A video masterclass in icebox conducting
mainHere’s a video on youtube of Evgeny Mravinsky conducting the third movement of Shostakovich’s eighth symphony.
I have watched it five or six times over two days, never having witnessed so lucid a demonstration of what a great conductor of the old school can do with the soundtrack of his own lifetime. I have even watched it with the sound off.
The film is rare in many ways – that it exists at all; in good sound and colour; and that it is shot by a film director who understands conducting. In short, a miracle.
The orchestra is the Leningrad Philharmonic, concertmaster Viktor Liberman.
I expect to watch it many times more.
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