Part 1 –
Part 2 –
Over to Tokyo this week, for a concert by the NHK Symphony,conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy and featuring Belgian oboist (who is also a noted conductor and professor), in a program of music by Richard Strauss, Christoph Gluck and Johannes Brahms.
It was recorded just a few weeks ago, on June 17th, by the venerable NHK in Tokyo and is part of their 2016 season of subscription concerts.
The concert is broken up between two players, and is edited to cut down the announcements, which border on gushing (it’s okay, but a little goes a very long way). Leleux is a well-recognized and regarded Oboist throughout the world and his performance at this concert is part of a pretty hefty world tour he’s in the middle of as well as a residency with the Hessian Radio Symphony. In short, he’s a busy fellow.
Having not heard much of the NHK Symphony, except by way of their radio transcriptions in the 1960s, the orchestra has been host to a stellar roster of guest artists over the years. Vladimir Ashkenazy has been a frequent guest (not only as conductor but earlier as Pianist) and the orchestra put in a workman-like accompaniment for both soloist and conductor.
Here’s what is on the players:
Part 1 (top player):
Strauss: Don Juan
Strauss: Oboe Concerto (w/Leleux)
Gluck: Dance of The Blessed Spirits
Part 2 (bottom player):
Brahms: Symphony Number 3
Not entirely soothing, and may not constitute inclusion as an Anti-Road Rage Wednesday remedy, it’s still a good concert featuring a legendary orchestra with two equally legendary performers in a recent concert, in case you were wondering what’s going on in the concert halls of Tokyo these days.
Enjoy. Next week, I promise I’ll play something guaranteed to be the musical equivalent to Valium. Stay tuned.
Gordon – FYI I think this is the first one I’ve looked at since the website move was completed, and now in Apple Mail it says “Your browser does not support the audio element” where the player link used to be in the mail message. Formerly I could click the link right in the mail message and it would open a Safari tab and play the content.
What’s happening is – until I have the redesign, my upload file size has dropped. But I go in and manually load the larger files – it shows up as “your browser does not support audio element” but when you go to the site, it’s there – Basically, I am going through a back entrance to load the larger files – otherwise, I couldn’t load anything larger than 50mb – my site is old and creaky and it needs a revamp from the top down and it’s going to cost a bundle – but it will be worth it as I will no longer be obsolete.
Gordon
BTW – I realized that it was a piece of unwanted code that got stuck in there – so I removed it and the “your browser doesn’t support . . . ” has been removed.