Karel Ančerl News
Czech conductor, composer and director conductor of Czech Philharmonic
- classical music
- Czechoslovakia
- conductor, composer
Last update
2024-04-23
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2023-12-25 02:05:00
Last month, I reviewed San Francisco Symphony playing Steven Stucky's orchestral arrangement of Stravinsky's great ballet score Les Noces. Stravinsky struggled over how, exactly, to orchestrate the work, and in 1923 eventually settled on four pianos and percussion. But before that, in 1917, he created a version for woodwinds, brass, strings, harp, piano, harpsichord & cimbalom. In the 1980s, Peter Eötvös recorded this version as well as the 1923 version.A friend was kind enough to lend me his copy - I'll probably buy it eventually - and it makes interesting listening. It is considerably more astringent and Stravinsky-like than Stucky's too-soft orchestration, and of course it's by Stravinsky and sounds and works better than the Stucky. It's not entirely successfully; the trumpet playing what eventually became piano glissandos just isn't as good as the pianos, for example. If you want to hear this version, and it is certainly interesting, someone has uploaded it to a […]
2022-05-16 09:00:52
Karel Ančerl’s life was marked by unimaginable tragedy. His wife and infant son were gassed at Auschwitz, while after 18 years as head of the Czech Philharmonic he defected from his homeland after the Soviet invasion of 1968, spending the remaining five years of his live in Canada. The extent to which his experience of […]
2021-02-08 02:37:52
These are, by and large, excellent performances, very well played and conducted. My colleague, Jens Laurson, described Noseda’s recording of Symphony No. 8 as “middle-of-the-road,” and so is this version of No. 10. Yes, that means that the demonic second movement scherzo does’t have the bite of, say, Ancerl, but then no one does. Still, […]
2021-01-08 00:00:00
Decca Eloquence Part 2
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 8 Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 1 Wiener Philharmoniker Claudio Abbado Gioacchino Rossini Six Sonatas a 4 Giovanni Bottesini Gran Duo Concertante Salvatore Accardo Bruno Canino I Musici Dvorak Symphony No. 9 Slavonic Dances Smetana Vltava Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 Ballet Suites Wiener Symphoniker Karel Ancerl Franz Liszt "Faust" Symphony The Battle of the Hunes Alberic Magnard Symphony No. 3 Werner Krenn tenor Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet W. A. Mozart Flute and Harp ConcertoPiano Concerto No. 24 Clarinet Concerto Symphonies Nos. 29, 33 and 35 Barwahser- Berghout De Wilde - Long London PO Concertgebouw Orchestra Eduard van Beinum Percy Grainger Benjamin Britten Stuart Bedford J.E.Gardiner André Messager Les Deux Pigeons Welsh Opera […]
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