The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (156): Storm at sea, continent cut off

The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (156): Storm at sea, continent cut off

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norman lebrecht

August 19, 2020

I’m watching a fierce storm that has blown up on the English Channel, just across the road.

We are cut off from France by quarantine and imminent Brexit.

Is anyone making the film called Summer of 2020?

Has anyone ever whipped up a bigger musical storm than Georg Solti?

 

Comments

  • Greg Bottini says:

    “Has anyone ever whipped up a bigger musical storm than Georg Solti?”
    Karl Boehm, for one.

  • JBB says:

    “Has anyone ever whipped up a bigger musical storm than Georg Solti?”

    I don’t know — the recording linked is Dorati’s.

  • Petros Linardos says:

    The clip is of the wonderful Dorati recording, with George London and Leonie Rysanek. My kneejerk reaction is “they don’t make them like this anymore. Arguably, this recording has few peers and no superiors.

  • Frankster says:

    It’s also operatic material!

  • V. Lind says:

    That overture is far from being in my comfort zone…

  • Grittenhouse says:

    Down with Wagner.

  • Edgard Self says:

    I bought Doratii’s “Hollander” to get Karl Liebl’s Erik, probably the only purchaser to do so. Karl Liebl is an outstanding Tannhaeuser, Huon of Boreaux in Weber’s “Oberon”, and Tristan. His Huon is the best I’ve heard.

    In their “Flying Dutchman” overture, when Furtwaengler and the VPO crest the first swell, I wipe sea-water off my face. Also with thei”Fingal’s Cave” and at the end of the “Scottish” symphony, when the tide ttrns to let the rollers back in (Peter Maag/LSO, ).

    • Greg Bottini says:

      Hi Edgar,
      I don’t know Karl Liebl; I shall have to investigate him.
      My two Dutchman recordings are both Bayreuth Festival productions: Estes/ Balslev/Nelsson (I find the singing, conducting, overall commitment, and sound quality of this recording – on Philips CDs – absolutely top-grade) and Uhde/Varnay/Keilberth (ditto, except for the sound; I have this on an old Richmond LP set that had seen better days even before I acquired it).
      I have the Boehm recording of the overture I mentioned above on a DGG Bayreuth commemorative double LP set. It is superb. I also have that Furtwangler/VPO recording on an EMI Furtwangler miscellaneous collection set – it’s good but does not quite have the elemental energy of Boehm or Nelsson.

  • fflambeau says:

    Well, no but this is Dorati (who conducts in the video clip). I also like Andris Nelsons conducting the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; James Levine conducting the Met Opera; Edo de Waart (a real Dutchman) conducting the Milwaukee Symphony; and,, my favorite, Sir George Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra because of its magnificent brass section.

  • fflambeau says:

    Here’s another good one: Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the VPO (a nice remastered version). Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele led by Karl Böhm is also impressive. Klemperer takes a more stately but still lovely take with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. But I think for putting you in the storm as it happens, it’s Solti and Chicago.

  • Dilys Page says:

    Mahler? Oh well it’s magnificent …

  • Ed Gordon says:

    Regarding the film ‘Summer of 2020’, Shakesapeare has already written the opening line: ‘Now is the summer of our discontent’.

  • Edgar Self says:

    Hans Hotter is the man for trouble,– Wotan, the Dutchman, German Requiem, Loewe’s “Edward Ballad”. From 1942 on his recordings of the Dutchman’s monologues define the role for me. Joseph Keilberth conducted “my” Ring at Bayreuth in 1954. Clemens Krauss led the first cycle that year: Moedl, Windgassen, Neidlinger, Hotter, Resnik, Greindl, *tc.

    • Greg Bottini says:

      Dear Edgar,
      Hotter is also the man for wisdom – his Gurnemanz remains unsurpassed.
      Keilberth was a marvelous (and today, underappreciated) conductor, and he conducted the Bayreuth Ring from 1952-56. He died on the podium while conducting Tristan in 1968, in Munich.
      However, you are mistaken about Krauss: although he did indeed conduct the Bayreuth Ring in 1953 with a cast led by Varnay, Windgassen, Hotter, Resnik, and Vinay (I have the recording: it is my favorite Ring), he died in the spring of ’54, before that year’s Festival opened.
      Cheers…. -Greg

  • Edgar Self says:

    Thanks, Greg. f I’m right, Clemensl Krauss died in mile-high Meico City of a heart attack, but U thought he conducted the first 1954 Ring cycle in Bayreuth, before my cycle with Keilberth in Augus. Perhaps it was announced and another took his place. I don’t remember.

    Hans Hotter and wisdom, yes. Kurt Moll and Hoffmann with Muck and Gotthef Pistor . I saw Rene Pape sing Guernemanz here with Hampson a mfortas and unfortunaately Burkhard Fritz as Parsifal, concert Act III with the CSO.

    When I passed through Bamberg en route to Bayreuth and blew out a DC-AC transformer there. The Bamberg Symphony sent players to Bayreuth, as did Munich, and were making a name for themselves under Keilberth with many German players who left the Czech Philharmonic from Sudetenland annexation days But the knight’s statue of the Bamberger Reiter was still in the church, uncannily resembling Furtwaengler as Kempff pointed out.
    Hotter eventually sang all three “Parsifal”Heldenbariton roles, all recorded at least once I’m glad you know him, and wsh my memory were better. I have a Met “Dutchman” with Hotter in Bing’s days, who was no fan of his.

    Are you dodging the wildfires?

    • Greg Bottini says:

      Hi Edgar,
      The Bamberg Symphony always played well for Keilberth (on recordings). Other conductors were not always as successful. I have a quite humdrum set of Schumann symphonies with Eschenbach. There’s nothing really bad about it – it just has no life to it.
      Yes, I’m dodging the wildfires (we live in The City) but I feel the smoke in my throat if the wind blows the wrong way. Thanks for asking.

      • ´dgar ßelf says:

        Thanks, Greg. I remember smoke from the Oakland and napa fires, but winds are mostly westerly. I haven’t heard many Bamberg SO recordings and have no opinion of Eschenbach, even as a poetic young Schumann pianist with hair. Eschenbach’s protege Tzimon Barto is an interesting pianist, writer, and polymath/body-builder. He achieves the ideal A-flat Moment Musicale I dreamt of, like a slow chorus for male voices, and a G-flat Impromptu in he Horowitz ass. I caught his live recital at Ravinia a few years ago, Liszt and Brahms Paganinis, and a modern work read from miniature score.

        I liked Beecham’s foSchubert symphonies. They say Schubert himself never heard any of his ‘mature” orchestral music,– mature for 31,– or had a chance to revise or correct. It may show in the Ninth. I remember Beecham’s earlier Sixth, with one rhythm throughout, snd Leon Goosens’s oboe bringing up the rear.

        • Greg Bottini says:

          Dear Edgar, your typo, “a G-flat Impromptu in he Horowitz ass” had me laughing out loud.
          Beecham certainly was great in Schubert symphonies. Haydn and Mozart, too. He had in abundance the one quality which is sadly lacking in most musicians of today: charm.
          Sir T. left Beethoven mostly alone, but somewhere buried deep in my LP collection is a live Ninth. I’ll have to dig it out someday and play it, as I have no memory of it whatsoever.
          Speaking of Hotter, the most recent Ninth I’ve listened to is Karajan/VPO/1947, with a pretty amazing soloist lineup: Schwarzkopf/Hoengen/Patzak/Hotter.
          It is a truly great performance. HvK was always very successful in the Ninth.
          And the Legge-produced sound is excellent, at least it is on my Japanese Toshiba-EMI pressing.
          Hope you’re well….
          – Greg

          • Edgar Self says:

            Charm is missing from more than music, Greg. We must do something about it. A good life needs something more than just seven billions selling each other things and disagreeing anonyously.

            For Beechamesque charm in excelsis, there is his record of Andre Gretry’s “Air de Ballet” and that Mozart divertimento in D with a horn quartet ambling through its movements.

  • Edgar Self says:

    Subconscious truth, more Freudian slip than typo, considering those involved, Greg. I must do more proof-reading to avoid lawsuits or our genial host will be envious. My seeing-eye people had time off for good behaviour. I wish this site allowed post editing like the Amazon forums.

    I’ve never heard a Beecham Ninth, live or dead, but liked his Second, Fourth, and “Pastoral” and played two of them in orchestra. There must be an Eighth from Sir Thos, Bart., but Ian’t remember [t.

    They taught us he wrote four symphonies: the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth, but I often like the others more, for everyday.

    I’m tottering around more dangerously than ever, thanks, relying on you to keep that Italian triolor flying. The wildfire news sounds a bit better. We have a heat wave about to break. How did pioneers survive sod huts without A/C?

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