What are you listening to now?

Replied by Nikita on topic What are you listening to now?

Well, I've already said, in this topic, how much Mozart, the great Mozart, the brilliant Mozart, the superlative Mozart, well, he there, sometimes, even frequently, he bores me a bit due to becoming predictable in some of his works. Having said that, i don't either spit in the soup and admit that the guy also wrote enormous things, and some of them, they still remain in my favorites.

This 40th belongs undoubtedly to them. The whole planet knows this work, at least the Molto Allegro which opens it. Enormous thing which hit me soon when i was a child, which i was long to believe written by Beethoven, lol, and which always sends me the same hot pulses to the heart, the same itches in eyes ...

Well, it 's Sunday, here we go for it. Here, it's the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Noobs again, we are fed up ...

---

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Replied by Nikita on topic What are you listening to now?

---

Of course, there are lot of various versions of this universal piece by Stravinsky, on the web and in CDs stores. So, a good way to listen, to compare, to seize what can make the difference between a good interpretation and a reference interpretation.

I pretend having listened to lot of them, from the one by the Tokyo NHK conducted by Stravinsky himself (really not the best version, and here we can check that a great composer may be a poor enough conductor), to those performed by the greatest European and American orchestras, as the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra, all of these directed by major names as Karajan or Ozawa.

But here's my really favourite version of this work, Pierre Boulez, considered as a fine specialist of Stravinsky, who conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Just compare the finale, doubtless the most known part of this work and lot of available versions on the web (sure, some videos on the web are pieces of shit with really poor audio quality but this is the web ...) : There's something more in this version, the brilliance, the always right power, the enthusiasm, the something there, this magic when the orchestra and the conductor reach the perfect understanding. Here's what i feel, after having listened the entire work : At this moment of the work, these people are not in a tense mood due to the attention they pay for not crashing a good concert on its finale; no, these people, at this moment, they are serene, they know very well they have performed not only a good concert but a brilliant concert, something that stands out and, on this finale, they just express their common joy for having made it.

And if you listen to well, you can almost see them smiling ...

---

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Replied by Nikita on topic What are you listening to now?

---

What a coincidence, reading the press today i see that one of Stravinsky’s earliest works, called "Funeral Song" and considered as lost for about one century, was just rediscovered these days at the St. Petersburg Conservatory . I learn that this work was performed only once.

Wow ! Maybe next year we'll start to find something new on Stravinsky's CDs ...

Credit : Don Hunstein/Lebrecht/Rue des Archives

---

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Replied by Nikita on topic What are you listening to now?

---

In another style, Opera, here's what can happen when, simply, everyone make her job perfectly ... Callas, Di Stefano, Gobbi, conducted by De Sabata at the legendary Teatro alla Scala di Milano, peform Puccini's Tosca ...

This record is from 1953 and is still considered as the top, the best version ever. Several people and music critics even speak about "The Tosca of the centenary", nothing less ...

In any case, a safe bet ...

---

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Replied by Nikita on topic What are you listening to now?

---

This one is for you Otto, this farewell concerto.

Rest in peace, mate. I'll never again look at a betty without thinking about you.

---

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Replied by snowman on topic What are you listening to now?

Otto loved bagpipes. This one is for you, Otto. Love and peace where you go

---

"Straight and narrow is the path."

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.