Wow, I was prepared for blandness but not this bland.
Prom 74 - 8.09.17: Vienna Philharmonic – Brahms, Mozart and Beethoven
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As the token American here, I reluctantly agree that the Mozart was just OK, nothing great. Having met Emanuel Ax at CD signings, he's the nicest guy that you could ever want to meet, but I've heard him on much livelier form in other live performances. He's not at all a showoff, but he was self-effacing to a fault here. I got the sense in the Brahms that MTT had the sense to wind up the VPO, turn the key, and let them play, with just a slight bit of hesitation at the start of the last chord. It is rather ironic that an orchestra at the heart of the Austro-Germanic repertoire should have two Americans at the front of the podium for this Prom, in contrast to an Austrian conductor with an American orchestra on Monday.
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Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostI just found that K449 boring and lacking in any sort of sparkle ."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink
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Originally posted by Petrushka View PostI'm afraid I have to agree. The VPO recorded this very concerto with Abbado and Pires. Different class altogether. So far I'm glad I decided to skip this Prom. As I said above, this repertoire isn't MTT's territory.
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This is indeed a surprise, the Vienna Philharmonic performing Delius as an encore, and very nicely. Dare I say that the best part of this VPO Prom was the last? (Also, I wonder how many of the VPO musicians in this Prom played Mahler 6 last night. That might have been enough to drain the energy out of anyone.)
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Originally posted by Petrushka View PostI'm afraid I have to agree. The VPO recorded this very concerto with Abbado and Pires. Different class altogether. So far I'm glad I decided to skip this Prom. As I said above, this repertoire isn't MTT's territory.
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Originally posted by bluestateprommer View PostThis is indeed a surprise, the Vienna Philharmonic performing Delius as an encore, and very nicely. Dare I say that the best part of this VPO Prom was the last? (Also, I wonder how many of the VPO musicians in this Prom played Mahler 6 last night. That might have been enough to drain the energy out of anyone.)
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For reasons I needn't go into, I was listening on FM, and I must say the FM sound is really awful. So that didn't help. But I thought the first movement of the Beethoven was dull in the extreme. The symphony picked up after that - but Beethoven dull??? I was thinking back wistfully to Edinburgh a fortnight ago, where we heard a period-instrument performance of the Piano Trio Op 1 No 3 with Kristian Bezuidenhout and Jonathan Cohen. That was electric. We could have done with some of that electricity here.
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