Which performance in history do you wish you'd been at?

[LHC]

... is this the only one of the desired performances listed above that we can at least revisit on CD? (For example, was the Grimes première recorded?)

I don't think there are any recordings of the Peter Grimes premiere, but EMI did record substantial excerpts shortly afterwards with Peter Pears and Joan Cross, conducted by Reginald Goodall. Britten vetoed their issue at the time but they are (or at least have been) available on CD. When reviewing the CD issue, Alan Blyth said the recordings ''represent the work at white heat, straight off the stage''.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=66087

I think the CDs have been deleted, but it might still be possible to find them 2nd hand

[Barbirollians]

An impossible thread - how about the night at The Olympia when Piaf sang Non Je Ne Regrette Rien for the first time or Chopin playing at the Salle Pleyel or the first night of Figaro ....

[prokkyshosty]

I'm happy to see the Berlioz Requiem premiere/snuff incident get mentioned. Heck, I would've loved to have been at any of Berlioz's self-promoted big ticket extravaganzas. Failing that, I would like to be in attendance at the 1931 Leeds Festival, with the Berlioz Requiem and the premiere of Belshazzar's Feast, where Walton was encouraged by Beecham to "chuck in a couple brass bands."

[Norfolk Born]

Looking forward rather than back: I would like to be at the last ever peformance of works by Harrison Birtwhistle - it would be worth the money and the pain. And I would like to attend the performance of the Mozart Piano Concerto in G Minor, once I've found the score in my local charity shop and had it authenticated. (Oh, and once Murray Periah has agreed to play it).

[Nick Armstrong]

Here's one:





Yup, I reckon I'd have forked out $2.00 for that....!

[underthecountertenor]

What did Mahler use the Mason & Hamlin piano FOR, I wonder.

[Nick Armstrong]

What did Mahler use the Mason & Hamlin piano FOR, I wonder.

That thought struck me too... but given that all the other ads seem to have a piano make listed, I wondered if it was more about the hall, a kind of sponsorship deal whereby they have to get mentioned in return for supplying the instrument to the venue.

[Richard Tarleton]

A work which had its world premiere in the Opera Hall, Malden, Massachusetts, the same year as Mahler 2's in Berlin - "A Spring Pastoral", libretto by EL Hadaway and Francis Snow, music by George Lowell Tracy. Ephraim Hadaway was my great great grandfather , Snow his brother-in-law. It had a well-deserved revival, for which this is a page from the programme, the following year. No recording seems to exist

[ARBurton]

I don't think there are any recordings of the Peter Grimes premiere, but EMI did record substantial excerpts shortly afterwards with Peter Pears and Joan Cross, conducted by Reginald Goodall. Britten vetoed their issue at the time but they are (or at least have been) available on CD. When reviewing the CD issue, Alan Blyth said the recordings ''represent the work at white heat, straight off the stage''.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=66087

I think the CDs have been deleted, but it might still be possible to find them 2nd hand

Ive been trying to sell mine on a certain auction site for ages without success!

[Barbirollians]

1947 Edinburgh Festival Ferrier/Walter Das Lied

[MickyD]

I think Potsdam 7 May 1747, Bach's meeting with Frederick II, at which he 'improvised' the Musical Offering....

..or alternatively, attending one of the musical gatherings at Zimmermann's coffee house. All those concertos, what a feast!

[Beef Oven!]

Sex Pistols, Hope & Anchor, Upper Street Islington, May 1976.

(If the claims of the many people who say they were at this gig are to be believed, it would have to be as big as the Milton Keynes Bowl inside!!)

[ahinton]

Looking forward rather than back: I would like to be at the last ever peformance of works by Harrison Birtwhistle - it would be worth the money and the pain. And I would like to attend the performance of the Mozart Piano Concerto in G Minor, once I've found the score in my local charity shop and had it authenticated. (Oh, and once Murray Periah has agreed to play it).

Birtwistle and Perahia, PLEASE!

[EdgeleyRob]

I wish I'd been at this

'Chopin performed in a concert organised by Alkan on 3 March 1838 at the Salle Pape in Paris. Chopin sat at one piano with his favourite pupil, Adolph Gutmann; Alkan and Joseph Zimmerman at the other. The four pianists thus performed two movements (Allegretto and Finale) of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major in a transcription for two pianos,eight hands,by Alkan.'

And this

'Chopin and George Sand attended an Alkan concert on 28 April 1844.'

No dates for when Chopin and Liszt were at a concert where Alkan played his own music,but I'd love to have been sitting between them.

[pastoralguy]

I wish I could go back to 1978 and hear the late, great Menuhin play the Beethoven concerto with the SNO under Sir Alexander Gibson in the Usher Hall. I WAS at that concert but my ears were too 'naive' to know what I was listening to. I'd love to go to that concert again with my 40 years listening experience.

And, to hear Menuhin as a young man playing anything, anywhere would be wonderful. I'd also love to have heard Mr. Heifetz play live. I knew a couple of people who did and they told me that his records, although wonderful, did not recreate the glow his actual sound produced. In fact, I'd love to have heard all those wonderful string players of that incredible generation play live. Milstein, David Oistrakh, Ida Haendel, Ginette Neveu, Kogan, Piatagorsky, Joseph Hassid and Szeryng. The list could go on and on...