V. interesting, thanks.
As a boy growing up in Sioux City and discovering classical music, I always
wanted to make the trip up to Minneapolis to hear a real concert, but the
parents couldn't be convinced.
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 1:10 PM, Butler, Jon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The subject of Mahler performances in the midwest has surfaced in the
> discussion of how and why Mercury might not have recorded Mahler.
>
> A check of Antal Dorati's Mahler performances with the Minneapolis
> Symphony Orchestra from 1950-1960, given in Richard Chlupaty, Antal Dorati
> and the Joy of Music Making (Romsey, Engl.: BAS Printers, 2006) suggests
> that Mahler was performed in Minneapolis with fair frequency, indeed,
> especially in the 1950 season, then through 1955, but strangely, not from
> 1955-60.
>
> 1950: Mahler, Sym No. 3, with Elaine Dahlgren Schuessler and the Cecilian
> Singers and Boys from St. John's Church, St. Paul (Schuessler was a
> regionally known contralto)
>
> 1950: Mahler, Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen, with Blanche Thebom
>
> 1950: Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, with Marian Anderson
>
> 1952: Mahler, Sym No. 1
>
> 1954: Mahler, Sym No. 2, with University of Minnesota Chorus, Laurel
> Hurley, and Lucretia West
>
> 1955: Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde, with Elena Nikolaida and Set Svanholm
>
> This is not to suggest that Mercury erred in its recording program with
> Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony. Their Tchaikovsky recordings were
> huge successes, artistically, acoustically, and commercially. Dorati's
> Beethoven won plaudits too, especially his Eroica, a long-ago predecessor
> to Osmo Vänskä's success with the full set of Beethoven symphonies.
>
>
> --Jon Butler
>
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