Wednesday, went and saw Andras Schiff play Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier. The acoustics at Disney Hall are superb. It was too expensive to sit where we sat, but I noticed he changed the fingering on the Prelude in C Major from what he'd indicated in the Henle Edition!
It's amazing work. The preludes are little jewels thrown out to clear the palate in between the massively engineered structures of the fugues.
I like Guilini and Kempf was one of the best. At a meet and greet with the LA Phil a violinist still had awe in her voice when she talked about playing for Giulini.
Friday we will see the Joffrey Ballet's recreation of the original Rite of Sping. It's gonna be great.
Edit: I like the old school stuff. We were THAT close to having a recording by Liszt. Just missed it.
The Rite was awesome. For once being high in the balcony was a plus. Nobody was nodding off during this, it was really thrilling. I only regret we didn't get tickets for another night.
The original post - rehearsal of Brahms Second symphony - that was great. Had to go put the CD on the sound system. It was what we were rehearsing when I joined the U of Pacific Conservatory Orchestra and I’ve loved it ever since. Being a trombonist (then) it was especially rewarding to build toward that great, triumphal final chord, which was cut off here. It has been decades - hell, half a century plus - since I was part of such an ensemble, and I still miss it.
Another nice thing, brief as it was, was watching musicians which were all business and didn’t bob around like they were having seizures. Seems to have become the style these days that everybody who can afford to move their instruments much “interprets” their musicianship with so much body English that the whole orchestra appears to be squirming. Worst offenders - the violins and small woodwinds. Watched an oboist with the Berlin Phiharmonic lurching about with such ecstatic, egotistic abandon that if he’d hit his knee he’d have driven that double reed right through his palate. And I have to admit, I sort of wished he would. The music was good, though, with eyes closed.
Intermezzo I
Let us know!