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Re: GG and Symbiosis
Bradley P Lehman wrote:
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Mary Jo Watts wrote:
Hi.
>(Anybody else besides me ever listen to Evans'
>"Peace Piece" and Chopin's "Berceuse" back to back?)
Well, not back to back -- but... a few years ago I used to listen to
Peace Piece every single night before bed --- this went on for about a
year.
I have GG playing only Bach really, and I'm wondering if anyone would be
kind enough to recommend which of his Mozart to start with and why.
Regards,
Harold
Earlier, one of my GG phases led to collecting everything I could
find by
Otto Klemperer. Something clicks there in the aesthetic
sensibilities of
his and GG's performances (though they never worked together).
Maybe the
sense of architecture and the attention to articulative
detail...everything is so objectively clear. I think the link may
have
been GG's mention of OK in that essay where he fantasized about
being able
to splice together symphonies with different sections performed by
different conductors (which I've tried with the finale of
Beethoven's 7th,
fascinating). It certainly wasn't because of the fact that OK's son
Werner was a primary actor on "Hogan's Heroes"...but Werner does
have a
decent sub-career of narrating orchestral works. ("A Survivor From
Warsaw," "Gerald McBoing Boing," etc.)
Also post-GG I've become a fan of Alfred Cortot, whose playing style
was
sometimes diametrically opposite of GG's, and just as extreme and
recognizable.
GG also induced me to collect Streisand, Schwarzkopf, and Petula
Clark
albums, and dig into Schoenberg and Sibelius. I started in on
Richard
Strauss, too, but doubt that I'll ever be even half as excited about
Strauss as GG was. But a dose of "Metamorphosen" is nice now and
then.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/