I believe violinists as well.

jbuck919 · Post by **jbuck919** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:02 pm

Hard to say. Many ballet and opera performances could in fact be reconstructed, including Magic Flute with Papageno literally as a bird-man, but I think many of them would be so laughable to modern tastes that we would react similarly if we had videos of the actual original stagings.

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:15 pm

Here are some more interesting DVDs

Backhaus & Bohm

link

Perlman & Ormandy

link

Karajan in Rehearsal & Performance

link

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:15 pm

piston wrote:Ballet music...Case in point, the ballet Spartacus by Khachaturian, some great melodies but so much repetition.

Then you should definitely see it! Take a look at my Amazon listmania list made especially for people like you.

link

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:20 pm

Nashvillebill wrote:ok, So I've got a question for everyone.

If you had access to any/every performace in the recorded era on video who would you like to see and which performance?

Aida in Munich with Domingo and Fassbaender in 1979
Werther in Munich with Domingo and Fassbaender 1979
Tito in Munich with Varady and Fassbaender
Giulio Cesare in London with Janet Baker
The Famous Tosca with Callas & Gobbi
Any production of Monteverdi's Poppea using the Curtis performing edition
A wonderful performance of Monteverdi's Vespers in Washington DC c. mid-70s in which Nigel Rogers sang the lead tenor part
A breathtaking performance of the Play of Daniel performed at the National Cathedral in the mid-60s by the NY Pro Musica
Any performance of the The Play of Daniel performed at the Cloisters by the NY Pro Musica
Any performance by the Early Music Quartet anywhere in the world
A performance of Hildegard von Bingen's music by Sequentia.

piston · Post by **piston** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:24 pm

Very impressive, Gary, and quite a selection. What have I been doing, anyway?

Post by **Corlyss_D** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:27 pm

ATTENTION!

If there's going to be a lot of posting of links to amazon in this thread, would the assembled ears please take pity on people who don't have 25" monitors and embed the links so they don't run on and cause folks to have to scroll right? The long links stretch out the text of every post in the thread, including those that do not contain links, and make it difficult to read the thread quickly and easily without scrolling.

Thank you.
The Management.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:30 pm

If I could see a video of one concert from the past century, it would be the Feb. 10, 1952 Furtwangler/BPO program that features a string orchestration of the Grosse Fugue, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Brahms first symphony.
All three performances have been out on DG and the Schubert and Brahms are my personal favorite performances for those two pieces.

moldyoldie · Post by **moldyoldie** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:45 pm

I want the five camera, quad Dolby sound, wide-screen HD-DVD of the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, replete with crowd shots.

What, not available? Rats!

Well, in lieu of that, I'd like to see Furtwängler conduct Beethoven's Ninth in March, 1942.

Also, late-'50s/early-'60s Bernstein conduct Mahler and West Side Story. Or isn't that considered "historical".

The 1944 world premiere of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra by the Boston Symphony led by Koussevitzky.

Maybe these are available on video.

Holden Fourth · Post by **Holden Fourth** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 4:03 am

For me that's very easy

Rachmaninov playing any of the Beethoven sonatas. They were regularly programmed into his concerts (including the Hammerklavier) but a very short sighted record executive decided that this repertoire was not worth recording. For that egocentric decision I hope he is rotting in hell with Fur Elise, played by an 8 year old, on a continual loop!

Even more sadly, there is not a single film clip of Rachmaninov playing. We've got Hofman on film, why not SR himself?

pizza · Post by **pizza** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 5:26 am

I would like to see DePachmann performing at his own recitals and at the recitals of others!

Jack Kelso · Post by **Jack Kelso** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 5:49 am

Composers on the podium:

I would LOVE to see/hear Elgar conduct his "Enigma Variations" and Strauss his "Don Juan".

It's fascinating to me watching most composers doing their own works (exception: Stravinsky).

Jack

Nashvillebill · Post by **Nashvillebill** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:08 am

These are some awesome suggestions... Let's boraden this topic even more though and say they don't necessarily have to be historic but just some of the greatest performers or conductors or classical music event you'd like to see on film?

moldyoldie · Post by **moldyoldie** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:10 am

Nashvillebill wrote:These are some awesome suggestions... Let's boraden this topic even more though and say they don't necessarily have to be historic but just some of the greatest performers or conductors or classical music event you'd like to see on film?

You mean create a time machine? Love it! I remember the old series of TV documentary specials The Saga of Western Man

did something similar.

I know it's been depicted in a recent film (forgot the title), but I'd like to see (and hear!) the deaf Beethoven conduct his Ninth Symphony.

Hondo · Post by **Hondo** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:32 am

moldyoldie wrote:

"The 1944 world premiere of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra by the Boston Symphony led by Koussevitzky."

I would love to have a copy of that video also! Being a former Bostonian, I have always cherished the recordings of Koussevitzky, and own a number of them, including the world premiere performance of the Concerto for Orchestra. There are many stories in circulation about alleged comments Bartok made about Koussevitzky being a poor conductor, and specifically how badly he conducted the Concerto for Orchetra. One only has to listen to that world premiere recording to know that the performance compares favorably with the best that Dorati and Reiner had to offer! And that without the performance history that the latter two conductors could rely on.

Gabe

dirkronk · Post by **dirkronk** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:22 pm

My choices would probably involve older pianists and violinists, many of whose recordings generally came after their skills had waned--or were made under conditions that were less than suitable for the best presentation of those skills. I'd probably want to see/hear concerts by:
- Enescu as violinist at the height of his powers
- Szigeti early in his career
- Ginette Neveu
- Johanna Martzy

- Barere, early
- Hofmann, ditto
- Rachmaninoff (I'll be sitting behind Holden Fourth so I can hear those Beethoven sonatas, as well)
- Kapell (I understand he presented things in live concert that he never recorded, so I'd be going for repertoire as much as for performance)
- Annie Fischer (same reason as Rach and Kapell: repertoire...she was microphone shy and offered a lot more in person than she ever recorded)

BTW, I checked out an EMI video (DVD) of Szeryng doing the Brahms concerto with Paray--plus some other violin pieces--from my local library. I was dazzled. I've loved some of Szeryng's studio recordings, been less than wowed by others, but judging from this video, he could be killer in person!

Dirk

rasputin · Post by **rasputin** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:37 pm

About Barer, you sure dont want to heard him doing Grieg's p.c.with Ormandy and the PH.Orch. He died on stage from a brain stroke. Poor Barer, when at last he had became loved and respected after a very,very hard
life...

Wallingford · Post by **Wallingford** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 3:10 pm

Here's a TV concert that DEFINITELY EXISTS:

BEECHAM conducting the TORONTO SYMPHONY.

It's supposed to have very limited sound; the VAI label issued on DVD his Montreal Symphony concert (which I luckily got for super-cheap at the local Tower's liquidation sale last month); and I'm wondering just when the label will put this one out.

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