Word: conductors
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92 (The Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, conductor; Columbia; $6.98). Few performances of this eloquent work can stand comparison with the 1936 recording by Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic (still available on RCA Victrola). This one can. Taped during a live performance in 1969 when Casals was 93, it is a summing up of all the attributes associated with him as a conductor: full-blooded sonorities, razor-sharp attacks, irresistible rhythms, shadings of almost chamber-music delicacy. Are there more like this in the Columbia vaults...
Vivaldi: Juditha Triumphans (Birgit Finnilä, contralto; Ingeborg Springer, mezzo-soprano; Elly Ameling, soprano; Annelies Burmeister, contralto;. Berlin Chamber Orchestra, Vittorio Negri, conductor. 3 LPs; Philips; $23.94). Vivaldi composed his 1716 oratorio for his students at the Ospedale della Pietá. the Venetian orphanage where he taught music. The subject was a bloody one for schoolgirls: after beguiling the barbarian commander with words and wine, Judith seizes his sword and chops off his head. The score is sumptuous, propelled by the Baroque master's typical unflagging vitality. In this recording both male and female solo roles are sung...
Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger, Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Prelude to Parsifal, Preludes to Act I and Act III of Lohengrin (Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, conductor; Philips; $7.98). If records like this did not come along occasionally, one would tend to take these familiar excerpts for granted-as Herbert von Karajan obviously does in a bleary competing version on Angel. The freshness and vigor of Haitink's interpretations stem, surprisingly enough, from his scrupulously orthodox approach. He is less interested in conveying his own message than in getting his men-all of whom seem...
Died. Percy Faith, 67, Canadian-born conductor-composer-arranger whose soothing sounds comforted the generation brought up on quiet evenings at home with live radio music; of cancer; in Los Angeles...
...which she later daringly appeared, navel exposed, in costume sans midriff. One of her most famous performances was at the Metropolitan Opera in 1931: she sang the difficult "Mad Scene" in Lucia di Lammermoor in the key of F, an entire tone higher than the original score. Married to Conductor André Kostelanetz from 1938 until their divorce in 1958, Pons moved to Dallas in 1961 and remained active in local opera...