Perpetual Witchery
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
“The music is a perpetual witchery . . . I am racked, flayed, dislocated by this devilish [work],” complained an anoymous 1735 critic complained about Rameau’s “Les Indes gallantes.”
Despite much contemporaneous controversy about Rameau’s second opera-ballet, “Les Indes gallantes” was performed 64 times between 1735 and 1737, so somebody liked it. Earl Wild starts us off with a piano version of one of its dances “Tambourins”; in hour two, Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre de la Chapelle Royale present an authentic-instruments orchestral suite that includes the Overture, and a good many airs and dances from the opera.
The September 9, 1941 recording of Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat, K. 563, brings together three great string players of the first half of the 20th century, violinist Jascha Heifetz, violist William Primrose (who was born this day in 1903), and cellist Emanuel Feuermann. A performance of gorgeous music by incredible performers ...
As Andras Batta reminds us, “The originality of the themes, their physiognomy, the buoyant orchestration and the skilful handling of the ideas and the optimistic spirit of the work have made the Eighth Symphony one of Dvorak’s most popular compositions.” Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Despite much contemporaneous controversy about Rameau’s second opera-ballet, “Les Indes gallantes” was performed 64 times between 1735 and 1737, so somebody liked it. Earl Wild starts us off with a piano version of one of its dances “Tambourins”; in hour two, Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre de la Chapelle Royale present an authentic-instruments orchestral suite that includes the Overture, and a good many airs and dances from the opera.
The September 9, 1941 recording of Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat, K. 563, brings together three great string players of the first half of the 20th century, violinist Jascha Heifetz, violist William Primrose (who was born this day in 1903), and cellist Emanuel Feuermann. A performance of gorgeous music by incredible performers ...
As Andras Batta reminds us, “The originality of the themes, their physiognomy, the buoyant orchestration and the skilful handling of the ideas and the optimistic spirit of the work have made the Eighth Symphony one of Dvorak’s most popular compositions.” Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra.
