Charles Munch News
French musician (1891-1968)
- violin
- classical music
- France
- conductor, university teacher, concertmaster, French Resistance fighter, recording artist
Last update
2024-03-19
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The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-02-17 13:50:36
On a Saturday evening some 70 years ago I heard the Boston Symphony Orchestra live for the first time. Melville Smith, then director of the Longy School, had given me two tickets he couldn’t use. Charles Munch conducted. Before the intermission came Honegger’s Symphony no. 1; the program notes mentioned harmony that “trends toward C major,” which amused me and my 9th-grade classmate George Nelson — it must have meant that the symphony was “modern.” After the intermission we heard Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C Major, a work I had never heard before, but George knew it well. “This symphony begins with a solo horn,” he said. (Actually it turned out to be two in unison.) I was deeply impressed by the experience, and especially by the slow movement, but never imagined that I would write a book about this symphony a few years later (2011). Eventually I began to go […]
2023-12-14 04:30:00
Is It Time for New Classic Recordings?
[…] and satisfying as those gems from the past. I yield to no one in my admiration for the achievements of legendary conductors, orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists from the time when I was a mere pup. But to suppose that their artistic achievements never will be equaled is a poor bet. Fritz ReinerSo by all means, check out the acknowledged masterworks from the heyday of analog stereo. You deserve to hear how Szell, Munch, Klemperer, and Mravinsky conducted** or how Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Fleisher played. I also admit, quite cheerfully, that some of my go-to recordings still are those classics, ones on which the virtues of the performance are so amazing that they outweigh any other considerations. But the number of those "matchless" classics keeps shrinking as I discover alternatives. For all of us, there should come a time when we start updating – or let's say "evolving" […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2023-11-19 15:52:28
Saxophone Highlights Next BSO Concerts
[…] ten years or so up through Monteux in 1920. Since then it’s been revived every 20-30 years or so. What accounts for its minor durability among the Franck symphonic poems? EL: Yes, in fact it was one of the pieces of which I made my debut with the San Francisco Symphony. A number of people have mentioned the strong affiliation this piece has with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including the famous recording with Charles Munch [HERE]. Since then, the idea of possibly programming this piece with the BSO was always sitting in my head. I am thrilled to bring it back to the Symphony Hall. How does it stack up against Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne, Les Éolides, Rédemption, Psyché? I think it is the most virtuosic tone poem of them all, showcasing the different instruments in the orchestra. It is one of the few pieces by Franck […]
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