BaL 27.04.13 - Tchaikovsky's Hamlet Fantasy Overture Op.67

[Nick Armstrong]

a good bash

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A few interesting points in today's posts. It's true that there's a lack of tenderness in the play itself, so perhaps the faster love theme is appropriate.

I've already set the recorder for tomorrow's BaL.

[BBMmk2]

I will be listening to this BaL tomorrow. It wil be interesting to find out what the reviewer's opinion is of the 'love theme'.

[verismissimo]

Earlier this week I re-listened to LPO/Handley and Tchaikovsky SO of Moscow/Fedoseyev. Both seem to me to me well played and recorded.

I kept Stadium SO of New York/Stokowski until this evening. What a performance that is!

[Barbirollians]

Stokowski by miles !

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The view of forum members seems firmly to point to Stokowski, whose Hamlet, I'm ashamed to say, I've never heard.

[vibratoforever]

I started with Boult on Ace of Clubs, later acquired Gibson and most recently Svetlanov. Following the lead of forum members, I downloaded Stokowski's performance for the tidy sum of 69p!!
I know some reviewers and listeners consider Svetlanov's Tchaikovsky to be self-indulgent or coarse, but I love it and his performance of Hamlet remains at the top of my list.

[Alison]

LPO/Gibson for me, a superbly recorded Collins Classics disc. A few very cheap copies on Amazon including one for 0.01.

The orchestra at its peak in the late eighties.

[Hornspieler]

I think the question is: why is it not a Tchaikovsky masterpiece? It's never really rung my bell.

I can hear that it's "pictorial", but it just seems to me to go from one brash episode to another.

What am I missing?

The late Constantin Silvestri had a wonderful ability to make second grade compositions sound like masterpieces, but he did not succeed with Hamlet IMV.

HS

[seabright]

Stokowski's 'Hamlet' is coupled with an equally vivid reading of 'Francesca da Rimini' and both gain from having been recorded on 35mm film, rather than tape, which resulted in astonishing sonics. The 'Stadium Symphony Orchestra' was in fact the New York Philharmonic playing under the name it used when performing summer concerts at the Lewisohn Stadium, a huge open-air amphitheatre built in 1915 and demolished in 1973. Wiki has some interesting facts about Everest's 35mm film recording techniques and also about the aforementioned Stadium ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everest_Records

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewisohn_Stadium#History

[LeMartinPecheur]

Those interested in the byways of Shakespearean inspiration for classical composers may like to hunt down an old (1966) Macmillan Papermac Shakespeare in Music - A Collection of Essays ed. Phyllis Hartnoll. It includes a massive 'catalogue' in which each play has a listing of the operas, incidental music, symph poems and the like, and song settings that it inspired. Hamlet takes two pages, MSND three, Anthony and Cleopatra and The Tempest four.

So after today, why not check out Neils Gade's Concert Overture op.37, 1861; Edward German's symphonic poem, 1895; Lekeu's Marche d'Ophelie, Macdowell Symph poems Hamlet and Ophelia; overtures by G A MacFarren and Taneiev??

And there's much, much more - the above are just some of the lesser composers whose names I recognize (Adlam, F., fl. 1865 anyone?).

Then you can reel off unaided the 14 Hamlet operas listed...

PS s/h copies available from £2.74 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-...ll+shakespeare

[BBMmk2]

Stephen Walsh seems to like Dudamel's at the moment. For some reason I just cannot abide this conductor.

[BBMmk2]

Bernstein then? AS boarders seem to go for Stowkowski, might be worth having both?

[LeMartinPecheur]

As per usual, LMP wasn't paying proper attention at the back of the class Did Stoky get a mention??

[verismissimo]

... Did Stoky get a mention??

Not that I heard LMP, but then I was doing the washing up rather too noisily to be sure.