parterre box

44 comments

• Orlando Furioso says:

  For years, whenever someone would say “But all the great conductors are gone,” I could say “Not while Charles Mackerras is alive.”

  A wide stylistic range is not necessary to be a great conductor, but his range was extraordinary — maybe unique in any era. He did everything at the highest level. A thorough professional in every sense, and with the spark of inspiration too.

  We have truly experienced a huge loss.

  on July 15, 2010 at 7:29 AM
• tannengrin says:

  Terfel, Mackerras, SCO

  on July 15, 2010 at 9:18 AM
• richard says:

  He was really a very, very fine conductor and leaves quite a few memorable recordings, not the least his readings of Janacek.

  He was a somewhat irregular visitor to the Met, I was happy to hear him conduct quite a range of operas over a thirty year period from Orfeo to Hansel und Gretel.

  RIP, Maestro

  on July 15, 2010 at 9:56 AM
• mifune says:

  Does anyone know if this Vixen is available on DVD in North America? I wasn’t able to find it except from a site in Germany, and I am wary of that because of DVD region codes.

  http://www.arthaus-musik.com/templates/tyCatalogueDetail.php?id=152&topic=homepage

  on July 15, 2010 at 9:58 AM
  • SF Guy says:

    This Vixen is still in U.S. stores, and is currentily listed on Amazon in both U.S. and Canada (though the Canadian site’s prices are much higher for some reason).

    on July 15, 2010 at 11:45 AM
  • mifune says:

    I see. It seems to be available from a number of non-Amazon resellers on the Amazon site in both the US and Canada. I was confused because it appears to be distributed by “Image Entertainment” and not Arthaus in North America. Thanks.

    on July 15, 2010 at 12:10 PM
• mrmyster says:

  I have a couple of comments on Sir Charles that may interest:

  First, unfortunately he did not make the projected Ariadne recording
  in Edinburgh in January – the one with Mme Brewer; it was done with
  Richard Armstrong, who was recommended by Sir Charles. It in line
  to be released.
  Two: Today I am going to re-listen to the Mackerras recording of the
  four Brahms symphonies, which he recorded back in the 1990s
  with a 40-some piece Scottish chamber orchestra — it is a very
  great tribute to him. To listen to the clarity of texture, the many
  awkward moments worked gracefully through — is to hear
  something risky and unique; and it works! “Charlie” was one
  helluva musician — he understood architecture and shape better
  than most, and his opera performances were unfailingly lyric
  and dramatic, at the same time. Janacek to Mozart to Strauss,
  he could do them all, masterfully. And while Ades and Allen
  Gilbert and many of that generation of conductors were making
  fun of stuffy old Brahms (“hearing Brahms is like entering a room
  filled with stale cigar smoke,” Ades said!), Mackerras was breathing
  new life into his music with his innovative versions. Or, more
  accurately, finding and exposing the life that is inherent in the
  Brahms works and often over-looked.
  Or, so it seems to me.

  on July 15, 2010 at 10:56 AM
  • Regina delle fate says:

    Adès is a prat and people will be listening to Brahms a long time after his music is forgotten, enjoyable as much of it is.

    on July 15, 2010 at 11:43 AM
    • Pelleas says:

      People (Wagner? Lizst?) probably felt the same way about Brahms at the time.

      on July 15, 2010 at 12:27 PM
      • kashania says:

        People are idiots!

        on July 15, 2010 at 12:43 PM
      • Henry Holland says:

        People are idiots!

        Or: maybe, just maybe, Brahms’ music *is* stuffy, academic 2nd rate Beethoven.

        Just a possibility.

        From this article:
        http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm8-1/Brahms-en.html

        In 1900, when Boston’s Symphony Hall was being built, certain wags suggested that signs be fitted over the doorways reading “Exit in case of Brahms”! Even some of our greatest composers did not see eye to eye with Brahms:

        Tchaikovsky: “I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Raff is a giant, not to speak of Rubinstein, who is after all a live and important human being, while Brahms is chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff.”

        Wolf: “The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found in Brahms one of its worthiest representatives.”

        Mahler: “I have gone through all of Brahms pretty well by now. All I can say of him is that he’s a puny little dwarf with a rather narrow chest.”

        Britten: “It’s not bad Brahms I mind’, it’s good Brahms I can’t stand.”

        on July 15, 2010 at 2:19 PM
    • kashania says:

      I guess even great geniuses are fully capable of making idiotic remarks, as evidenced by those quotes.

      on July 15, 2010 at 2:55 PM
  • mifune says:

    Alan Gilbert doesn’t like Brahms? That’s sure news to me. He conducted Brahms at least twice in his first season at the Phil.

    on July 15, 2010 at 12:01 PM
    • brooklynpunk says:

      Henry Holland:

      Thanks for those quotes…and the interesting linked article…!

      I always fel(t) I was more of a “philistine” then I actually am, when I nay-sayed after going to a recital of Brahms’s work….

      I’m always very surprised when I have acrtually enjoyed listening to his opus…it does happen…OCCASIONALLY… glad to see I ain’t alone…and in ..”good company…!”

      on July 15, 2010 at 2:33 PM
      • Henry Holland says:

        I simply don’t get –never will get– the idea that the list of Who Is A Great Composer is set in stone, is totally impervious to shifts in taste and technology and especially that anyone who deviates from the orthodoxy is somehow defective.

        A majority of Handel’s operas laid in total obscurity, most not performed for some 150 years, before the German Handel revival of the 1920′s brought us to today, where at least half a dozen of them are widely performed. Is that a reflection of their inherent quality? Of course, not, there’s a bunch of factors which go in to what gets played, what doesn’t. Bernstein and the Mahler revival also come to mind.

        With the death of Charles Mackerras, I bet there’s a dip in performances of Janacek’s operas in a few years, for example.

        on July 15, 2010 at 7:20 PM
      • Arianna a Nasso says:

        Henry Holland @ 15.2.1.1

        If there is a dip, it’s going to be from the recession compelling company’s to avoid less familiar titles, not Mackerras’s passing. His role in promoting Janacek is historic, but for the decade or so, many major conductors have jumped on the bandwagon. Come to think of it, Mackerras hasn’t conducted much Janacek in America this decade – it’s been people like Belohlavek, Andrew Davis, etc.

        on July 15, 2010 at 8:19 PM
      • Arianna a Nasso says:

        companies, not company’s

        on July 15, 2010 at 8:19 PM
      • Unfaithful Zerbinetta says:

        Also regarding a dip, Mackerras hadn’t conducted outside the UK for the last few years, and his Operabase entry (running from June 2008 to last December) shows only one Janacek opera out of 12 engagements.

        on July 15, 2010 at 8:35 PM
      • Henry Holland says:

        Arianna and Zerbinetta, thanks for the corrections, it’s nice to see that Janacek’s continued place in the rep isn’t dependent on one person.

        Here in Los Angeles, there was the recent Jenufa with Matilla, but I fondly remember productions of Katya Kabanova and Vec Makropolous back in the Peter Hemmings days. Leonie Rysanek was an eeeevvvviiiillll Kabanicha, she got appreciative hissing and booing during her curtain call.

        I’d love to see a production of Mr. Broucek to see if it works on stage.

        on July 17, 2010 at 3:04 AM
  • brooklynpunk says:

    Thomas Ades might have made that kind of flip-sounding comment..(I’d like to see the complete context, however…..)…

    BUT..

    He also has performed and recorded a tremendous amount of the Brahms piano rep…VERY WELL, IMHO…

    And

    part of my own teaching myself to not dislike Brahms as much as I once thought I did has come from a couple of concerts I heard Gilbert conduct with the NYPhils this season…..

    on July 15, 2010 at 1:11 PM
• jatm2063 says:

  He had an outstanding run. It’s because of him that I like Janacek. God bless him.

  on July 15, 2010 at 11:19 AM
• CerquettiFarrell says:

  A great, great loss. His range was astounding, and he did almost everything amazingly well. His two recorded versions of Maria Stuarda (the English one with Baker and Plowright, and the in the original Italian from Edinburgh with Frittoli and Antonacci – courtesy of La Cieca http://parterre.com/page/2/?s=moffo) are both terrific.

  Of course, more than anything else, he was a great Handelian and Mozartean above all an enthusiastic advocate for Czech music. His Janacek series for DECCA will forever remain a stalwart of the Gramophone, a true classic.

  His Mozart series for TELARC / EMI was marred by indifferent recording and some less than wise casting choices. His latest Mozart symphony cycle for LINN, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. In fact, I think it is the best think that has happened to classical music in the last 10 years. I totally mean it. Of course I knew the symphonies well enough (or thought I knew), having to write about them profesionally during the past few years, I discovered a dazzling world of possibilities, almost never explored by what I usually heard live or on record. The Mackerras sets were a revelation. I would have conducted the symphonies exactly the same way. Everything is gorgeous – the love for the music that I sense in the playing, the recording, the wind-string-brass balance. It is much more than a benchmark recording. It is a moment of rare perfection and beauty in the history of recording and I urge everyone to at least try and hear it. There are very generous snippets on the LINN website, and you can download the whole thing in superb master format.

  http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-mozart-symphonies.aspx

  His Don Giovanni from Covent Garden, after a slightly febrile start, is ravishing as well. One of the best-conducted versions that I have ever heard.

  Thank you, Sir Charles, for your beautiful, committed work and great recorded legacy.

  on July 15, 2010 at 8:03 PM
• Beergut Nilsson says:

  I’ll always be indebted to Mackerras for those recordings of the Janacek operas. Discovering them was like being introduced to a new sonic world. (And to be honest, hearing that he was prone to giving Ian Bostridge [the fly in the ointment on Mackerras' recording of Idomeneo] a hard time only makes me respect him more.)

  on July 16, 2010 at 12:11 AM
• MegaKay says:

  I was lucky to have been conducted by Sir Charles as a chorister in his recording of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (a work that confirmed my belief that Beethoven hated sopranos – choir sopranos, anyway). He conducted the SSO for the last time in 2007 (a program of Dvorak, Smetana, Janacek and Strauss – truly beautiful). I’ll also remember him for the generous help he’s given my husband with his research on the late Australian soprano Marie Collier. A truly lovely gentleman, and a huge loss.

  on July 16, 2010 at 1:27 AM
• La Valkyrietta says:

  I love him for Janacek, and for much more.

  on July 16, 2010 at 12:26 PM