Prom 51: Boston SO/Nelsons (23.08.15)

[mahlerei]

Did you ever try the Nelsons Manfred Symphony? ( I haven't)

No, but some of my MWI colleagues speak highly of it. Very fond of the Kitaienko/Gürzenich Manfred on Oehms. A lovely performance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Alison
You may have a point about DSCH and US orchestras, although the Chicagoans did that terrific Seventh with Bernstein.

And Mitropoulos' #10 with the NYPO.

[Anastasius]

I found the Shostakovitch very moving in the hall. I am new to the work but it brought tears to my eyes. Maybe ones own personal background comes into play. My mother lived through Stalin's compulsory famine in the Ukraine

[Ferretfancy]

"too much the nice chap to scare these musicians"
Very unfortunately this is the simple reason why 99% of 'modern' conductors don't and CAN'T achieve the results that their 'much less nice' predecessors were able to!
We live in a crazy world where 'orchestral managers' are allowed to - and even encouraged to - tell a conductor exactly how far he/ she is 'allowed to to go' in terms of demanding 'improvements' and 'results' from the orchestral players.
Those truly great and 'demanding' conductors of the past must be spinning in their graves, e.g. Toscanini, Szell, Reiner, Horenstein, Silvestri, Bernstein etc....!

Well, perhaps. I love the great conductors of the past and was lucky enough to see many of them, including Monteux, Barbirolli, Silvestri, Bernstein etc, It's worth remembering that you would have to be very old indeed to have seen them conduct when they were young. What we have are recordings and memories of great men after many years of experience. As I'm now eighty I don't expect to see the nice Mr Nelsons mature into an elder statesman, but I hope to hang around for a bit longer!

[teamsaint]

Modestly paid professional performers deserve good employment conditions.

I don't see much need for good conductors to be "not nice."

except the ones with Napoleon complexes, of course.
They can't help it, obviously.

[richardfinegold]

And Mitropoulos' #10 with the NYPO.

MTT/SFSO 5th, Haitink/CSO 4th

[DublinJimbo]

To be fair I assumed DJ meant live live, rather than recorded live...

That is exactly what I meant. I'm a bit of a fan of Nelsons, and was impressed by the BSO's own-label recording with him of the Tannhäuser overture and Sibelius Two (the third movement of which is more 'vivacissimo' than any other performance I can recall). But this Shostakovich CD still disappoints.

[Petrushka]

But this Shostakovich CD still disappoints.

I couldn't disagree more with this. I've just played it and it's terrific. Baffled by the mention of the 'opaque' sound of this disc as it sounds perfectly fine to me. Perhaps a lift in volume might help?

I was present in the RAH for this Prom yesterday afternoon in 'M' Stalls and it sounded pretty good from where I was sitting. Nelsons can be both fascinating and distracting to watch; he seems to conduct every single note of every instrument, cueing in absolutely everything with plenty of crouching and knee bending going on. He used the baton like a rapier. Unfortunately had to dash off during the wild applause at the end in order to catch a train so I hope I didn't miss an encore or two.

[Serial_Apologist]

Modestly paid professional performers deserve good employment conditions.

I don't see much need for good conductors to be "not nice."

except the ones with Napoleon complexes, of course.
They can't help it, obviously.

I should imagine that needing to keep your hand on your wallet inside your jacket must be something of a handicap when conducting, thereby accentuating not only the Napoleon pose but the complex too.

The sound of one hand???

I've also often wondered at the way 18th century French officers always wore their hats side-to-side, whereas the British wore theirs from back-to-front. (Not actually wearing them back to front of course, as the hats, or helmets, appeared symmetrical at that period). I wonder if this had any effect on the way our respective nations ran their empires differently.

Anyway, I'm off-topic.