Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[cloughie]

Georgia not Georgie or Georgina. Think "Georgia on my mind"?

Think Ray Charles!

Back to Callas - her voice sounded dreadfully dreary on the Somnambula clip yesterday - an ‘off switch where are you?’ track. A dilemma with so much of R3’s mixture is that the off trigger is ever present even when Mrs C is not listening!

Then it’s silence, Radio Cornwall until a nasty pop track, or a friendly CD to brighten my spirit!

[oddoneout]

Just been hearing some bits from Messiah and rather puzzled by the recit singing in the run-up to "Glory to God" - rather fast,strict time, dum de dum approach. Even more surprised to find it was the Dunedin Consort.
Is this the new thinking on performing such a section and I am just too embedded in the old-fashioned flexible 'narrative' approach?

[smittims]

I expect someone has a theory claiming that Handel would have done it like that in performance. I think if we could hear an actual Handel-directed performance we'd be in for some surprises.

[Ein Heldenleben]

This performance :
Maurice Ravel
Bolero
Orchestra: Les Siècles. Conductor: François‐Xavier Roth

currently on Essential Classics is so good it almost makes the experience bearable .
The sax and trombone solos absolutely outstanding.

[smittims]

Unlike many people I love Bolero. The Ravel pieces I cannot listen to are Tzigane and tehj Violin Sonata.

I well remember a fine Bolero I saw live by an orchestra who did their best but couldn't afford enough saxophonists, so the baritone player had to do a quick change to the soprano (or is it sopranino?) , a bit of a leap.
,
On another occasion they did the suite no 1 from Daphnis et Chloe, but had only three percussionists, so the tambourine player wielded his tam-tam mallet just too late to give that instrument its only note in that part of the work (3 before 104). I felt so sorry for his plight I couldn't really criticise. Talk about Evenings in the orchestra...

[Nick Armstrong]

This performance :
Maurice Ravel
Bolero
Orchestra: Les Siècles. Conductor: François‐Xavier Roth

currently on Essential Classics is so good it almost makes the experience bearable .
The sax and trombone solos absolutely outstanding.

It’s a great performance. I’ve never had a problem with Bolero !

[gurnemanz]

I'm not a committed listener to this programme but sometimes listen to the last bit of it getting ready for CotW at 12. I'm glad I tuned in at about 11.15 today for a slightly hilarious moment where Georgia Mann referred to "You'll Never Walk Again" sung by Joyce DiDonato. Maybe Georgia has been listening to too may football chants. We well remember Joyce's wheelchair-bound performance of Rosina in Barber of Seville at ROH after her onstage accident when she broke her leg. Luckily, Joyce did walk again.

[french frank]

a slightly hilarious moment where Georgia Mann referred to "You'll Never Walk Again"

I was all ears for this one. I don't think the title was given in the announcement. The back announcement now has You'll Never walk ... Alone

[Serial_Apologist]

I was all ears for this one. I don't think the title was given in the announcement. The back announcement now has You'll Never walk ... Alone

Good example of the Freudian Slip, no?

[Nick Armstrong]

Georgia Mann referred to "You'll Never Walk Again"

[Serial_Apologist]

And then somebody disabled her entry!

[LMcD]

And then somebody disabled her entry!

Did I hear GM say that EC now has a 'great' (her word) 1-hour 'mix' on Fridays - a further sign of things to come?

[oliver sudden]

I well remember a fine Bolero I saw live by an orchestra who did their best but couldn't afford enough saxophonists, so the baritone player had to do a quick change to the soprano (or is it sopranino?) , a bit of a leap.

I think it’s normally done with one tenor and one soprano, and since they’re both in Bb they would use essentially the same fingerings. (Barring special fingerings for, say, intonation purposes, which high on the soprano is a bit of a thing.)

In the score there’s a sopranino, but in F instead of the usual Eb, and since the sopranino can’t go low enough the tenor player changes to soprano to play the last few notes of the solo. I bet it’s never done that way, even in ‘historical’ performances. Indeed I wonder if it ever has been.

[smittims]

Yes, I had not heard of a sopranino in F; Maybe it was a French military band instrument. I think Marcel Mule used an E flat sopranino (but maybe an F!) to play the trumpet part in Barndenburg 2 at a time when (possibly) no-one cold playabsolutely every note of it on a trumpet; not as daft as it sounds; the sopranino sax probably sounds closer to the baroque trumpet than a modern trumpet.

[oliver sudden]

It was indeed the sopranino in F that Mule used for Brandenburg 2, as I understand. The Bb and Eb saxophones certainly haven’t always had a monopoly although the C soprano and tenor are (maybe for obvious reasons?) by far the most common ‘other’ sizes.

I’ve forgotten who used to use soprano saxophones for Monteverdi’s cornetto parts! On the other hand Baroque clarinets are an excellent substitute for trumpets and there’s some historical evidence for them being used as such even back in the day.

https://youtu.be/hNKpbo3o9Q8?feature=shared

There’s a Baroque clarinet in high F in the musical instrument museum in Leipzig. Why not for Brandenburg 2, I say? It would solve all manner of problems…