My memory is a little foggy on some of the details. I was in high school, already a burgeoning trombonist, and already getting in amongst my mother’s collection of classical LPs. At some point, though, I decided to buy one
Video: Yuja Wang plays ‘Tritsch-Tratsch Polka’
How is this even humanly possible? Yuja Wang plays the “Tritsch-Tratsch Polka” by Johann Strauss, Jr., as arranged by Gyorgy Cziffra.
Neglected Symphony: Symphony No. 8 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1955)
Here’s another in my occasional series. I love the use of bells and percussion in this piece. Sir Adrian Boult conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1972.
Audio: Stravinsky: Andante
Stravinsky’s music is often thought of as a relentlessly bold, spiky and angular, but he also wrote in gentle pastels. Here’s one such piece, his Andante for piano four hands (which I’m learning at the moment). And now listen to
Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’: Opening chords
This video presents a chronological survey of the first two chords (E-flat major) of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, as heard in recordings from the 1920s to the present day. You will notice not only different tempos, but also different tunings (the
Audio: Martinu: ‘Thunderbolt P-47’
What a fun piece this is — Bohuslav Martinu’s “Thunderbolt P-47.” It was written in tribute to the great fighter planes that helped to win WWII by the Czech emigre composer in 1945. It might make a nice addition to
Kleiber conducts ‘Thunder and Lightning’
An old standby. If this isn’t my favorite classical video, I can’t think which one is. The great Carlos Kleiber conducts the “Thunder and Lightning” Polka by Johann Strauss, Jr. This is stupendous conducting but most everything has already been
Happy 4th: Horowitz plays ‘Stars and Stripes’
Everyone should hear this at least once in their life: Vladimir Horowitz plays his own arrangement of Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” on April 23, 1951 at Carnegie Hall.
Video: Overture to ‘Candide’
As part of their annual Symphony in the Cities concerts this month in Newport Beach, Irvine and Mission Viejo, Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony will perform Leonard Bernstein’s rambunctious Overture to “Candide.” Here’s Bernstein himself conducting the New York
Sousatime
By TIMOTHY MANGAN Summer is upon us and that means that, as Americans, at some point in the next few months most of us will hear a Sousa march. The Pacific Symphony alone has four of them on its schedule.