YouTube: the thread for interesting video links

[eighthobstruction]

Eh? Who's Legeti, and what is the relevance of the Youtube item linked to? I should add that I have not yet caught up with today's CotW.

....The presenters were commenting that this was inspiration for : Musica Ricercata....Cotw 2/5....( Ah yes my dysx - Ligeti [couldn't see the mistake even for 5min looking at it])

....And I wikied it ....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricerc...dentie#Details

[Bryn]

....The presenters were commenting that this was inspiration for : Musica Ricercata....Cotw 2/5....( Ah yes my dysx - Ligeti [couldn't see the mistake even for 5min looking at it])

....And I wikied it ....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricerc...dentie#Details

Thanks. Not as bad as a short series of FB messages I sent someone last week while in the throws of a retinal-turned-classic migraine. I misspelled Dusapin twice, in different ways, the second of which was supposed to be a correction of the first.

[seabright]

I don't recall Stokowski's orchestration of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor popping up in the 'Bach-before-7' spot but there are some splendid performances of it on YouTube by British conductors, including ...

Martyn Brabbins / BBC Philharmonic (1996) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVApjq38Bew

Sir Andrew Davis / BBC Symphony (2001)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MQddzvDALU

Raymond Leppard / Indianapolis Symphony (1994) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6punDqZO8

[smittims]

I was incredulous on hearing Henry Wood's diary entry after seeing 'Fantasia' . He said he was pleased to hear Stokowski using his (Wood's) orchestration of BWV565, which he had made under the pseudonym 'Klenovski' (the name of an actual composer) . The version used in the film was of course Stokowski's very different-sounding orchestration. How could Wood have thought it was his ? One answer lay in a famous photo of Wood at his desk, with, facing him only inches away, a life-size portrait of himself .

I don't disparage Wood as a conductor, but there are spots on the sun , after all.

[seabright]

I was incredulous on hearing Henry Wood's diary entry after seeing 'Fantasia' . He said he was pleased to hear Stokowski using his (Wood's) orchestration of BWV565, which he had made under the pseudonym 'Klenovski' (the name of an actual composer) . The version used in the film was of course Stokowski's very different-sounding orchestration. How could Wood have thought it was his ? One answer lay in a famous photo of Wood at his desk, with, facing him only inches away, a life-size portrait of himself .

I don't disparage Wood as a conductor, but there are spots on the sun , after all.

As you say, the Wood arrangement couldn't be more different to Stokowski's, not least because he brought the organ in plus lots of percussion. Andrew Davis included it as tribute to Wood in the Last Night Prom of 1994 and quite spectacular it is ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S4bNBztCLk

[seabright]

I previously suggested Bach-Stokowski as played by three British conductors and as a follow-up, here's Bach as orchestrated by three English composers. The Bach-Elgar Fantasy and Fugue gets a splendid Proms performance by Andrew Davis and the BBCSO on YouTube but I thought it might be interesting to hear and see a Russian orchestra play it. It says "Svetlanov Orchestra" in the heading but we know it better as the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, here conducted by the baton-less Andrey Rubtsov ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilJaArVlfLs

Here's Vaughan Williams's arrangement for strings of Bach's 'Giant Fugue' with Leonard Slatkin and the BBCPO ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShPmy6Zo50

Finally, Holst's 'Fugue a la Gigue' in its original wind band form, also from abroad, this time with the Conservatory Wind Symphony at the California State University ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szJL8yVwRE

Again, it would be nice to hear some of these arrangements in the Bach-before-7 slot for a change!

[Dave2002]

I rather liked this YT video - https://youtu.be/GNG59JOmyJQ

I did wonder about posting under the Electronics Music thread - but this isn't quite that.

I also checked the availability of recorders like that - but most are still quite expensive. No guys with wheelbarrows round here.

[RichardB]

I also checked the availability of recorders like that - but most are still quite expensive.

I used to have such a machine around 1990, but really, now that almost everyone has a laptop and can get DAW software for nothing, they are about as useful as horse drawn cart.

[Bryn]

I used to have such a machine around 1990, but really, now that almost everyone has a laptop and can get DAW software for nothing, they are about as useful as horse drawn cart.

Not if one already has reel-to-recordings made on such a machine and wants to listen to or digitise them. Otherwise, indeed, museum pieces.

[seabright]

When the 91-year-old Stokowski conducted the "Enigma Variations" for the last time in his life, in 1973 with the NPO at the RAH, the Daily Telegraph's music critic Martin Cooper declared that the performance of the work was "certainly the finest I have ever heard." 50 years later it has popped up on YouTube, where all such great performances of the past should of course be archived. See if you agree with M.C.! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFDqdSL8lgM

[smittims]

Thanks for that; I will investigate. I'm familiar with his Decca recording with the Czech Philharmonic.

I've often wondered if Elgar had anything to do with Stokowski's 1912 debut with the London Symphony Orchestra, and if he heard Stokowski conduct. EE was, briefly, their chief conductor at the time . Stokowski would certainly have heard Elgar conduct during his London years.

[smittims]

Goodness, what a performance! I'm most grateful to you for drawing it to my attention. It is indeed superb. I especially liked Stokowski's tempi, not too slow for the opening statement of the theme, or for Nimrod, as many are. And how the organ sings out in the coda. I'm sure Elgar would have been thrilled to hear that rendering.

[seabright]

The appearance of Tadaaki Otaka on the TV the other evening reminded me that nearly 30 years ago he popped up in a documentary looking back over the first 100 years of the Proms. Other conductors who were interviewed equally briefly included Barbirolli, Stokowski, Colin Davis and Andrew Davis, along with Boulez, Moura Lympany and Gwyneth Jones. Others who popped up included Edward Heath, Donald McCleod and three Proms directors - Drummond, Glock and Ponsonby. Archive material included Sargent conducting "Belshazzar's Feast," Britten conducting his "War Requiem" and Thomas Allen fainting in "Carmina Burana." That latter performance ought to have been issued on DVD! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28CIDMwUXjw

[smittims]

Thanks for that link, seabright. I remember that Wordsworth concert very well. It's good to have a 'Henry Wood' retrospective occasionally. Among other things it reminds us of how much the Proms have changed, not always for the better. A more recent Prom in this line was the late Bramwell Tovey's where he played several Wood orchestrations.

[Dave2002]

This video about whether having any formal music training is "useful" is surprisingly worthwhile.

The conclusions which emerge are not what one might expect.