I Love Beethoven...
Mendelssohn, not quite as much, but I do appreciate his genius.
My mom called me in great distress this morning, saying that the Boston Pops July 4th Concert on the esplanade this year was horrible. She was afraid she was going crazy because she couldn’t imagine that the Pops could actually be so bad. So I found the 1812 overture portion on the internet and played it while she was on the phone.
It was awful. I have never heard such an unbalanced and amateurish performance. This was WITH a choir, and the usual Army Howitzers providing the cannon notes. The Cannon were great. The Choir was OK. The Orchestra was awful. The woodwinds sounded out of tune and the strings were inaudible. The Hatch Shell has good acoustics, so the whol thing was a puzzle to me. It was a day early doe to the storm approaching, but still...it sounded like a high school band at half-time, and not a good one at that.
I sure do miss Arthur Fiedler.
Heck, I even miss Jon Williams!
(And I do have “Esplanade” creds. Attended Every year from 1976 to 1998.)
You’ll enjoy the Mendelssohn trio. It has great tunes for wallowing.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3175638/posts?page=157#157
The 1812 Overture was an old performance video..The rain’s to blame. Hatch shell had to be evacuated.