Top ten musicians of all time

[gurnemanz]

Paul Hindemith was formidable musician. I believe he claimed to be able to play everything he composed on all instruments. Concert master at Frankfurt Opera in his twenties. Soloist at the premiere of William Walton's Viola Concerto at the Proms in 1929. Music Professor at Yale.....

[johncorrigan]

Ali Farka Toure
Joni Mitchell
Martin Hayes
Jack Bruce
Tony Allen
Cesaria Evora
Peter Green
Randy Newman
Laura Nyro
Toots Hibbert

...at least they would all make my top 100 anyway!
...and I'd have Viv Stanshall doing the announcing!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and I'd have Viv Stanshall doing the announcing!

[Beef Oven!]

...and I'd have Viv Stanshall doing the announcing!

Priceless!!

[cloughie]

Priceless!!

Shame he had a premature outro!

[Beef Oven!]

Shame he had a premature outro!

Yes. A house fire IIRC?

[Hornspieler]

Too close to home to be strictly objective, Tony.

The Brain Dynasty started with Arthur Brain, who was 4th horn in the famous LSO quartet, led by the great Adolf Borsdorf.

Known as "God's own quartet" it set a standard of performance which is the foundation of horn playing in Britain to this very day.

Arthur Brain had two sons:

Alfred (the elder) played briefly in London before moving to Holywood to join the emerging film industry when talkies (and therefore music) was required and there was plenty of employment. He eventually became Chairman of the Holywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. (See picture below)

To return to Aubrey:

Principal Horn with the BBC Symphony Orchestra until a tragic accident during the blackout of 1943, he turned to teaching and his pupils all gained success in the London orchestral scene.
But I would say that Aubrey was not a technical teacher - he was inspirational. He taught me awareness - to listen to myself, to feel the music and be inspired by it. All about phrasing, dynamics, rubato .... "you must always be your own sternest critic," he would say "because you are the only person in the world who hears every note that you play."
He didn't teach technique. He used to say "... if you know in your head how you want a piece to sound and endeavour to put it through the instrument, the technique to do it will naturally follow. But you can practise technical exercises all day long and it will not of itself make you play musically"

Here is an example of Aubrey's ability and musicianship:

It was recorded in 1928 and Aubrey would have been playing on a three piston french horn with an F crook.
I believe that the second horn part is probably played by Michael Graydon, who was principal horn of the LSO at that time

http://sounds.bl.uk/Classical-music/Bach/026M-1CL0072573XX-0100V0

Hs

[cloughie]

Yes. A house fire IIRC?

Yes - a flat in Muswell Hill. Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall is worth a read - an interesting guy who sadly lost the plot in his later life.

[Beef Oven!]

Yes - a flat in Muswell Hill. Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall is worth a read - an interesting guy who sadly lost the plot in his later life.

Didn't know about that book. Just bought it off Amazon, 1 minute ago. Will be part of my summer holiday reading.

Cheers for the heads-up cloughie

[visualnickmos]

Mrs Mills.

[EdgeleyRob]

Liberace?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If we're going down that road, there was a time when I considered the greatest musician to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spQY2FbCUtM

She inspired me to learn the piano.

[Bryn]

If we're going down that road, there was a time when I considered the greatest musician to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spQY2FbCUtM

She inspired me to learn the piano.

I had a die-cast Muffin marionette, just like this one:

[johncorrigan]

Yes - a flat in Muswell Hill. Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall is worth a read - an interesting guy who sadly lost the plot in his later life.

On the subject of the wonderful Mr Stanshall I notice 4xtra are airing this next weekend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03yh3wc

[Ariosto]

An impossible task.

For myself, I can only name ten outstanding musicians that I have been priviledged to encounter during my own professional career. I have listed them in alphabetical order:

Julian Bream (Guitar)
Ida Haendel (Violin)
Ernest Hall (Trumpet and Professor at RCM)
Anthony Halstead (Horn Player, Keyboard player, Conductor)
Jascha Horenstein (Conductor and Terrorist!)
Julius Katchen (Pianist)
Cleo Laine (Supreme vocalist embracing all kinds of musical performance)
Yehudi Menuhim (Violinist, Conductor and Teacher)
Mistislav Rostropovitch (Cellist and Conductor)
Dr Bruno Walter (Conductor, Friend of Mahler)

As I wrote above, an impossible thread to answer but, reading through the posts so far, it does give us all an awarenes of the musical preferences, tastes and loathings of our fellow message boarders so should help us not to cause offence to others.

Hs

Good choices HS. I have also worked with some (but I must not go down that road!) and I knew Tony Halstead quite well about 40 years ago...