|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
108.5.178.99
In Reply to: RE: Your most memorable concerts? posted by Chris from Lafayette on December 10, 2016 at 14:05:53
That's an impressive list. I'll only mention a few: When I was starting out as a flute student, Jean-Pierre Rampal playing his transcription of the Khachaturian violin concerto with Stokowski and the American Symphony, who also performed Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or Suite. I met and spoke with Rampal and Stokowski afterwards. Also in childhood, a recital by a young Vladimir Ashkenazy whom I also met afterwards.
Then, as a young adult, Nathan Milstein in one of his last Carnegie Hall recitals. And a performance of portions of the St. Matthew Passion in a London church.
More recently, a recital by Alexander Ghindin in the Moscow Conservatory's Great Hall, as much for the famous locale as the performance (which was pretty darn good, however). And finally, a marathon performance of all six Elliott Carter string quartets by the Pacifica Quartet, with Carter himself in attendance.
Follow Ups:
I heard the Juilliard Quartet doing the Bartok 6 at Sanders Theater, Cambridge MA, in around 1965.
That Carter SQ marathon must have been something else. I don't think I've ever heard that quartet play any of them. I only know of 5 Carter "string quartets" in name. Was the sixth by chance a piece called "Fragment for String Quartet"? Or is there a String Quartet #6 I don't know about?
I'm curious...did you find that the unusual seating of the players for the second and third added to your appreciation of these very challenging works? I've been (slowly) reading Schiff's book "The Music of Elliott Carter", and it's been pretty enlightening--has me wondering about the impact of player positions in live performances.
dh
I just saw a recital by Ghindin here in Cleveland. It was easily the worst, most antimusical performance by a professional pianist I've ever heard. He BANGED his way through Pictures at an Exhibition, Symphonic Etudes, and Liszt's Venezia e Napoli. I mean, literally BANGED. I had to cover my ears, the sound was so jangly in the 250-person hall (I was near the back). This was the Cleveland Orchestra's Hamburg Steinway, normally an instrument on the mellow side.
Well, he didn't bang that day. Very delicate and restrained, perhaps too much so, in Beethoven's Moonlight sonata, Haydn and Liszt. But it was mostly memorable for the venue.
I heard Julius Baker at a Flute Camp in Reno in 1964 or 5.
I heard him rehearsing, filling the Hall with his wonderful sound, and he was complaining that his Lip wasn't feeling right...!!!
Sheesh!
Duane may pop up to reprimand me, but Carter is far from a fave of mine. I couldn't make it thru listening to 6 of anybody's quartets in one sitting. Well, I might make Beethoven or Bartok if intermission was long enough for me to go home, nap, and ingest different drugs for the 2nd set.
Somehow I doubt this is what Chris had in mind, but here's a few......
My first James Brown Show at the Howard Theater in D.C. (same show as Live at the Apollo)
Miles -- at Lenny's on the Turnpike outside of Boston in the late '60's
Weather Report soon after their first record came out at Jazz Workshop in Boston
Cannonball -- every one of the 5 or 6 times I heard/saw his groups in '60's D.C./Baltimore area.
Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band at the Vanguard -- my first Monday night in town after moving to NYC in '71. Thrilling.
Gergiev/Mariinsky playing Shosty 7th and Leningrad at Linc. Center in 2006
No doubt any marathon concert, from Mozart to Miles, can be tough to sit through. But the cumulative impact of all that Carter was a bit like a hallucinatory drug. BTW, the audience that night was a who's who of NYC musicians.
I have the linked cd and listened to it again last night. Shaky at best for me, and sure as hell doesn't make me wanna buy more of Carter's music. I'd already gotten rid of a couple Carter LP's I had and decided to give him another try with that cd. I do like his orchestral stuff more than his chamber pieces due to more varied texture/color.You did make me curious what the classical players I know think of Carter. I'll ask.
Edits: 12/11/16
The cello sonata and the sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord (which is the only Carter piece I've played myself). I bought the Pacifica recording of the string quartets on 2 Naxos CDs (could have had them autographed at that concert) and they were less successful than the live performances.
Unfortunately, the same is true of our mutual friends the Imani winds. Much better live. Some recording engineers don't do right by chamber music groups, imo.
In that case, I have to add Richie Havens, at Rosie's Jazz Club in New Orleans, c. 1978.
the late Joe Cocker, in one of his last U.S. concerts, at Bethel Woods, NY, the site of the original Woodstock Festival in 1969.
nt
nt
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: