What are the top 6 most memorable performances you have ever attended?

[Nick Armstrong]

I was reflecting about this yesterday while travelling.

It might be interesting to hear what people's favourite musical outings have been. I'm sure some of our.. ahem... senior members will have performances which will make others green with envy.

So what are your top 'live' classical concert and opera memories?

To get the ball rolling, here are 6 that occur to me

Tennstedt/LPO Brahms 4 - RFH

Karajan/BPO Verklärte Nacht & Brahms 1 - RFH

Bernstein/VPO Mahler 5 - RAH

ROH/Solti "Elektra" (Eva Marton et al) - Covent Garden

ROH/Tate "Ariadne auf Naxos" (Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle) - Covent Garden

Les Arts Florissants/Christie "Alcina" (Renée Fleming, Susan Graham) - Paris Opera

There are a few Abbado & Tennstedt Mahler concerts that run close, plus the Langridge "Turn of the Screw" at the Coliseum that I'd add if I hadn't tried to limit myself to 6...

[Bryn]

Stockhausen - Plus-Minus, in a realisation by Gavin Bryars, given by John Tilbury, South Bank (Purcell Room?) 1968.

Wolff - Burdocks - Various ensembles, Cecil Sharp House, March 1972

First All-Night Prom of North Indian music (devised and led by Vilayat Khan), 28 to 29th August 1981

Cardew - The Great Learning (first complete performance - a scratch orchestra, Union Chapel, Islington, June 1984.

Satie - Vexations - various performers, Almeida Festival June 1984

Cage - Roaratorio on Finnigans Wake - Proms 1987

[salymap]

Artur Rubinstein playing Beethoven's PC 5 [Emperor] with BBCSO at newish RFH Even the orchestra were thrilled with his performance that night.

Zoltan Kodaly conducting his Hary Janos and Psalmus Hungaricus at the RAH in 50/60s


Ferrier and Nash in Gerontius. Can't remember date.

Bartok Concerto for orchestra. BBCSO/Sargent. Fell in love with Bartok at first hearing.

Victoria de los Angeles solo recital at RFH. Saw/heard her several times.Magic.

Several operas in the 1950s Britten Gloriana, Walton Troilus and Cressida,Britten MND All at ROH

[Nick Armstrong]

Artur Rubinstein playing Beethoven's PC 5 [Emperor] with BBCSO at newish RFH

Zoltan Kodaly conducting his Hary Janos andn Psalmus Hungaricus at the RAH in 50/60s


Ferrier and Nash in Gerontius. Can't remember date.

Bartok Concerto for orchestra. BBCSO/Sargent. Fell in love with Bartok at first hearing.

Victoria de los Angeles solo recital at RFH. Saw/heard her several times.Magic.

Several operas in the 1950s Britten Gloriana, Walton Troilus and Cressida,Britten MND All at ROH

I knew your selection would shiver my timbers, saly Thank you! Duly shivered!

[Petrushka]

Bruckner: Symphony No 8 BPO/Karajan RFH, London June 19 1979

Mahler: Symphony No 8 LPO/Tennstedt RFH, London January 27 1991

Ades: Asyla; Mahler: Symphony No 2 CBSO/Rattle Symphony Hall, Birmingham August 30 1998

Mahler: Symphony No 3 BPO/Haitink Barbican, London September 27 2004

Mozart 35; Bruckner 9 Concertgebouw/Haitink RAH, London September 3 1983

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Shostakovich 8 Concertgebouw/Haitink RAH, London September 5 1983

Mahler: Symphony No 3 VPO/Bychkov Musikverein, Vienna May 4 2008

Oops! I've chosen 7 on the grounds that Caliban cheated in Message 1! Can easily give another dozen.

[Chris Newman]

1:Benjamin Britten: War Requiem conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and Benjamin Britten; Stefania Woytowicz (soprano); Sir Peter Pears (tenor); Hans Wilbrink (baritone),Wandsworth School Boys' Choir, Melos Ensemble, New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Carlo Maria Giulini, Royal Albert Hall, London, on 6th April 1969. Out of this world!!!!!!!!!!

2: Richard Wagner: Parsifal conducted by Reginald Goodall on the 27th April 1971, at Covent garden, with Jon Vickers (Parsifal), Norman Bailey (Amfortas), Amy Shuard (Kundry) and with Gottlob Frick as Amfortas (who had retired a year earlier) replacing an indisposed Ernst Wiemann. The performance was magical but at the end Frick sounded fesh enough to do it again.

3: Janacek: Jenufa conducted by Jiri Kout at the National Theatre, Prague in 2006, With Dana Buresova and Jaroslav Brezina (who both sang with BBCSO's Dvorak The Jacobin last week), and Rosalind Plowright.

3: Gustav Mahler: Symphony No 3, conducted by Jascha Horenstein with Norma Procter (alto). Royal Festival Hall.

4: Olivier Messiaen: La Transfiguration de Notre Seineur Jesus Christ, conducted by Serge Baudo, with the BBCSO, Chorus, Choral Society, Maurice Gendron (Cello). (First Night of the Proms 17 th July 1970)

5: Edward Elgar, Cello Concerto, Maurice Gendron (Cello), LSO, Sir Michael Tippett together with The Vision of St Augustine by Tippett.

6: Giuseppe Verdi, Requiem, last year at Proms. I heard Giulini do it twice but as I have given him the War Requiem I think Semyon Bychkov won by a whisker.

I would like to put several Jiri Belohlavek and Colin Davis nights in but the rules say only six.........

Can I have 7?

The night Janet Baker sang Dido in the Trojans at Covent Garden (in English) when Josephine Veasey was indisposed and the production was sung in French?? Mind you, I could fill this thread with Janet Baker nights!!!!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Not so much a question of rules - simply that I thought many people would have loads of qualifying events, and that selecting the real top highlights would be instructive! I can hardly complain about 7 though...

Many fascinating entries already!

[Petrushka]

Mind you, I could fill this thread with Janet Baker nights!!!!!

I could have easily filled the thread with Bernard Haitink nights! To my horror I see I haven't included the Mahler 9 Concertgebouw/Bernstein June 9 1985 after which I met Lenny backstage.

I've been so incredibly lucky to have been at some truly wonderful concerts in the past 35 years and I've barely even scratched the surface here. All those great concerts from Solti and Abbado...

[Richard Tarleton]

Lucia di Lammermoor, Sutherland/Pavarotti/Bonynge, ROH, 1973
My first live Mahler, Haitink/LPO, Mahler 3, RFH 1972
Bruckner 9, Haitink/Concertgebouw Barbican 2009
Stokowski/LSO, 60th Anniversary concert RFH (Wagner, Debussy, Glazunov, Brahms, Tchaikovsky)
Julian Bream all-Dowland lute recital, QEH 1973 (one of many Bream recitals)
My first Brendel recital (all-Beethoven), Oxford Town Hall 1969 -ish (again one of many)

[JFLL]

As a counterbalance to the inevitable Londons, Viennas, New Yorks, etc:

Mozart Sinfonia Concertante K. 364 , Shostakovich 8 with with David & Igor Oistrakh, Kyril Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic - Wolverhampton, 26 Sept 1963

Elgar 2 with Barbirolli and the BBC SO - Coventry Cathedral, 20 May 1964

Bach Partita 2, Schubert Moments Musicaux and Beethoven Hammerklavier with Ashkenazy - Brierley Hill (where?) 23 Sept 1965

Mozart Piano Concerto 23 and Liszt Piano Concerto 2 with Curzon - Birmingham, 6 Jan 1966

Mozart Piano Concerto 9 with Richter and Maazel - Grange de Meslay, Touraine, 3 July 1966

Bruckner 6 and Wagner excerpts with Horenstein and CBSO - Birmingham, 10 Dec 1970

(and how about a thread 'Concerts I had tickets for but the artists fell ill and never performed again' , e.g. in my case one of Klemperer's (several) 'last' concerts in London in 1971 or, even more poignantly, Jacqueline Du Pre (with Daniel Barenboim) in London a little later?)

[Chris Newman]

I too have lost count of my Bernie Haitink grand nights out: Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Janacek, Mahler, Mozart; oh, those fabulous years at Covent Garden! Two Proms last year...delightful Brahms with the European Chamber Orchestra stripping away those layers of varnish that so ofen spoil Brahms and Schumann. Tomorrow night I have much to look forwood to: Schumann's Second Symphony with the Dvorak VC (Rosie Tompsett...a local star) and Hugh Wood's Divertimento for String Orchestra (an early 8oth Birthday treat for the much neglected composer) in the very capable hands of the Salisbury Sinfonia conducted by their whizz-kid Tim Murray. As the concert is in St Thomas's Church I shall wear my long-johns .

I also have fond memories with many Boult, Giulini, Horenstein, Klemperer and Schmidt-Isserstedt nights and dear Charles Mackerras who seemed to go on for ever; never a damp squib from any of them.

[Ferretfancy]

1.My very first visit to the Royal Festival Hall in 1952 when I was 16. All Beethoven, with Krips and the LSO with Friedrich Wührer as the soloist in the Emperor.
2. Daphnis and Chloe with Monteux conducting the LSO at the RFH
3. Mahler Resurrection Symphony at the Proms, Stokowski conducting.
4. The first London performance of RVW's 8th with the Halle and Barbirolli
5. Solti conducting the last act of Gotterdammerung at the Proms, withy Birgit Nilsson,and her little red mini being mobbed as she drove away after the performance..
6. Hearing Kiri sing the Countess in Figaro at Covent Garden for the first time from the second row of the stalls, and the cool air pouring off the stage as the curtain rose for Porgi Amor

We could all think of many more.

[Chris Newman]

Hi Ferretfancy,
Forgive me for saying but I am just too young to remember most of your gems but the Reggie Goodall Parsifal I mentioned in Message 6 included a certain Kiri te Kanawa as a principal Flower Maiden. Being a gentleman, , I won't name the other principal, a well-known singer, but Neville Cardus had verbal orgasms in his Guardian review and I can see why. Te Kanawa was vocally gorgeous and sang the socks off all the other Flower Madchen. It is a shame that she only intermittently lived up to that exciting moment: I have many CDs and her ROH DVD of Otello with Domingo but she became rather reticent in her delivery.

[Nick Armstrong]

6. Hearing Kiri sing the Countess in Figaro at Covent Garden for the first time from the second row of the stalls, and the cool air pouring off the stage as the curtain rose for Porgi Amor

We could all think of many more.

I suppose that's what I was getting at - among many many truly excellent concerts, there is a handful which had an extra element in terms of the performance, or one's reaction to it, or some other significance.

What you say about that experience at Covent Garden reminds me of one aspect of the first concert I listed, the Tennstedt/LPO Brahms 4.

I was sitting on the front row of the stalls, in front of the first violins on the inside corner across the gangway from the central block. The Allegro giocoso third movement was being so amazingly played that I had a huge grin on my face, and at one point Tennstedt turned to conduct the firsts... caught sight of my grin out of the corner of his eye, looked straight at me and started grinning himself. He looked back at me again a few seconds later: I was grinning even wider, and I sort of widened my eyes - and Tennstedt did the same back to me with a nod and a wink.

Talk about feeling at one with the performance. Unconditional from that moment on!!

PS The final movement however was as terse and angry as I've ever heard it...

[rauschwerk]

Ashkenazy's UK debut at Mill Hill Music Club in 1963. He played Beethoven Op. 31 Nos. 2 & 3, plus the Chopin Ballades. I sat on the stage close to the piano. We went back to the organiser's house afterwards and Ashkenazy was there, but I was 17 and far too tongue-tied to say anything to him or, indeed, to the lovely girl I was with (her parents had arranged the visit).

Previn's London debut with the LSO. The first half (Mozart Paris symphony and Concerto 24 with Kempff) was enjoyable but Walton 1 just blew me away.

A concert performance of Berlioz's Trojans at the RFH in 1966. Evelyn Lear, Ronald Dowd, Kerstin Meyer, Chelsea Opera Group Chorus and LSO Chorus. Colin Davis at the helm, of course. I was actually in the chorus. A truly great musical experience!

The last concert by the Lindsays: Haydn Op. 76/5, Bartok 2 and Beethoven Op. 135. I was pleased to be able to talk to Peter Cropper afterwards and give him heartfelt thanks for all the pleasure that he and his colleagues had given me over the years.

Rozhdestvensky and the LSO in Shostakovich 8 at the Proms in 1965. I have an abiding memory of a cellist smiling and tapping his feet to the catchy trumpet tune in the third movement.

The Sorrel Quartet in Ipswich a few years ago. It must have been one of their last concerts. It began with Mozart, then Shostakovich 6, finally the Schubert Quintet. Wonderful playing.

Tomorrow I'll probably have a different list.