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.
The Lyric for Strings by George Walker.
We noticed the new trailer (kind of violent) for “Outlaw King” on Netflix uses a famous classical tune as underscoring.
The tune? Albinoni’s Adagio, of course, which probably wasn’t actually composed by Albinoni, but by 20th-century musicologist Remo Giazotto. Here’s how it normally sounds.
The piece has been heard in many films before, including “Gallipoli” in 1981.
Shostakovich composed his Festive Overture for full symphony orchestra, of course, and that’s the version that conductor Carl St.Clair and Pacific Symphony will perform at the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular on Sept. 8. Meanwhile, here’s another version, amusing but impressive all the same, performed entirely on ocarinas by Jordan Moore, a student at the Eastman School of Music. –TM
The ocarinas used are:
Focalink Double Soprano G
Rotter 12-hole Soprano C
Rotter 10-hole Soprano G
Rotter 12-hole “Fairy” Alto C
Claudio Colombo Alto G
Claudio Colombo Bass C
Claudio Colombo Bass G
Claudio Colombo Contrabass C
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