Friday, March 11, 2011
Will He or Won't He?
Take the exposition repeat in the first movement of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, of course. Plenty of tickets, including rushes, still available for Kurt Masur's Mendelssohn program at SFS tonight and tomorrow night, which also features the complete (and absolutely wonderful) incidental music from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The overture is the best piece of music ever written by a 17-year-old. You spotted snakes, indeed!
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3 comments:
The overture is the best piece of music ever written by a 17-year-old
No, Korngold writing Der Ring des Polykrates and the awesome Violanta before he was 18 is more impressive than a mere overture! :-)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream. The overture is the best piece of music ever written by a 17-year-old"
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No question about it.
As an aside: It is totally inexplicable that Herbert von Karajan -- the finest conductor of the past 60 years -- never recorded it.
He did a great box set recording of all the symphonies and the 'Hebrides' overture (twice) in the early 1970's with Deutsche Grammophone but never 'Midsummer'.
A weird gap in a great man's discography...
(Sigh)
Henry, you might, just might, have me there, although I see you Violanta (a great opera, I agree) and raise you Mendelssohn's Octet.
Karajan, the finest conductor of the past 60 years? Well, them's fightin' words, in a world that includes Giulini, Kubelik, Kna, Haitink, Mackerras, Bernstein, Horenstein, Muti, Kertesz, Ancerl, Solti, and many many other greats.
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