classical music performances

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Fred
Date: 27 Jul 25 - 05:20 AM

Thanks, Tattie B :)

-F

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Jul 25 - 04:40 AM

According to Wiki, he lived in an old farmhouse in Wiltshire for 40 years - but whether he actually farmed isn’t clear. He was pretty busy with his concert programme.
Yes, another great master of guitar and lute, whom I had the great fortune to see live, as well as John Williams.

And oh yes, the Alhambra in Granada: we sat having our late evening dinner al fresco, with the stunning view of the Alhambra all lit up. A young girl busker with guitar came and sat down near us, and played through several of those classic guitar pieces which I recognised from an LP I had at home: Sor, Tarrega, Albeniz, Granados. Absolute magic!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Fred
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 09:51 AM

I may be wildly wrong, but wasn't Julian Bream a farmer? I could've swore I heard that or read it.

-F

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 08:45 AM

Getting back to performances:

I didn't go to the concert performance of Tosca at Tanglewood.
The conductor and the lead soprano are former spouses, both from Latvia.
I've sat through too many Toscas.

But rave reviews have been printed for the young tenor,
a Korean whose name I cannot spell. They say he is a major find.
If that's true, we'll be learning to spell his name soon enough.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 07:51 AM

Yeah, Fred they did several recordings together, their "Live" double LP is among my favorite guitar albums. I was lucky enough to attend a solo lute and guitar recital by Mr. Bream at the Kennedy back in the 70's. His introductions to each piece were almost as entertaining as his beautiful playing.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 07:43 AM

They did two very nice duo albums together years ago. I always thought that Julian played with far more character, squeaky fingers and all! Julian playing Granada by Albéniz has long been one of my desert island eight. :-)

(Not least because we spent a few idyllic days in Granada a few years ago and visited the Alhambra palace by moonlight...)

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Fred
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 05:58 AM

I'm partial to classical music. I especially liked classical guitarists John Williams and Julian Bream.

-F

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Hagman
Date: 23 Jul 25 - 04:52 AM

According to usually reliable sources (OK, it was Google's AI bot) it was Vladimir Horowitz, and the piece was a Chopin waltz.....

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 10:22 PM

Perfection of performance in recordings: There's a legend that one particular classical pianist* did a recording, and the engineer, as was standard practice, carefully edited out the mistakes. The pianist was furious, and demanded they be put back, so that people learning the piano not be discouraged when they made mistakes themselves.

* Name long forgotten. Enlightenment humbly requested.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 08:05 PM

That would be Gidon Kremer!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 08:03 PM

I never saw Segovia but my missus once did and she talks about it a lot. Ok, I'll name-drop a bit: I've seen Yehudi Menuhin, Murray Perahia, Andre Previn, Antal Dorati, Georg Solti, Eugen Jochum, Jesse Norman, Daniel Barenboim, Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Arrau, Bernard Haitink, Alfred Brendel, the Juilliard Quartet the Amadeus Quartet, Riccardo Muti, Mitsuko Uchida and a host of others whose names elude me just now. A bit random there!

Two concerts that stick in my memory was Haitink conducting Beethoven 7, and Arrau playing Beethoven's concertos 3, 4 and 5 - all in one concert!

Two concerts that were definite misses were both Beethoven 9s. Gidon Kramer conducted one and Leonard Slatkin the other. Don't muck about with Beethoven!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 07:27 PM

Tattie Bogle mentioned Andres Segovia's solo guitar recitals.

I heard one such recital around 1980, when he was near the end.
There were three categories of repertoire on the program:
old classics, like Bach, arranged for guitar by Segovia;
guitar music rescued from oblivion largely by Segovia;
and pieces that were commissioned for world premieres by Segovia.
So the whole program was intended to represent Segovia as an historical phenomenon in his own right, in classical music.

The concert was uneven, actually.
Segovia suffered a memory lapse in one long segment of the program, and struggled visibly to pick up the threads of the music.
It was during a long cycle that had been commissioned by him, and
plainly he had not performed it that often.

But, as the Tattie Bogle post points out,
Segovia had no shortage of encores with which to entertain the audience,
and in these he felt right at home and delivered them easily.
It was one of the most memorable concerts of my life, as Tattie Bogle's evening must have been one of hers.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Charmion
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 06:37 PM

There’s no experience like hearing a real, live orchestra in a proper concert hall without artificial sound amplification. If it’s a choral work with real, live human voices at full stretch, the effect is even more powerful. The resonance in the space conveys sound frequencies at levels that the brain perceives unconsciously, creating that overwhelming, irresistible fascination that classical music can generate.

When I get back to Ottawa — moving day is at the end of August — I shall forthwith buy myself a season ticket for the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Now that I don’t have to worry that Edmund would be bored, I can be as much of a culture-vulture as I want.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Jul 25 - 10:19 AM

Very possibly! You said you weren’t going to name-drop but two concerts that particularly stick in my mind, both at the RFH: Jacqueline du Pre playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto: just fantastic ! And Andres Segovia in a guitar recital which went on and on as he played encore after encore, much to everyone’s delight! He was somewhat elderly even then!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 06:55 PM

I wouldn't mind betting that we were at some of the same concerts...

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 21 Jul 25 - 11:16 AM

Like many of our generation, the music we had at school was pretty much all classical, apart from singing folk songs in primary school. In senior school, the choirs and orchestra sang and played the classics, and I grew to love a lot of them. Away to University, I was in London for 7 years, so enjoyed going to a lot of concerts at The Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall (including many Proms), even grand opera at Covent Garden. You could get tx for the concert halls for 5 bob (25p a quarter of a pound sterling!) I played in the University of London Orchestra and we had a great tour to Germany. Alongside this I was also able to see my folk heroes at those same halls and smaller venues.
We've been lucky in living in places where we still have access to good concerts, although rarely go now. Having lived in Edinburgh for nearly 40 years now, we are spoilt for choice all year round, not just at Festival time, and there are many Arts and Music Societies in smaller towns in the Lothians and Borders and Fife, more like those described by Joe and Steve.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 12:20 PM

I have a large collection of classical CDs which I hardly resort to any more. When I moved to London in the early 70s it was still vinyl (pops and scratches, and I knew when every single one was coming) and cassettes (tangles, wow and flutter). One had to put up with all that in those days but at least the recordings (if not the sound quality or musicality) were flawlessly edited. Then the "perfection" of CDs came along...

Therein lay my difficulty. My musical brain was miseducated into expecting unblemished playing, so when I started going to classical concerts on the South Bank I couldn't enjoy even my most favourite pieces for fear of hearing "mistakes," even though the music was always being performed by the great and the good of classical music (I won't do any boring name-dropping). It took me several years to realise that music is made by human beings, not computer software, so I agree that hearing a live symphony orchestra (or chamber orchestra string quartet of soloist) at least once, preferably far more than that, is a sine qua non when it comes to acquiring the understanding, the beauty and the humanity of great music.

Like Joe I live in a remote little town of about ten thousand people. Access to one of our major symphony orchestras is difficult and will be very occasional at best. But we have a local music society that brings in guests and we have our own little town concert orchestra. The conductor and his missus (who's the leader of orchestra) are known to us and we enjoy a friendly relationship. Their concerts are pretty ambitious and are very popular with us locals. All more than good enough for me!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 12:55 AM

When I got married in 2002, I moved about 12 miles outside of Auburn CA, which is 50 miles above Sacramento, where I had lived for 20 years. Auburn is only about 10,000 people, but it is the county seat and it has its own Symphony Orchestra. There are larger towns in the county, but they don't have a symphony.

The Matron of Honor at our wedding was a violinist in the Auburn Symphony, and my wife had season tickets. We've kept those same seats all these years. and attend three to five concerts a year. We know several members of the orchestra now, and lots of people in the audience. It seems like most of the music teachers in town are members of the Auburn Symphony. To my mind, the Auburn Symphony is better than either of the two symphony orchestras in Sacramento, a city of half a million.

Most of the Auburn Symphony performances are in the auditorium of Placer High School, a classic building built in 1926. And the performances are a delight, perhaps a little more informal than the symphonies you'd hear in the big cities - but we like it. Our favorite concerts are in the Fall, when they do spookier music and everyone dresses in costume - audience and orchestra alike. And on Mother's Day, the Auburn Symphony does a concert at the beautiful Mondavi Center. The Mother's Day concert is always something really special, not what you'd expect out of a small-town orchestra. Last year, they did the score for Walt Disney's Fantasia while the movie played on a screen above the orchestra.

We're so proud of our hometown orchestra, and of the many cultural events we have in our little town.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 25 - 12:29 AM

Agreed, Garg!

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 11:40 PM

I prefer classical.
Orchestra, quartet, choral, chamber.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

private, in-home, afternoon rehearsals, preferred.... however a full philharmonic orchestra EVERY LIVING PERSON ON EARTH needs to experience at least once .... or they lack a conception of Heaven.

Subject: RE: classical music performances
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 08:05 PM

I have a lot to say about this interesting topic but it's way past my bedtime. So see you tomorrow!

Subject: classical music performances
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jul 25 - 12:40 PM

Last evening I went to hear the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in concert.
The program was Rachmaninoff's setting of what are termed the All-Night Vigils, a set of Russian Orthodox chants.
It is rare to hear this music under any circumstances,
as it requires a large choir with bassos who can hit really low notes.

The concert was very well received, with warm applause.
The set of All-Night Vigils was long, but in a way I didn't want it to end,
so transporting was the experience.

It helped that they provided supertitles on a screen for those of us
who don't understand Old Church Slavonic texts.

Mudcat has numerous threads about classical music in one way or another,
but I don't think there is one about
the joys of attending a live performance of classical music.