The original YouTube link has gone AWOL, but the comments remain valid (click on the following):
Republication for Celibidache’s conducting of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No.1.
The original YouTube link has gone AWOL, but the comments remain valid (click on the following):
This is the greatest performance of this work I’ve ever encountered, beating even Stokie at his own game. The video is essential for watching Celi’s body language, which makes clear this is Romanian dance and folk music. This has to be the equivalent of Carlos Kleiber’s Blue Danube for idiomatic interpretation. The standard by which I now judge all other performances.
Do readers have any such sui generis performances to recommend?
A good question, Eric. My first thought is Eugene Ormandy’s Philadelphia recording of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, coupled in the UK (different in the States) with an equally superb Hindemith Mathis der Maler Symphony. Colin
I fully endorse Eric Kisch’s unfettered admiration for Celi’s Enescu. It’s a life-enhancer of the first order… truly one for the ages!
For a complete ‘Swan Lake’, I strongly recommend (second only to Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchesta on Melodiya) SEIJI OZAWA’s account with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on DG, which is really wonderful and preserved in stunning audio. Sheer joy!
Here is a link to Rozhdestvensky’s Swan Lake:
http://www.colinscolumn.com/one-of-the-great-recordings-of-tchaikovskys-score-for-swan-lake-gennadi-rozhdestvenskys-complete-1969-version-for-melodiya-with-the-moscow-radio-symphony-orchestra/
I am intrigued to hear Ozawa’s version.