Rozhdestvensky in Budapest



Rozhdestvensky used to conduct various Budapest orchestras. On the last occasion he asked me why the players looked so sad. I had a ready reply that all Hungarians are either manic or depressive which I think is true. This entire orchestra were depressives.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jelly D'Aranyi and the Schumann Violin Concerto

Image
When will the film industry wake up and make a biopic of the life of Jelly D'Aranyi?  She inspired some of the greatest violin music of the first third of the 20th century. Born in Budapest 1893, she died in Florence in 1966, but spent most of her life in Britain. Joseph Joachim was her great-uncle and Jenő Hubay her teacher. Bartók fell in love with her. The elderly Elgar adored her. Ravel’s virtuoso showpiece Tzigane is dedicated to her. Delius wrote his Double Concerto for her and her sister Adila. She worked with Pablo Casals, Dame Myra Hess and Sir Adrian Boult, among other musicians also as legendary as she was. A painting of her by Charles Geoffroy-Dechaume hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0POrTYPT80 In March 1933, Baron Erik Kule Palmstierna – Sweden’s ambassador to London and an avid psychic researcher – was hosting a séance with his intimate circle of friends. Among them were two flamboyant musicians: the succulent...
Read more

Alexander Melik-Pashaev

Image
Another Russian conductor I like very much is Alexander Melik - Pashaev . I heard him conduct 'The Queen of Spades' at Covent Garden magnificently (my first). It was sung in English and the production I realised only recently was pinched from a film (1949) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_Spades_(1949_film) The Queen of Spades (1949 film) - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org I read somewhere that the snow effects in this film were created by grinding up Messerschmidt cockpit covers from crashed aircraft. Apparently these fragments were sharp and painful if the actors got caught under them. Melik Pashaev also conducted Aida at Covent Garden. He made many opera recordings. Those of non-Russian rep are surprisingly idiomatic (non-Russian) such as his 'Fidelio' with Vishnevskaya and 'Falstaff.' Vishnevskaya wrote very warmly of him in 'Galina,' saying how much she owed to him. He recorded very few non-operatic works https://melody.su/en/catalo...
Read more

Opera my father taught me

Image
My father was born and brought up in Dublin. His father used to take him to opera at the Gaiety Theatre. It was all very Irish apparently. My father told me people used to come an hour early and take their positions in the Gods and sing arias presumably unaccompanied. I've never heard of that happening anywhere else. The performances them selves must have been equally hilarious, Dad told me the band - and I think it really might have been a band rather than an orchestra - was conducted by Colonel Fritz Brase.*To use a euphamism, Brase was a 'colourful character.' See below his Wiki bio complete with Hitler salutes. I can't find any reference to Brase's operatic performances at the Gaiety Theatre but I trust my father's memory because he and his family had strong connections to Dublin's theatre scene. George Bernard Shaw also remembers being taken to opera by his father. Apparently at 'Il trovatore' the young Shaw asked his father what was going on wh...
Read more