Another great passes into the beyond

[Stevie D]

Wrenching this thread back on topic...

Here's a video of Sir Neville conducting the orchestra which he founded: The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields performing Mozart's overture to The Marriage of Figaro.
Such brilliant and transparent playing he inspired from the orchestra, and wonderful, clear but understated conducting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYTd3jWGYik

[Uncle Al]

Sir Neville Marriner obituary

Sir Neville Marriner V3 2016-10-05.jpg

Sir Neville Marriner in Memoriam (15.04.1924 - 02.10.2016)



Uncle Al

[crfriend]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYTd3jWGYik

Oh, that was delightful! Such precision in the performance. A masterwork. Mozart would have appreciated it I suspect.

[Tor]

Thanks for sharing - a lovely listen.

Anyone else notice that the women seemed to have coloured dresses (and not all the same colour to boot), while the men were a sea of identical suits devoid of colour?

[Sinned]

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel started off with very simple backing on their early LP's and PS always did prefer the edgier sounds which he developed in later albums. But Roy Halee started engineering and producing their music and produced a more mellow sound to their records which appealed more to AG. It was one of the factors which caused them to split up. IMHO PS is one of the most under-rated artists of the 20th century having written music in many different themes such as folk, reggae and was influential, although highly criticised at the time, in bringing minority music such as South African to the world's notice and I suppose contributed to the collapse of apartheid. S and G have always been one of my favourite sounds. His use of language in songs such as Sounds of Silence and America which captures a certain moodiness cannot be bettered. On their album Wednesday Morning 3am he wrote a song called Sparrow which illustrated his use of imagery to get across his point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc5JLrpXpkE

[crfriend]

Oh, my. I just heard Sir Neville and The Academy of Saint Martin's in the Fields perform Jean Sibelius' Karelia Suite which almost got me into a heap of trouble on the roads a little more than a decade back. It was bright and transparent -- utterly amazing. This performance beats the "reference performance" I've been using for years which was done by Vladimir Ashkenazy (who is also no slouch).

How'd I almost "get into a heap of trouble on the roads" due to a piece of music? If you've ever heard the piece, contemplate the opening of it coinciding with going up the on-ramp to a major motorway and just leaning into the throttle as the music picks up. I was driving my second minivan at the time and by the time I looked down at the speedometer I was going close to 90 MPH. My ex- had never heard the piece, but once I located and played it her reaction was, "I can certainly see that happening."

[Big and Bashful]

I hadn't heard this version of S of S:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4

That's the one I was referring to. Isn't memory amazing. There's a later one, which is slightly more lush, but which also lacks percussion.

However, I also really like the version by Disturbed but suspect I am in a minority in the Cafe!

Link?

You're not a minority of one, though. See here.

That's the one!

[crfriend]

You're not a minority of one, though. See here.

Eek!

I just listened to that, and whilst I had to turn my head from the video to properly appreciate the audio, the performance made the hair on my arms stand on end. It's entirely different from Simon and Garfunkel's presentation, but it's still true to the original but updated to more modern, and harsher, times. Amazingly, the adaptation to harder times still yields stark contrasts in the delivery, and that makes it all the more magical.

So, the premise of the piece is still relevant today -- as expected. A masterpiece.

But it really doesn't have much to do with the passing of Sir Neville Marriner. However, this is how threads -- and conversation -- drift.