His Candide Overture is perhaps the singular most joyful piece of brilliantly scattered, wickedly intractable music ever written, with its collision of overlapping themes; fearless jumps between walls of boisterous brass, swirls of tittering piccolos and swells of velvety strings; and headstrong, disobedient asymmetries that have no doubt awakened every conductor on the planet in cold sweats since 1956.
Here he is conducting his breathless juggernaut with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1989. I know the musicians know the music. I know HE knows the music. But I fail to see any sense of dialogue between them as he conducts. It makes ME break out in a cold sweat, so I can't watch.
You can watch at your own peril. But do take four and a half minutes to just listen.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Pride 101: Pride Month begins
Before the 1969 Stonewall riots, virtually every aspect of the lives of gay people was illegal to varying degrees in America: being openly g...
-
After a year of unemployment in Chicago where I half-assedly looked for jobs and shuffled back and forth from Cedar Rapids, I more or less o...
-
If I were going to assemble my favoite literary themes and tropes into a novel like it was a Build-A-Bear at the mall, North Woods by Danie... -
At first glance, James Ensor's 1891 Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring is perhaps a silly take on Halloween imagery. Or an homag...
Wow! Thanks for sharing.I love Bernsteins music. I haven't heard that piece in years. It brought me back to old memories when I played it in HS. Seeing him conduct it was an absolute joy. Again Thanks.
ReplyDelete