Word: conductors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...residents of Brno promote Janacek's work as hard as they play down his life-a chronicle so scandalous that, after 50 years, Brno still blushes and changes the subject when anyone mentions it. A choir director, conductor and organ teacher, Janacek at age 27 married one of his students, 16-year-old Zdenka Schulz, and lived unhappily ever after. Despite two children, Janacek humiliated his wife with his spectacular philandering. In less amorous moments, he found time to compose three minor operas and The Excursions of Mr. Brouček, a light, satirical tale about a flight...
Puccini: La Fanciulla del West (Soprano Carol Neblett, Tenor Placido Domingo, Baritone Sherrill Milnes; Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Zubin Mehta, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon; 3 LPs). Fanciulla (1910) is a second-rate Italian opera comically posing as a shoot-'em-up thriller. Neblett makes a dramatic frontier heroine. Domingo, as her lover, sings everyone else under the bar, and Milnes is dashingly villainous. With Mehta in the saddle, chorus and orchestra ride smartly home...
Monteverdi's Contemporaries (The Early Music Consort of London, David Mun-row, conductor; Angel). A fascinating col lection of sacred and profane music by nine little-known Italian composers of the 16th and early 17th centuries, performed on such authentic instruments as sackbut, recorder and shawm. As usual with the Consort, the playing (and in the mot ets, singing) is of the highest quality...
Prokofiev: Ivan the Terrible (Mezzo Irina Arkhipova, Baritone Anatoly Mokrenko, Narrator Boris Morgunov, Ambrosian Chorus and Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, conductor; Angel; 2 LPs). This oratorio, arranged from Prokofiev's score for Eisenstein's two-part Ivan the Terrible film, makes splendid melodrama. Muti conducts a dashing blend of ominous march rhythms, pagan-sounding brass flourishes and pealing Russian bells...
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon) Symphony No. 6 (Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, conductor; Deutsche Grammophon; 2 LPs). Ozawa's intensity is ideal for the extreme contrasts of the stormily triumphant first symphony. Conducting the grim, immense sixth, Karajan draws amazing color from the orchestra. The slow third movement is a lovely idyl amidst the gloom...