Dean Dixon

[mathias broucek]

Interesting to see Dean Dixon "doing the carving" on the Persephone highlighted by Threni.

Norman Lebrecht (an interesting but not always reliable witness) reckons he was brilliant but suffered racial prejudice. That's very believaible, but has anyone actually heard any of his records or broadcasts? (Or concerts, for older posters!)

[Bryn]

Indeed Dean Dixon's name was immediately familiar to me. Somewhere in the loft are a couple or so LPs of the Concert Hall label on which he features. I also have a CD of him conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Henry Cowell's Fifth Symphony (not one of Cowell's finest achievements, to my ears).

[Roehre]

Indeed Dean Dixon's name was immediately familiar to me...... I also have a CD of him conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Henry Cowell's Fifth Symphony (not one of Cowell's finest achievements, to my ears).

It immediately rang bells.
I've got the Cowell 5 CD Bryn mentioned, and a couple of LPs on the Bavarian (Nuremburg-based) Colosseum label.
Conducting the Nuremberg Symphony with Carl Maria von Weber's 2 symphonies, some Reger (Concerto im alten Stil and Böcklin-suite) and Beethoven Symphonies 1 & 2 with the SO des Hessischen Rundfunks in Frankfurt IIRC.
I've got some off-air recordings from Munich too.
Schumann symphonies (3+4) and Schubert (4+5) with the Royal Philharmonic and the Wiener Staatsoper come to mind as well.

[mathias broucek]

Thanks guys. I realise you may not have heard them for a while, but do you recall if they were any good?

[Bryn]

Thanks guys. I realise you may not have heard them for a while, but do you recall if they were any good?

I recall his conducting as being eficient, rather than inspired. It's a bit difficult to judge from the Cowell. The work is, I feel, rather weak (I hear it as the sort of thing that Jackie Chan might have rejected as a score for Shanghai Knights). The recording is not that good either.

[Chris Newman]

As a schoolboy I remember having his Dvorak Symphony No 8 LP on the Concert Hall label (which was part of World Record Club): it was very exciting and led me to explore the other symphonies of that composer as they gradually appeared with Kertesz, Davis, Neumann and others (in the 60s it was regarded as daring to go beyond the New World Symphony). Dixon was variously Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio SO, Sydney SO and Gothenberg SO. He regularly guested with the VPO, Philadelphia and Chicago orchestras. A number of his recordings were made with the VPO (or Vienna State Opera Orchestra) when it moonlighted under other names. I recall a friend having a fine Dixon recording of Strauss's Four Last Songs and Berlioz's Nuit d'Ete sung by Evelyn Lear.