[Marxism] Forwarded from John Lacny (Barenboim)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Les Schaffer writes:

> that's good enough for me. what recordings of Barenboim's
> do you recommend, Ian???

I only have a few of Barenboim's recordings as a pianist, and I like them
(some Beethoven sonatas and Mozart's last piano concerti). I also saw him
perform both Brahms piano concerti when he was in Pittsburgh a few years
ago, and thought him downright magnificent, though it certainly helped that
he was accompanied by the PSO, which is a fine orchestra. Of Barenboim as a
conductor I have heard very little, though I happened to be on the road a
few days ago and caught a program on one of the arts channels that was
about Barenboim recording Tristan und Isolde with Siegfried Jerusalem and
Waltraud Meier, as well as Matti Salminen as King Marke. What little I
heard was impressive, so if anyone owns this recording, I'd like to hear
your impressions of it.

On that note, why are US news agencies so mired in middle-brow cultural
idiocy? This AP report recycles the tired turn of phrase, "Richard Wagner,
Hitler's favorite composer," as if that were the whole story. Not, you
know, "Richard Wagner, one of the most influential figures of the
nineteenth century in any field, and perhaps the most influential artist of
all time, inspiring figures from Nietzsche to Freud." Of course he was a
bigot and not a particularly pleasant character, but if I went around
saying that I don't read Dostoyevsky -- arguably history's greatest
novelist, in any language --because he was a reactionary religious zealot,
I would rightly be denounced as a philistine. Another way of making my
point here is to ask, why do US reporters on culture always insist on
reminding us that Hitler had good taste in music?

By the way, if people are interested in Edward Said's sensitive and elegant
treatment of Wagner's work, see the essay at the following link, which was
occasioned by Barenboim's playing of the prelude and "Liebestod" from
Tristan und Isolde at an Israeli musical festival:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/547/cu1.htm

On other recordings, has anyone heard Barenboim's "Die Walkuere"? Impressions?


- - - - - - - - - -
John Lacny
http://www.johnlacny.com

Tell no lies, claim no easy victories


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism