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Don't make it sound nice, it's horrid, it's modern music
I have been under a rock for two years as far as almost all live performance is concerned, therefore I was grieved to discover this afternoon that the Boston Symphony Orchestra had performed Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (1962) on Thursday and I hadn't even known about it, until I saw that there was one performance left tonight at 8 pm EDT and it will be broadcast. I love this music deeply; it was one of my introductions to Britten, never actually having encountered The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945) as a young person. Nonetheless, I have never managed to catch it live. I am most familiar with the 1963 recording with Galina Vishnevskaya, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Peter Pears, its associated rehearsal tapes and its later use as the soundtrack of Derek Jarman's War Requiem (1989). It will be important and interesting, even through the remove of my computer as opposed to the direct air of Symphony Hall, to hear any other sound. I note that as at the premiere at Coventry in 1962, the part of the Russian soprano has been supplied at the last minute by a local voice. Even in light of accidents of history, for an anniversary performance in uncertain times, it makes an extra ghost.
[edited 2022-04-02 21:26] The interface was enough of a pain to make me long for just a radio, but the music was worth it. These performances were dedicated to the people of Ukraine. I had a good concert cat.
[edited 2022-04-02 21:26] The interface was enough of a pain to make me long for just a radio, but the music was worth it. These performances were dedicated to the people of Ukraine. I had a good concert cat.
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Thank you! I am still faintly surprised when anything like that works. This one cut out for about three minutes for no detectable reason in the middle of the Offertorium and I was very upset and thought I was going to lose the rest of the performance and then it came right back as soon as I reloaded the page and restarted the player. I hadn't known, or had forgotten, that the BSO does regular weekend broadcasts. I am seriously thinking I will have to start tuning in.
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That seems very handy! Glad the interruptive glitch was temporary--three minutes is just long enough to feel permanent, in the moment....
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Nine
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It was! Their last-minute substitute soprano was towering.
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I need to remember more often that even without a radio, I can just tune in to things! (The cat is very important.)