|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
75.215.142.251
In honor of the late, great Mstislav Rostropovich.....Carlo Maria Giulini, another one of the all-time underrated conductors.....
When great performance meets great recording (even through the conduit of YouTube), the end result can raise the dead.....
Follow Ups:
and still haven't yet gotten to my 5.10.69 Szell/Cleveland performance taped off of WCLV.Last night, I had one of those vinyl asylum cleaning experiences (my Fournier/Szell cleaned up!--yayyy.) and wow, what a performance. Played it to reset my mind, having gone through Rostropovich/HvK/BPO on cd, much of Rost./Ozawa/BSO, Starker/Dorati/LSO, and also the Starker/Susskind/Philharmonia mono on LP.
Winner is still Fournier although Starker/Susskind is wonderful.
....who I say *owns* Dvorak.....One of the legendary performances of this Cello Concerto was way back in the 1930s, with Pablo Casals and the Czech Philharmonic..... The striking thing about that performance is how *similar* Szell's reading was to his Fournier performance. Szell was one of very few conductors who when listening to two different performances of the same work, they sound almost exactly the same. (Contrast to say a Wilhelm Furtwangler, who often sounded like two totally different conductors in this regard.)
One of the reasons why I posted this is this is one of few non-Szell performances that had that "Szell magic" with Dvorak. But unlike Szell, the recording really adds a dimension to such a reading. The London Symphony Orchestra, at that time, also had what I thought was brass section almost comparable to the great Cleveland section, which I thought was a major element of that magic.
I do have one negative comment, and it's toward Dvorak himself. In the opening movement of the Concerto, there is a melody which is a dead ringer for a variant of the famous "Coming Home" melody from the New World Symphony. It has a similar melancholy quality, and Rostie really pulled at the heartstrings here.
Final comment.... It is a travesty that Lynn Harrell never did a major recording of this work. Nobody, and I say nobody, had more command of the Dvorak Cello Concerto than he did. I heard him several times on broadcast, and like Szell owning Dvorak, Harrell owned the Cello Concerto.
clarifying. You mean that the Rostropovich/Giulini/LPO (not LSO) was almost like Szell's performances?I also have the 1937 Casals on LP. And as I keep saying, the Cleveland tape 1969 with Rostropovich, Szell again. So I have some listening to do still.
I have Heinrich Schiff playing it as I type at lunch break, with Amsterdam and Colin Davis from 1976. A very good reading indeed!
Last time we discussed this some, I tried to find a Lynn Harrell performance, and there is an LP on RCA with Levine. I watched it but did not buy on one of ebay sellers. Is Harrell still actively playing?
I get the LSO and LPO mixed up.... Both fabulous bands, if not even underrated.I don't recall a Szell commercial recording of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with Cleveland.... I think his Fournier performance is with Berlin.... If it is with Cleveland, I'll get it..... That's a perfect piece for that orchestra, I'd get it for the accompaniment alone.
and me, too. I taped it. A bit of a pause once in FM reception (one second), some noise from the Severance Hall audience, some fm pumping but overall highly listenable. I sent one from Thornhill, no response from him after sending him the copy of my metal master. It's listed in the cd form on the Japanese website for Szell. See thread in music lane.
I had a good search after somebody else mentioned Slava on YouTube, hadn't thought of it 'till then.
I sat quite near to him playing this piece, twice in fact, ... and both times were different but truely magical. He always appears to put a new spin on it each playing... romantic or aggressive. He did give the Cello some grief, it still amazes me how much pressure some people can put on a bow and string to produce such a sound... and I used to play a bit myself.It all works for me,
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: