The Concerto for Orchestra No. 1, “Naughty Limericks,” by the brilliant Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin (born 1932), composed in 1963. Great fun. Evgeni Svetlanov conducts the USSR Symphony Orchestra.
From 1972.
Here’s how the opening of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra sounds in its original form, as famously used to launch Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
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Pacific Overtures. September, 2018.
First in a series. Videographer: Paul Harkins.
Here’s one of my favorite concert videos. It features pianist Alexis Weissenberg playing Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka. The director is Ake Falck, and while he didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, the lighting and the camerawork here are superb. Notice how they actually focus your listening rather than distract, as visuals often do. Weissenberg reportedly recorded the piano part in the studio and synced to the recording for the film. –TM
The neoclassical Piano Concerto No. 1 by Lukas Foss (1922-2009), recorded by Pacific Symphony, Carl St.Clair, conductor and Jon Nakamatsu, piano. Released 2001. The piece was first written as a clarinet concerto when Foss was 17. He made this version of it four years later.
–TM
Leonard Bernstein conducts the Royal Danish Orchestra in the Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia Espansiva,” by Carl Nielsen.
