Klarinet Archive - Posting 000901.txt from 1998/07

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] MAHLER WAS A BIG CONDUCTOR ALSO!
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 22:27:51 -0400

On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, avrahm galper wrote:

> Sergei Rachmaninoff, the famous Russian musician, relates in his
> "Recollections" that he once heard Mahler in New York in 1909 conducting
> Berlioz's "Life of an Artist" and that in the fourth movement (March to
> the Scaffold) he obtained a crescendo of the brass instruments 'such as
> I have never heard before. The very windows shook, the very walls
> seemed to vibrate'.

As I have posted, I very much admire Mahler the composer, and I know that
he was regarded as one of the world's most outstanding conductors of his
day, as well. However, it seems to me that getting a crescendo from the
brass would be about the least of any conductor's problems. Now, if
Rachmaninoff had said that Mahler had achieved a pianissimo in the brass,
that would be something to write home about.

Ed Lacy
(Who usually sits in the orchestra with a trumpet bell pointed at each
ear, at a distance of 18 inches or so.)

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