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In Reply to: RE: Levine's reference Brahms. posted by Sigmund on September 16, 2014 at 09:10:55
Levine's Brahms One was top drawer w the Solti-era CSO..... Link to final movement.
James Levine was a George Szell protege, his prominence surfaced about the time national classical broadcasts were yanked from mainstream consumption in the late 1960s.... Had the broadcasts continued, I believe Levine would have been ranked up there with Stokowski, Toscanini, Reiner, Bernstein, and Szell as one of America's foremost conductors.
Follow Ups:
Uh, first of all, Levine IS ranked among the foremost American conductors!! In fact, I cannot think of another living American anywhere near his stature (and no, I personally don't include Tilson Thomas in that class, though I will grant some would). Second, with the exception of Bernstein, none of the other conductors you listed are American, though they did spend much of their careers here. Third, even if you count all those others, yes, Levine certainly deserves to be ranked among them, for what he has accomplished at the Met alone (and in most orchestral players opinions, this is by miles his finest work, though he has made some good symphonic recordings as well - I agree those Brahms recordings are better than Solti's with the CSO). Fourth, I think he was actually a Karajan student, if I am remembering correctly, though he may have worked some with Szell as well. Certainly his musical approach is much more similar to Karajan than Szell.
Your definition would seem to be "born in the USA". Some of the gentlemen mentioned most likely were naturalized Americans. So what counts?
Of course, Otto Klemperer was a naturalized American....doubt if many would consider him an American conductor since he spent so little time here.
Yes, TGR, I meant born in the US. In the musical world, this is definitely what would be meant by referring to someone as an American conductor. There have been very few world class ones from the US.
Interestingly, many of the young up and comers are from South America. They are training them VERY well down there, and some of my conductor friends are convinced that in a couple of more decades, almost all of the big names will be South American.
OK, we'll run with that!
It mentions Szell for sure - no mention of Karajan. In fact, I had never heard of a Karajan connection before your post. I've got to believe that the Szell connection was much stronger. (Nevertheless, I'd be interested to know, in connection with the last sentence in your post, in what respects you would consider Levine more like Karajan than like Szell.)
Edits: 09/17/14
Hi Chris - it has been remarked many times by many people that Levine's lyrical style is very similar to Karajan's. Both conductors always tend to bring out the lyricism most in whatever they are conducting. Both do this quite a bit more than any of the others mentioned in the original post, including Szell. I should make clear that I am speaking of what they emphasize musically in their interpretations; I am not speaking of their conducting or rehearsal techniques, or their personalities. This is getting off topic, though, so I'll stop there.
We could probably replace Wikipedia with Ripley's & no one would notice
any drop in accuracy.
For myself "Wiki" just seems to cover most of the what I already know about whatever,
I've attempted to use it for.
Plain old fashioned "google searches" are much more useful to me .
(Granted my interests are pretty limited & specific ; so I suppose I should'nt be critical about something I rarely use)
Only if we're talking about "obscure" personal interest subject matter
Someone once called me a "F"&$k,.ng" Know it All" I thanked them but being who I think I
am corrected them by saying "not all, just most " (actually it did'nt go that way as I'm usually
a bit disappointed when some mistakes my inability to not add something more (when not called for) to a conversation as a display of .., ??; I can be pretty articulate when it comes to saying things that may not even be relevant, ... Heh,he,he)
(Echo?)
It's always helpful when the picture is clarified.
And for putting him into context. / :~>
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