Word: beethovens
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...more than half a dozen works-notably Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, to which he brings astonishing rhythmic control and a primitive passion for the work's savage shafts of power. He does not much care for Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Bruckner, but his conducting of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn has been superb in its structural logic. During his Philharmonic stay, he attracted a younger, more intellectual audience than usual. Even the hard-to-please orchestra was impressed with his mentality and uncanny ear. "He's probably got the greatest musical ear in the world," says Saul...
...still a formal experience that most turned-on youth regard as static, outmoded and irrelevant. As the conservative, 19th century-oriented programming of most orchestras proves, the institutions are trapped into patterns of pleasing the wealthy patrons who support them-and by and large, the patrons like Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. This does not mean that the orchestras would automatically attract larger audiences with avant-garde programs. The real problem is attracting the young today so that there will be an audience tomorrow...
Last week Vienna celebrated the centennial of its baroque musical shrine on the Ringstrasse. One of the city's favorite visitors, Leonard Bernstein, opened the festivities with a stunning performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Next evening Karl Böhm conducted Beethoven's Fidelia, with a cast that included American Tenor Jess Thomas and Soprano Leonie Rysanek of New York's Metropolitan Opera. The week's musical highlight was undoubtedly Mozart's Don Giovanni, which was performed on the gala May night in 1869 when the Emperor Franz Josef presided over the opening...
...reign of music-loving Emperor Leopold I, who in 1659 tried to distract his subjects from problems of the plague and the Counter-Reformation by staging Italian opera at his court. The royal theatricals became a showcase for the works of such musical immortals as Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. Toward the end of the 19th century, Composer-Conductor Gustav Mahler ushered in another Golden Age of Viennese opera by stressing dramatic stagecraft as well as musical excellence in his productions. The years that followed were a time of great names (Enrico Caruso, Maria Jeritza, Lotte Lehmann, Bruno Walter...
...father figure to young players, whom he entertained in his Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park, talking music or baseball and cooking for them (he loved all kinds of beans-and popcorn). Almost always in the background there was the sound of classical music; Hawk loved Bach and Beethoven as much as a strong jazz solo...