Robert Stumpf, II wrote:

>Every now and then I hear some music on the radio, whilst tooling around
>town, that I know, but don't know who is playing it.  On the other hand,
>I just HAVE to know what recording it is becuase I HAVE to have it.  One
>time I was listening to Schubert's "Great".  I pulled over and listened.
>I was almost in tears it was so moving.  It was Furtwangler with the BPO
>in 1950 (?).  Another time it was Dvorak's "New World".  Pull over
>again...it was Kubelik and the BPO.  Now, I know this is nothing particular
>to the BPO or 9.  Any similars to share?

First off, let me know when you are out driving...and to think I am
worried about those who are using their cell phones...

There have been many such instances for me...but for me, it is almost
more to the point as to what in music can bring me to tears.

If I am understanding your question...have there been performances
so compelling that I have been moved to tears...many times...in
concert...examples include Horowitz playing Chopin at a recital in Dallas,
Tippett conducting his Corelli Variations with the Houston Symphony,
Milhaud, just coming on stage, using his crutches, to conduct the New
York Philharmonic...a student pianist, named Atzinger (sp?), performing
the Barber Piano Concerto with our University Symphony (his reading of
the slow movement touched me), a student orchestra out here in Texas at
the summer festival at Round Top giving a brilliant performance of
Schuman's American Festival Overture and thinking how much it would have
meant to Bill to hear his music played so well by a group of young
people...

Broadcasts and recordings...too many to mention...but a few...Kubelik
doing the Adagio from Mahler's 10th...Janet Baker and Barbirolli doing
Mahler's Ruckert Lieder...deWaart doing Bill Schuman's 6th (the end of
that work moves me very much)...a broadcast from around 1963 (which I
heard and taped) of Rubinstein playing the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody
with the Boston Symphony, a pension fund concert as I recall...

One video that comes to mind...when I teach my seminar on American Music
I show a Young People's Concert, "What is American Music." When I introduce
the video I mention the sequence of Copland conducting the finale of his
Third Symphony with the New York Phil., (at that time Copland had not
had much of an opportunity to conduct...not to mention that Koussevitzky
had discouraged Copland's conducting interests) I find that it is difficult
for me fight back tears as I describe the scene because I can only imagine
what joy it must have given Copland for that opportunity.  When you watch
the video you can see him smiling the entire time and you know that he
felt like a kid in a candy shop...

For me, it is when I sense both an excellence in understanding and
execution, coupled with a vulnerability in the interpretation, that I
can find myself moved to tears.

It isn't the music alone that can do that, it has to be a performance
which conveys that vulnerability.

Karl