This week I’m still exploring the role of the accompanist, especially from unusual, unsuspected talents. Here is soprano Galina Vishnevskaya who married the famous cellist Rostropovitch, but here Rostropovitch is at the piano for an entire recital of Tchaikovsky.
Read MoreSince we’re looking at the art of “the collaborative pianist” I think it’s time to hear from Sir Gerald Moore, perhaps my favorite singers’ pianist. He played with all the greatest singers of his day and really knew his craft. If you can listen to him through this to the end you will be rewarded.
Read MoreI once was criticised as having “played like a conductor”. Or so I thought. The critic said later “Oh no, I thought it was wonderful. Colorful, orchestral sounds, structurally solid, and not careful the way some accompanists are.” Wow, I thought.
Read MoreI remember Vladimir Horowitz playing the Schumann Dichterliebe with Fischer-Dieskau (from memory) at Carnegie Hall. It was pretty wonderful, if unusual. Here is the same inimitable Fischer-Dieskau with another famous pianists, the great Sviatislav Richter. Who know Richter could play Schubert so sensitively?
Read MoreThe songs are famously erotic, and singers now tend to present them in a rather sultry tone—but this actually goes against Debussy’s intentions. The singer who he selected to premiere the piece, Blanche Marot, was actually selected for her virginity.
Read MoreAs our country once again reacts to a horrific act of violence, I found myself coming back to Dylan’s “Masters of War,” performed by the incredible voice of the civil rights movement, Odetta.
Read MoreMy favorite singer of all time is Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Watching Lorraine in this performance, I’m awed once again by the depth of the connection between her body, heart, and voice. To me, her sound is like the voice of the earth and of our deepest humanity.
Read MoreThis piece is by John Taverner, a very early British composer who lived 1490-1545. It’s an Easter piece, depicting the moment just before Mary Magdalen discovers that the stone of Jesus’s tomb has been rolled away – so even though it’s for Easter, the music still is filled with the bleakness of Holy Week, with plangent trebles soaring high above the altos.
Read MoreI fell in love with this recording of Dawn Upshaw’s Naumberg Recital with Margo Garrett on the piano when I was a student at Juilliard. It was actually Steve Blier who divined that this song would turn out to be a life-changingly meaningful piece for me, and assigned it to me to learn when I was studying with him there.
Read MoreOne of the anomalies of my life as an artistic director is that I have to think about Christmas in June. Our annual Goyishe Christmas program at Henry’s is set for December 12, and it would be smart to get a cast assembled sooner than later. It’s been a little easier to turn my mind to GC this year because it has been so cold outside. I seriously thought about wearing a scarf on Wednesday, and now wish I had
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