Live in Concert 20.03.14 Philharmonia/Maazel - Strauss

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Only 24 hours before the longest Alpine ever(?) disappears from the iPlayer.

[Flosshilde]

Indeed, & I intend to listen to it (again) before it does.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"It's a funny old forum." Only two days ago I was becoming its pariah.

I think you might have misheard, Alpie: lightness of touch, penetrating insight, learning worn lightly, passionate commitment without histrionics - surely the Perahia of the Forum?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and plays Bach on the piano. Nobody's perfect, I suppose.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think you might have misheard, Alpie: lightness of touch, penetrating insight, learning worn lightly, passionate commitment without histrionics - surely the Perahia of the Forum?

A compliment indeed.

[edashtav]

Slowing Up in Old Age

I'd like to return to the question of speed and, performance timings. In his book The Perfect Conductor Frederick Goldbeck wrote "Tempo is subject to fashions". In his examples he refers to R. Strauss twice:

"Strauss, in his youth the fastest conductor of his generation, gave c. 1925, a young conductor the following advice :'If you think you have reached the utmost prestissimo, take the tempo twice as fast.'

but in 1948 added this advice : 'Today I should like to amend this: take the tempo half as fast (Mozart conductors please note!).' "

Maybe, what was good for Goose Strauss is fine for Gander Maazel.

[Flay]

'Today I should like to amend this: take the tempo half as fast (Mozart conductors please note!).'

Is the parenthesis yours or did Strauss actually say that?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Slowing up in old age.

Presumably the opposite of slowing up is speeding down.

[edashtav]

Is the parenthesis yours or did Strauss actually say that?

I doubt if Strauss said it in English, Flay, but it's an exact quotation from p. 177 (heading: NOTES) of Fred. Goldbeck's little book (pub. Dobson,1960). I presume that he or A.N.Other had translated it from Strauss's German. It's possible that F.G. added the parenthesis.

[pastoralguy]

A friend, with whom I have spent many a happy musical evening sharing discs, listened to the Mravinsky live recording on Olympia last nite. It served to remind us what a superb work this is and prompted me to dig out both the LSO live/Haitink and the Naxos/Wit versions (still in their plastic wrappings! ) and order the Thielemann/Vienna Phil. version.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I doubt if Strauss said it in English, Flay, but it's an exact quotation from p. 177 (heading: NOTES) of Fred. Goldbeck's little book (pub. Dobson,1960). I presume that he or A.N.Other had translated it from Strauss's German. It's possible that F.G. added the parenthesis.

Thanks for the tip. i've just ordered the book.

[Sir Monty Golfear]

That's a fascinating, helpful and illuminating review with which I can concur to a great extent. I'm 100% behind CA in querying the concert's order.Also Spracht demands to set the scene and not conclude it. The absence of "risers" on stage was well picked up by Colin, also. Richard Strauss does depend on blending his lines and the sections of the orchestra, and LM is a master at balancing group against group to yield a warmer, more homogenised sound. To put it crudely,"Life remains in the old dog." Timings are irrevelant "in the moment". LM revealed a panoply of detail that a faster pace would have obscured. Not full marks, but the BEST Strauss playing that I've encountered during the present anniversary season.