What it’s like to see a conductor in the round
mainThis is what it’s like to sit in the middle of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with music director Daniel Harding in a 360-degree video from yesterday’s rehearsal of Stravinskys “the firebird”.
Daniel says: ‘Absolutely terrifying video of how it is to sit in the orchestra and attempt to decipher the wild gyrations of a conductor…’
I always wonder why people want to perform the kitschy complete Firebird music instead of the superb suite Stravinsky made in 1919.
….particularly under that overrated conductor….
Listen to the 1978 Colin Davis recording made with some Dutch orchestra.
I prefer this – http://www.dw.com/en/join-sarah-willis-at-the-heart-of-the-orchestra/a-18786550 – concept (and incidentally the conductor as well).
Hey thanks for that Max, what a wonderful concept, and my favourite conductor, orchestra and venue. What shame he’s leaving…
Fully agree. Iván Fischer leaving the Konzerthausorchester is indeed a shame. I will say that I am interested to see who they will choose to succeed him and in what direction he/she might take the orchestra.
I just found this new short video, not really about music or the people who make it, but visually interesting – drones flying inside the new hamburg philharmonie:
https://countdown.elbphilharmonie.de/de/slowmotion/
All those staircases! Then again footage from a drone in an elevator wouldn’t take nearly as long to get to the point, which is the hall itself. And there’s too little footage of that. What’s shown gives little encouragement about its acoustics — far too orchestra-in-the-middle. Let’s hope the low frequency balance is good, a common problem with such designs.
I’m not allowed to see it for some reason.
For some reason Harding doesn’t employ the divided-violin, cellos Right, violas Left arrangement he has used with this and many other orchestras before. Any other arrangement would anachronistic since the piece was written before the first modern reseating plan of Henry Wood (1911).