This album holds the distinction of being “Fritz Reiner’s last recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.” According to the web site Stokowski (which includes what purports to be a complete list of Fritz Reiner and CSO concerts here), informs us that Fritz Reiner’s last performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra occured on April 20, 1963 … [Read more…]
This was the first Fritz Reiner /CSO CD I ever purchased, and it’s still my favorite. When I’m not listening to an audio book in the car – my current favorite is the Longmire series, consisting of 17 novels written by Craig Johnson, narrated by George Guidall – I’m listening to our local Classical radio … [Read more…]
Here’s another example of what appears to be a misspelling on the album cover. On Day 24, I had to look up the word “pavan” as it was used in the liner notes on the back of the album. Turns out, there’s no such word. It was supposed to be “parvane,” which is – according … [Read more…]
Okay. I’ll admit it. When I saw that today’s composer was Tchaikovsky, I cringed. Just a little. I’ve encountered Pyotr twice before in my Fritz Reiner project: Day 7, with his Piano Concerto No. 1, and Day 13, with his 1812 Overture In my first encounter, I compared Tchaikovsky to Swedish heavy metal guitarist Yngwie … [Read more…]
This morning’s fare is a hodgepodge of music from four different composers: Johan Strauss II, Carl Maria Weber, Josef Strauss, and Richard Strauss. The overall theme is Vienna. Since I’m not really a fan of Strauss, nor of waltzes as a general rule, I’m not sure I’ll dig today’s CD. But I’m a trooper. I’ll … [Read more…]
Arthur Rubinstein could play chopsticks and I’d sit up and take notice. I’ve developed a keen interest in Rachmaninoff thanks to this set of Fritz Reiner CDs. I never gave the Russian composer a second thought prior to this. But now I’m intrigued, hooked by Rachmaninoff’s ability to write multi-layered music, usually featuring complex piano … [Read more…]
The first thing I thought when I heard the second movement (Adagio Sostenuto) of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was, “Gee, this sounds an awful lot like Eric Carmen‘s 1975 song “All By Myself.” So I looked up Carmen’s hit song and, sure enough, discovered Carmen lifted the melody from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concert No. 2 … [Read more…]
I arose this morning, feeling a bit groggy and unsure about plopping my butt in a chair at the local eatery to which I hie myself at 6am most mornings, but then I looked at what today’s musical fare would be (whatever it was would surely beat what the local eatery would be playing over … [Read more…]
Now this is more like it. As I’ve mentioned, several years ago (July 21, 2018 – December 29, 2018, to be precise) I spent 162 Days with Beethoven “Evaluating Symphonies 1-9 from 18 CD Box Sets.” (Famed conductor Herbert von Karajan was in there twice, with two different box sets. If memory serves, he recorded … [Read more…]
Richard Strauss again. This project of listening to the 63-CD Fritz Reiner box set is good for me. I wouldn’t normally listening to Bartok or Strauss or Tchaikovsky were it not for this project. So I’m being exposed to different composers. Whether I like them or not. And, I must admit, I haven’t liked Richard … [Read more…]