Messages

It seems to me that any extended orchestral solo is just part of the job.  The first desk violin and cello are often called upon to play solos, just as the first desk wind players are.

translation: our budget didn't extend to two string soloists

Alternative translation: "Mr. Trpčeski declined to share the limelight with the first desk violin and cello players."

Ponti may well have been the first to record the complete concerto, though.

Ponti did his in 1974. The piano and orchestra are nicely balanced -- for once Ponti isn't in your lap.  You can hear a lot of orchestral detail, but the sound is typical for Vox before they started doing recordings with Joanna Nickrenz and Marc Aubort, who finally brought Vox sound (if not their pressings) on par with the big league labels.  It's muffled and sounded pretty dated even back then, as if you were listening to a recording from the early 50s.

Ponti being Ponti, he pushes the tempos, dispensing with the complete slow movement in a little over 14 minutes, but it does add for a lot of excitement in the outer movements.

Slightly off-topic, this disc is one of two that I have (the other being the Centaur recording of the Rubinstein fifth piano concerto) where there is a spot of incomplete silvering, such that there's a little pinhole of pure transparency where you can look right through the disc, yet the playing is unaffected (nor is it on the Centaur).  Because of the high summer humidity in my home, I need to gently wash my discs in lukewarm water from time to time to remove mold buildup which will easily cause skipping, so I am curious that this spot of transparency does not cause problems when playing.

I still recall my surprise when I finally heard the original and realized how much damage Siloti had done.  Was it Ponti who first recorded the original?  Back then it was always -- on the rare occasions it was played or recorded -- Siloti.

It seems to me most recordings these days have dispensed with the Siloti version.

"Everyone in Berlin knew that [Chancellor] Caprivi's days were numbered. Holstein remained loyal to the Chancellor to the end, but most politicians ignored Caprivi. At one dinner, the new Prussian Minister of War, General Walter Bronsart von Schellendorf, appointed to office without Caprivi's consent, publicly insulted, then turned his back on, the Imperial Chancellor. Caprivi understood. 'My relations with the All Highest have become intolerable', he wrote to a friend. 'You just cannot imagine how relieved I will feel to get out of here.'  On October 26, 1894, he resigned."

Robert K. Massie, "Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War", p. 117.

Sometimes a name just leaps off the page of the book you are reading. This was the case a few moments ago when I reached the passage above in Robert Massie's thousand-page history of the arms race between Great Britain and Germany in the two decades before the First World War. "Could it be?" I thought. They don't just hand out names like "Bronsart von Schellendorf". A quick trip to German Wikipedia revealed what I suspected: Walter was the brother of Hans, specifically his younger brother by three years.

Who knew?

A terrible loss for all of us.  His scholarship on Bruch was unmatched. 

There seems to have been only one brief mention here of Glazunov's incidental music to "The King of the Jews".  I've been curious about this work since I first saw it mentioned in a Vox catalog from 40 years ago, but I only recently took a chance on it by acquiring Rozhdestvensky's 1991 recording for Chandos.  I wish I had done so long ago.  It's really beautiful stuff.

It's now been recorded at least four times.  I'd be curious to know what others think of it.

...I am absolutely hoping to hear the whole thing one of these days, maybe on a cpo or Capriccio CD or even in concert (not likely in my area, where Mahler 5 is rare enough. Though NYC is not -that- far away.)

You are not alone, Eric.  Based on posts now several years old at the Weigl Foundation site about a future recording, I have been continually expecting that Capriccio's next Weigl release would be the Second, but it appears they are saving it for last.  Of course, I heartily welcome all the others, but it's curious that this would be the one we are all waiting for.

I've always liked the original version.  I've never found a wholly satisfactory recording, though I have at least three.  Still, I'll stick with what Brahms wrote. 

It wouldn't be the first time that a first class performance made a second class musical or theatrical work seem much better than it really is, a testament to Barenboim at his best.

Part of some vast Furtwänglerarian conspiracy, perhaps?  Not just mad -- diabolical!

The problem with listening to RW is the sections between the many purple passages and the overall length of his operas.

Someone once said R Wagner's music has brilliant moments separated by very long half hours.

Anyway, I just bought the CPO 7-disc S Wagner orchestral set, which I am enjoying immensely.

I reckon my German ain't none too gooder than my English.

Actually, I was going to ask you since I haven't a clue about German noun declension, but I decided instead to just wing it.  😉

Agreed on Barenboim's talent.  In 2004 I heard him conduct a Schumann 4 with the Staatskapelle Berlin at Carnegie that was bring-the-house-down amazing.  I've never heard it better before or since.  His Berlioz Te Deum is the only one I enjoy.  And it takes a real musician to make Furtwangler's 2nd sound like a logical, well-ordered composition. 

Sometimes great musicians miss the mark on what should be a sure fire success.  I've always felt Bernstein didn't quite get Shostakovich 5.

Once they heard it, they were hooked.