Word: wagnerism
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Some conductors prefer Beethoven, others Wagner. Some like sopranos, others tenors. Conductor Peter Maag's rather specialized preference is for the key of E-flat major. "Tonalities are like colors," he explains. "Have you noticed that when Mozart attacks E-flat he al ways uses clarinets, and when he attacks D-major he always uses oboes? E-flat suggests something very mature and saturated. D-major music is whiter and sharper. E-flat suggests a dark tone, a dark color like dark blue or green...
...songs. The symphony form, he complained, caused him endless anxiety: "It is lively but not very much so, being somber and weighty too." His B Flat Major displays none of these characteristics. It is instead a pleasant, supple work, replete with gracefully phrased suggestions and intuitions, rather like prettified Wagner. Ernst Ansermet leads the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in an appropriately understated performance. Chausson was one of Cesar Franck's many dedicated disciples, and Les Bolides, a brief symphonic poem, shows that Franck is easily the more fluent composer...
SCHOENBERG: VERKLÄRTE NACHT; WAGNER...
...WAGNER: OVERTURES TO THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, TANNHAUSER, TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, DIE MEISTERSINGER (RCA Victor). These preludes are classics, available in many different interpretations. Here Erich Leinsdorf leads the Boston Symphony with intelligence and vigor. A formidable protege of Toscanini's, Leinsdorf lacks the master's soul, and admirers of the more reflective Wagnerian school may find his performance somewhat grating. Yet those who like their Wagner with discipline and drive will enjoy the record...
Spoken references to that unfilmed past which set up the plot premise provide an idea both of Chabrol's pragmatism and the point at which his imagination begins to make connections and build strange relationships between the characters: Paul is the legitimate heir to the Wagner champagne firm, an old and fabulously respected French wine. His father was swindled out of ownership by a man whose daughter Christine (Yvonne Furneaux) now runs the company. Paul has only rights to the name Wagner, this preventing Christine from selling the company to crass American industrialists who won't buy the firm without...