Joel Hill:

>I am probably the only one on this planet that is not familiar with Holst's
>work.  I sprung for the 2 piano version on Nazox some time ago, but the
>sound was so insistantly LOUD and shrill that I can hardly listen to it.
>I think I have heard it twice.
>
>Any other input as to the value/enjoyability of this work? It must have
>something since it is so popular.

I love it so much I bought the score.  Try Boult on EMI (1960s recording).
There's so much imagination in that music.  I can't think of another work,
even by Holst, that sounds remotely like it.

I heard an interesting concert last night at the Louisiana Philharmonic:
the premiere of a symphony by a local composer, the Barber violin concerto,
and the Brahms 3rd.

The knockout of the evening was the Barber, soloist Robert McDuffie,
who played the bejeezus out of the thing - glorious, full, ringing tone,
intense line.  Intonation wasn't exciting, though he wasn't really out of
tune.  Anyway, he played it as if it were the Brahms.  Revelatory, and I've
known the piece for over 30 years.  I spoke briefly to McDuffie after the
performance and mentioned that I had grown up with the Stern/Bernstein.
He enthusiastically responded, "That's the one that introduced the work
to me.  It's my favorite concerto.  I had the good luck to study it with
Barber the last year of his life." I got McDuffie to autograph my copy
of his performance with Yoel Levi and the Atlanta.  I haven't heard the
recording yet, but if it's half as good as the performance I heard, I'll
be reviewing it.

The new work was beautifully orchestrated, without one first-rate idea in
it.  In a way, it's a disadvantage to know a lot of music when you judge a
new piece.  The symphony seemed to me a melange:  It began with the opening
to Vaughan Williams's Flos Campi, moved to Respighi, then to Mahler,
Strauss, and ended up with Mahler again.  No real argument was presented.
No idea stuck.

Ah well.

Steve Schwartz