In today’s Orange County Register online, I review Gustavo Dudamel, Lang Lang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the opening concert of the 90th classical music season at the Hollywood Bowl. Click here to read my review, or pick up a copy of tomorrow’s newspaper.
Carlo Maria Giulini, a few weeks shy of his 83rd birthday, conducts the La Scala Philharmonic in the finale of the Symphony No. 4 by Brahms.
I hadn’t seen this before (and only 224 others have viewed it on YouTube). There’s not a lot of Giulini this late in his career out there. The performance is certainly very slow … but for me at least, it lacks nothing in intensity for its pace, but rather gains from it. The lyricism is aching.
Giulini was always a great Brahms conductor. You might not want to hear this piece performed this way every time, but whether you like it or not, you have to admit that here he has made this piece his own, and puts his own view of it across. If I’m to hear Brahms’ Fourth again, this is what I want — a performance with something personal to say, and played as if lives are at stake.
UPDATE: YouTube took the video down that I had first displayed here. So, here’s another, also Giulini late in his career conducting the same piece, but this time with the Berlin Staatskapelle.
Click on the triangle to hear the Sousa Band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” in 1913. Edison Cylinder recording.
Here’s the piccolo part from the original publication of “Stars and Stripes” in 1897. (Click on to view larger.) Notice the famous solo is marked fortissimo and “Grandioso.”
photo (top): Victor Herbert, Irving Berlin and John Philip Sousa in 1924. Library of Congress.
Program description (1):
“All Shook Up,” “Love Me Tender,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog” and much, much more — Pacific Symphony backs an internationally renowned tribute artist who will have you believing Elvis never left! Plus, your favorite Pops conductor — Richard Kaufman — presents patriotic favorites in honor of our country’s birthday. Then, the night sky explodes with spectacular fireworks to end a spectacular evening.
Program description (2):
In our annual great American extravaganza, we invite everyone’s favorite American pop duo to the party! Daryl Hall & John Oates, members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, join the orchestra for a night of their classic hits, plus spectacular fireworks and good old-fashioned American music to celebrate our country’s 235th birthday.
And so we ask …
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Another one of those violin bon bons we’ve been talking about lately. I listened to this very recording the other night. I thought I’d share. By the way, Ricci is still with us, 92 and living in Palm Springs.
Review: The 31st annual Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, featuring the music of Handel and the Italian composers who influenced him, begins a new era. CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW.
Obiter dictum: Due to space constraints in Tuesday’s newspaper, the review is very short. (Sigh)
The Pacific Symphony cemented its 2011-2012 classical series in stone and sent out the calendar (below) last week. The artists (including singers in La Boheme) and repertoire are all listed.
I’m posting it (complete with the prose descriptions of the concerts that were provided) because it’s easier to read here than on the orchestra’s website. I have some scattered thoughts about the schedule, but I’d rather hear what you think. Please leave your likes and dislikes in the comments section.
Click here to continue reading Pacific Symphony 2011-2012 season calendar …
For Musical America, I review the 65th Ojai Music Festival, with Dawn Upshaw, music director, and guests Peter Sellars, Gilbert Kalish, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and violinist Richard Tognetti. CLICK HERE TO READ MY REVIEW.
In an otherwise informative and exemplary post on Blogging Basics (written with classical music bloggers in mind), Lisa Hirsch (aka Iron Tongue of Midnight) includes a bullet item that raised my eyebrows:
Really? That certainly hasn’t been my experience. I’ve never received a comment or email from Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Pierre Boulez, Carl St.Clair, Cecilia Bartoli, Deborah Voigt, Placido Domingo, Jeremy Denk, Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Adams, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, William Bolcom or pretty much anyone else that I’ve reviewed and/or interviewed in my career. (In more than 20 years of covering St.Clair — I’ve written more about him than anyone else in the world — I may have gotten one or two emails from him).
Nor do the less celebrated engage. The musicians of the Pacific Symphony do not comment here, or elsewhere, or email me. (Recently, I ran into a Pacific Symphony musician I know and she hadn’t heard that I had been writing a celebrity column, five days a week, for the last 9 months, and I’m the only music critic in Orange County.) A single member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic comments on this blog (and he’s a friend), despite my coverage of that group dating back to the early 1980s. No one from Los Angeles Opera, or Long Beach Opera, or … etc.
If professional musicians read and conversed regularly with their local critics, music criticism in this country wouldn’t be on life support, I’d still have my award-winning blog at the newspaper, and I’d still be a full-time music critic (also award-winning).
But professional musicians couldn’t care less about music critics and their blogging brethren.
I’d like to be proven wrong. Go ahead, musicians I’ve written about, make my day. Leave a comment.
