Word: mozarts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That was the way Thomas began Mozart's Requiem at the "Mostly Mozart Festival" in Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall last week. A remarkably mature performance, it confirmed an opinion that has been growing since late last fall: at 25, Thomas is perhaps the most naturally gifted young conductor to come along since Leonard Bernstein more than a generation...
...Mozart's Requiem, written as the 35-year-old composer lay dying, is one of those unearthly, suprahuman creations that are virtually impossible for conductors to turn into personal statements. Thomas' performance lacked a certain reflective delicacy that might have made the work more of a requiem and less of a showpiece, but he clearly demonstrated that as a conductor he is thoroughly capable of reaching his performers in the grand style defined long ago by Hector Berlioz: "His inward fire warms them, his electric glow animates them, his form of impulse excites them...
...York debut showed that the conducting ranks can well profit by Fleisher's misfortune as a pianist. He had all the right instincts, and plenty of natural talent to communicate them. Leading the New York Chamber Orchestra in a program of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, he demonstrated a smooth, supple rhythmic sense and ideas about the music that were definitely his own. As New York Times Music Critic Harold Schonberg put it: "Some conductors have worked for years on less...
...rehearsing an amateur orchestra, he "started with a stick but found that it took on a life of its own, and did things I did not want it to do, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice." No danger of that this time. The "Haffner" Symphony was a model of Mozart interpretation-clean, clear and crisp-and in Mozart's Concerto in C Major, K.503, Fleisher afforded Soloist Claude Frank the kind of knowing partnership that made it seem as if the two men were playing four-hand piano -which indeed they used to do, as brilliant pupils...
Cast in the old-fashioned molds of aria, duet, octet, chorus, etc., Les Troyens looks a bit archaic on paper. But in performance, the music churns with energy. Berlioz's restraint and sharp musical delineation of character are on a level with Mozart, Gluck and Wagner at their best...