The conductor Franz Welser-Möst has a busy weekend. Saturday morning he will be presiding over the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Day concert. Sunday he will appear on WQXR’s Mad About Music, telling Gilbert Kaplan some of his darker secrets.
As well as airing his reflections on hostile music critics – a must-hear for misery hacks – the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera gets to pick a wild-card record, one that you wouldn’t expect to appear among his personal favourites. What can I tell you? It’s not a Strauss waltz or a Bruckner dirge (Franz is from Linz, like Bruckner and the other famous Austrian, name escapes me).
Pin your ears back, it’s a klezmer whirl.
He also gets to pick the music for his funeral. Simon Keenlyside, check your diary. He’s booking you for Schubert songs, date to be advised.
The conductor Franz Welser-Möst has a busy weekend. Saturday morning he will be presiding over the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Day concert. Sunday he will appear on WQXR’s Mad About Music, telling Gilbert Kaplan some of his darker secrets.
As well as airing his reflections on hostile music critics – a must-hear for misery hacks – the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera gets to pick a wild-card record, one that you wouldn’t expect to appear among his personal favourites. What can I tell you? It’s not a Strauss waltz or a Bruckner dirge (Franz is from Linz, like Bruckner and the other famous Austrian, name escapes me).
Pin your ears back, it’s a klezmer whirl.
He also gets to pick the music for his funeral. Simon Keenlyside, check your diary. He’s booking you for Schubert songs, date to be advised.
Today’s free classical download is the opening of the first-ever recording of the tenth string quartet by David Matthews, a British composer steeped in Mahlerian language while developing a voice that is absolutely his own. The Lontano from his 10th quartet is one of the lovelist passages I have heard all year.
It comes courtesy of a new participant in the free downloads scheme.
Toccata Classics is a one-man band invented by Martin Anderson, publisher, critic and sometime international economics official. Toccata pursues esoteric music with rare passion. Some of its composers were pushed to the margins by political condictions in their country, others have simply failed to obtain the recognition they deserve. Toccata has high standards and produces few duds. Unusually, you can obtain its new recordings by subscription.
Here is the wonderful David Matthews work, played by the Kreutzer Quartet. You know now where you can find more.
To download
Matthews: String Quartet No. 10, Op. 84 – I. Lontano
click the link below:
TOCC0058-09.mp3
Kreutzer Quartet at work
Today’s free classical download is the opening of the first-ever recording of the tenth string quartet by David Matthews, a British composer steeped in Mahlerian language while developing a voice that is absolutely his own. The Lontano from his 10th quartet is one of the lovelist passages I have heard all year.
It comes courtesy of a new participant in the free downloads scheme.
Toccata Classics is a one-man band invented by Martin Anderson, publisher, critic and sometime international economics official. Toccata pursues esoteric music with rare passion. Some of its composers were pushed to the margins by political condictions in their country, others have simply failed to obtain the recognition they deserve. Toccata has high standards and produces few duds. Unusually, you can obtain its new recordings by subscription.
Here is the wonderful David Matthews work, played by the Kreutzer Quartet. You know now where you can find more.
To download
Matthews: String Quartet No. 10, Op. 84 – I. Lontano
click the link below:
TOCC0058-09.mp3
Kreutzer Quartet at work
