Pullquote
“A book about Mr. Lebrecht’s ‘search for Gustav Mahler,’ as he calls his obsession, this is also a book about Mr. Lebrecht, a far less compelling subject.” [NYT]
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Oooh, Oestreich must have enjoyed that. Continually chuck grenades at everybody – as Lebrecht has – and there will invariably be some incoming as well.
Alas, I suspect that Lebrecht cares less about praise or criticism than the number of column-inches devoted to his work. By that measure, he should be a happy man today.
A far less compelling subject indeed!
LOL! “Mr. Lebrecht writes with flair, at times…”
If one has kept up with Lebrecht’s flatulent comments over the years, one long ago recognized, he is so full of himself that he could create his own methane wind band, out of the bullshit he writes. He rambles on, then mixes totally unrelated subjects into what he stated, he was originally taking about.Making sure in setting up such tenuous associations, he can finally somehow steer back to heap upon himself, self congratulatory praise. Who pays that idiot?
Norm runs a nice little picture library business with his Mrs, so I suspect the oom-pah-pah journalism is a bit of a profile-sustaining sideline these days.
God bless Oestreicher, not only for that zinger about Lebrecht as a subject matter for this observation:
This statement epitomises what Lebrecht is all about and why I don’t give his writings much credence. It’s all about him and his need for attention — my least favourite kind of person.
A matinee, a Pinter play,
Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s.
I’ll drink to that.
And one for Mahler!
(But not one for Lebrecht!)
Well, I guess it makes a change for Norm to write about Mahler rather than the latest reheated ‘exclusive’ about someone resigning from an agency. I’m never quite sure with whom he has credibility. He has an amazing capacity for getting the wrong end of a story and twisting it into something else — whether deliberately or inadvertently, I have never quite been able to fathom …
More interesting than Lebrecht on anything:
You are shamelessly off-thread, QPF, but how can one resist? Something that always puzzles me a little in Joanie’s ‘Sempre libera’ is that she cheats a little in the ‘Gioir’ bit by inserting an E flat at the top of the stave before leaping up the minor seventh to the top D flat. Why did she, of all people, need to do that? The way she gets round the notes in the cabaletta is, as ever, stunning. But that wig is terrifying. She looks like something out Priscilla, regina del deserto, bless her.
Thank Nina Lawson for the wig.
From her NY obit:
Miss Lawson grew up on a farm near Forth in Lanarkshire, Scotland, where she enjoyed putting a stylish curl in the tails of her father’s prize Ayrshire cattle. “I’d braid them at night, then comb them out in the morning for shows,” she told The New York Times in 1959. “The tails looked ever so nice and ripply.”
Her wigs fit(ted) so comfortably that some singers kept them on even after the performance. Miss Lawson often had to remind Pavarotti to return his wigs, which he took back to his hotel room and, as often as not, tossed in a corner or used as bookmarks.
‘The tails looked ever so nice and ripply’ is just ever so wondrously funny.
Ditto, Pavarotti’s bookmarking.
I’ve heard Sutherland put in a stepping stone note in something else too, can’t recall what it was but it was to “ease” an octave jump or something like that.
What surprised me more, when I heard her sing Violetta was how she sang the 8 consecutive high Cs right near the end of Sempre Libera. She sings the high As like tied notes but when she does the Cs, she sings 8 staccato notes instead. I didn’t understand that one either.
That series of staccato high Cs at the end of the 2nd verse are called, by the Bonynges, one of the Tetrazini cadenzas. Sutherland sang them during a 7/8/69 Hollywood Bowl concert and It was all pretty come scritto except for a cadenza after Ahforselui and the above mentioned high Cs.
I’d heard those repeated C’s before too, and was expecting them. They are just (completely glorious) showing-off!
Nobody compares, of course, but our Joanie certainly was a big girl, wasn’t she? Especially with all that added hair and tulle. When she pours that champagne into the glass, it looks like she’s pouring a bottle of beer into a thimble!
Youngsters, note how past singers were fat, didn’t attempt any acting, didn’t move, and just stood front stage and sang. It was terrible, wasn’t it?
By the way, what is the significance of the image with the press studs? I am probably being obtuse. Norm is a member of the press, yes, but stud?
Monty, that is snap tape, I think to signify “Oh, Snap!”
Ah, thank you bluecabochon (sapphire?). Maybe an invention which has not reached the UK, at least not under that name.
Monty, it’s a staple in quick costume changes the world over (silent, unlike velcro), but I’m sure that it has a much more inventive name in your realm than the one we use here!
Next time I need a quick change, I will know what to ask for!