Author: Greg
Date: 1999-09-02 01:09
steve wrote:
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you're right, greg...that was leinsdorf on piano in the schubert in severance...30 years is a long time to remember details...babin did play the beethoven piano quintet with the ww at severance on a sub series just after the strike...it was followed by beethoven 9, szell conducting?....
I do remember a leinsdorf/cleveland performance of a wind ensemble arrangement of Kurt Weil's threepenny opera with leinsdorf conducting without a podium, maybe 1970 or 71....there was some inspired sax playing from peterson and a beautiful "polly's song" solo from mr marcellus...
I remember hearing mr marcellus play the 1re rhapsodie, with, I think, boulez conducting...maybe 71-72....are recordings of that around?? I rember the audience went nuts, like a brown's game...
cleveland was a trip then...hear marcellus at severance on thursday, go to oberlin to hear mcdonald do bartok contrasts on saturday, take a lesson from squire at bw on tuesday...I was in high school....what a time....
s
Yes, I have heard the Beethoven - and a Babin composition from the same concert (given at CIM) for the same instumentation except for 4 hands piano with Babbins' pianist wife joining the quintet. Concerto de Camera II I believe it was entitled.
The Weil is from that time and it is really astounding playing by both of the gentleman you mention. When we did it in Chicago the same way, Leinsdorf not only went without a podium, he asked us to wear felt hats, dark glasses and whatever else we could think of to add a little atmosphere (bold pinstriped suits, etc). The audience loved it!
When I mentioned the Cleveland Orchestra performance to Leinsdorf that I had heard from 20 years earlier, he said "Oh yes. It was just before a strike was to occur, the orchestra was in dire financial straits, and I told the audience after we had walked out on stage to rapturous applause that if they didn't support their musicians, there would probably soon be no Cleveland Orchestra to applaud!"
The Debussy was done at Severance in 1969-70 (and in a series that they played at Oberlin I believe) with Boulez conducting. What a marvelous example of Marcellus' interpretive powers as a soloist (as if the recording of the Mozart concerto isn't enough). I've heard tapes of the live performances the 2 times he did the Mozart with Cleveland from 1961(with Szell) and 1973 (with Maazel conducting) and you can hardly believe that it is a live performance because the playing sounds just as close to perfection as on the commercial recording! As far as that goes, it's the same for all live taped performances that I've heard - later released from commercial recording sessions on to LP and now CD.
Greg Smith
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