The Classical Music Guide Forums

THEHORN

Interesting, but I wouldn't call Lorin Maazel's recordings with the Cleveland orchestra"forgettable ". Certainly not his classic recording of Prokofiev's complete "Romeo & Juliette for Decca, their first recorded collaboration . Under Maazel, the orchestra sounded vastly different than under Szell ....

THEHORN

The music of Balakirev never "want out of fashion ". Outside of Russia,it has never been performed with any regularity at all . The only exception might be his incredibly difficult piano piece "Islamey, based on Circassian folk music , which is truly amazing even though hardly anyone in the west is ...

THEHORN

I don't think orchestras are "rushing" to do this, but they are making a serious attempt to give more black composers a chance to be heard at concerts, which I think is a good idea . They've a;sp been making an effort to perform more music by women composers , past and present, which is also admirab...

THEHORN

American orchestras do not intentionally try to discriminate against black musicians . The only reason for their scarcity in our orchestras is because so far, very few young blacks have aimed at careers in symphony orchestras . Few get exposure to classical music as children and not too many have be...

THEHORN

Interesting article, but I think Tommasini overstates his claim about the Met's repertoire being "overwhelmingly traditional . In fact, within the pas ten year or so, the Met's repertoire has become more and more diversified and interesting . And in fact if you compare the Met's overall repertoire i...

THEHORN

"Smaller scale opera " certainly has its place, and I have no objection to it . But there is absolutely nothing wrong with lavish productions of larger than life operas such as Aida, Wagner's Ring, La Gioconda, the Meyerbeer operas , Messiaen's Saint Francis , Les Troyens by Berlioz, and others . Tr...

THEHORN

I've been confirmed Bruckner fan ever since I discovered his music 50 years ago as a teenager , when I got the classic recording of his 9th with Carl Schuricht and the Vienna Philharmonic . His music instantly "clicked " with me and I became familiar with all of his other 8 completed symphonies , an...

THEHORN

An interesting article, but it doesn't mention one of the best recordings of the opera, namely Solti, with Tebaldi , Bumbry, Bergonzi, Fischer-Dieskau , Ghiaurov and Talvela, a cast which would e hard o beat anywhere , any time . And yes, Fischer-Dieskau was a much better Verdi baritone than most cr...

THEHORN

I've never found Abbado's performances to be "bland " or "too polite ". Certainly not his Chicago recordings . For example his recording of Prokofiev's " Scythian" suite with them is terrifically exciting . Possibly some get the impression of "too polite" because of his unpretentious,mild-mannered p...

THEHORN

Happy birthday, Lance !

THEHORN

I'm still stuck here at United Hebrew in New Rochelle because of my disability unfortunately . Things aren't too bad here but I've been stuck on my floor for about two months because of the corona virus , no visitors are allowed until further notice even immediate family , and I've been feeling pret...

THEHORN

There's an excellent opera channel on youtube called "Opera Vision " where you can see recent performances of operas , popular and obscure with large and clear English titles . The performances are from all over Europe from towns as diverse as Venice, Naples, Stockholm and Riga . Among the operas I'...

THEHORN

I too enjoyed this DVD performance very much . I had known this opera from way back on LP in the stone age , because my local library had the LP with Irina Arkhipova and the late Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting . I think "The Maid of Orleans " could be big hit in a Met production , say with Gergie...

THEHORN

Oh weh ! Beckmesser's revenge !

THEHORN

I've heard Gardiner's set of the Beethoven symphonies on Archiv with the same orchestra , and I enjoyed it on the whole . I wish I could attend the upcoming cycle at Carnegie hall .The only thing that bothers me is Gardiner's begging the question, assuming that we are actually hearing what the music...

THEHORN

He would never have been chosen for this key position in the Philadelphia orchestra if they didn't like his sound and style of playing a lot !

THEHORN

Yikes ! I haven't heard this opera, although I've been aware of it for who knows ho long . I have a CD of Marschner's opera "Der Vampyr " with the late Helmut Froschauer conducting the Cologne radio orchestra and chorus . The cast includes the young Jonas Kaufmann before became an operatic superstar...

THEHORN

Sad to see him retiring from performing . I've enjoyed many of the recordings of him as a conductor too . He's been regular with the Royal Concertgebouw, the Philharmonic , the Royal Philharmonic, the Cleveland orchestra , the Czech Philharmonic , the Deutsches Sinfonie Berlin, formerly the Berlin R...

THEHORN

Happy birthday, Donald !

THEHORN

Sad news . The great Barry Tuckwell, one of the greatest horn players of all time, has passed away at 88 . His virtuosity on this treacherous instrument was almost superhuman . His ability to play the instrument's treacherous high register with pupate and accuracy and agility in rapid fire passages ...

THEHORN

Like his conducting or not, Dudamel is the real thing, no shallow ,flashy glamor boy or flash in the pan . He's proven his ability and is was not created by slick publicity . He would not be music director of the L.A. Phil. and a regular with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and other top orchest...

THEHORN

I've also seen a DVD of both of these early Puccini operas from one of the Italian music festivals, I don't recall which one conducted by Hungarian maestro Tamas Pal . This is also worth trying . If I remember correctly, I got this trough Netflix, which has an excellent selection of of opera and cla...

THEHORN

The New York city opera had a production of "Die Tote Stadt " from I believe the 70s, which it did with considerable success . If I remember, the late Julius Rudel conducted it .

THEHORN

Much ado about nothing . These operas were not written with the intention of disparaging non-whites or to incite racist hatred of them . Actors and operatic tenors have traditionally performed the role of Othello or Otello with makeup to make the skin appear darker not out of racism but in an attemp...

THEHORN

So sorry to hear about this . I often disagreed with John, but he was certainly a highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic music lover . He will be missed at this forum .

THEHORN

If you compare the programming of the New York Philharmonic with many other US orchestras, they have actually been doing more new or recent works than most of them for decades . They have performed new or recent works by Philip Glass, John Adams, Christopher Rouse,Thomas Ades, Henze, Tan Dun, Unsuk ...

THEHORN

Being general manager of the Met is one of the most thankless jobs in classical music . You're damned if you do and damned if you don't . No matter how hard you try , somebody will always be pissed off about your choice of repertoire , casting, conductors , directors and designers etc . Some people ...

THEHORN

"Les Djinns" by Franck, inspired by Arabic folklore from where we get the word Genie " is an interesting work - sort of a symphonic poem / concertante work for orchestra and solo piano . I remember this from a n old EMI LP with the lae Aldo Ciccolini and if I remember , Serge Baudo conducting . Ther...

THEHORN

Not too long ago, I borrowed a live recording of Callas and Corelli in "La Vestale " through library interloan on the same pirate label and enjoyed it too .

THEHORN

Levine is also suffering from Parkinson's disease, sciatica and arm tremors , so even if there hadn't been any scandals with him he probably will not be able to conduct anywhere again , which is terribly sad . I've never found his conducting or piano playing to be "shallow and facile ". Like his int...

THEHORN

If you're hearing a new or recent work by a contemporary composer at a a concert , or experiencing a new opera in an opera house , it's often difficult to judge it based on one hearing, if it's a work of any length or complexity . In many cases, only repeated hearings will enable you to decide if yo...

THEHORN

I know you're not suppose dot speak ill of the dead , but Bernheimer, even though he may have been a distinguished music critic , often wrote grossly unfair and gratuitously nasty reviews of many eminent musicians, such as Mehta, Maazel and others as cited in the obituary . It's one thing to disagre...

THEHORN

I recently heard his quirky take on "Don Giovanni" on Sony . It certainly isn't boring ! He seems like a really interesting character and I'd like to hear more of his conducting . I don't know why, but there seems to be a lot of hostility toward today's younger generation of conductors here on this ...

THEHORN

Both Bartoletti and Andrew Davis are and were highly respected in Chicago , and Davis is a very distinguished conductor . Not a conductor's opera house ? They've had many eminent ones there over the years . I haven't heard Mazola's conducting yet so I can't judge him , but from what I've read about ...

THEHORN

I've only hear some bits of Petrenko's conducting on youtube, but he seems like an extraordinarily gifted conductor . And I was rather annoyed by the way Ross dismissed Solti's conducting of Wagner's Ring . The way he conducts Decca's classic Ring is absolutely thrilling !

THEHORN

Unfortunately, if you keep adding Beethoven symphony cycles to your collection constantly, you can miss out on getting recordings of so many interesting lesser known symphonies etc by composers such as Berwald, Balakirev, Bax, Enescu, Glazunov, Roussel, Dukas, Taneyev, Mysakovsky , Stenhammar, Szyma...

THEHORN

Welcome to the forum !

THEHORN

I don't know if arkivmusic.com charges this tax . So why not try it if it doesn't ? They specialize in classical CD and DVDs and have a huge selection, including many classical CDs which are very hard to find .

THEHORN

While it may have been wrong for the Bayreuth audience to treat this drag queen the way it did , this does not mean the production was not absolutely ridiculous . What on earth do drag queens have to do with the story of Tannhauser , which takes place in medieval Germany among the the Minnesingers ?...

THEHORN

I was a member of a summer festival orchestra in Pennsylvania in the 80s , where he played the Sibelius concerto . It was quite impressive .

THEHORN

Western classical music is "inherently racist ?" This is like saying basketball is "inherently racist" because there aren't more short, nerdy Jewish men on basketball teams . This is nothing but a straw man . None of our symphony orchestras and opera occupancies etc is trying to exclude anyone on th...

THEHORN

Oh well. Spectacular opera productions are nothing new . They were the norm in 19th century Paris during the heyday of Giacomo Meyerbeer . Is there anything actually wrong with this ?I don't think so . I'm sure some of those Paris productions might have made those of the late Franco look modest by c...

THEHORN

Happy birthday , Lance !

THEHORN

John, I'm only about 13 years younger than you and have been listening to Ring performances an recordings , not to mention all the other Wagner take works , since I was a teenager . While I admire great Wagner conductors of the past such as Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch and others , I've heard many on...

THEHORN

John, I didn't see or hear this Ring, but many others have great admiration for the way Philippe Jordan conducted it , including Anthony Tommasini . You are the only individual I know of who has called Jordan's conducting of the Ring "weak ". With all due respect, you have consistently shown here ho...

THEHORN

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 .

THEHORN

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 blend .

THEHORN

Furtwangler may have been an erratic conductor, but at his best, his performances were absolutely transcendent . 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 . I've always preferred Fur...

THEHORN

I have the Chandos recording with an English pianist whose name I can't recall off hand, with Richard Hickox and the Bournemouth symphony orchestra . It's couples with Tippett's first symphony . Excellent performances of interesting, rarely heard works by one of England's greatest composers .

THEHORN

MaestroB , Josef Suk was the great grandson, not grandson of Dvorak .

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