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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 13, 2003

Listening room

August 13, 2003 by Terry Teachout

It’s worth noting that in the four weeks since “About Last Night” first went live, I haven’t felt the need to recommend a single new classical CD to you. That says something about the increasingly desperate state of the classical recording industry. Still, good things do find their way to my desk from time to time, and “good” isn’t nearly strong enough a word to describe the latest release from BBC Records, a 1971 broadcast of the Mozart Requiem conducted by Benjamin Britten.

In addition to being one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Britten was also an extraordinarily gifted pianist and conductor. But even though he made many commercial recordings for Decca/London, they were mostly (though not always) of his own music. Fortunately, the BBC also taped dozens of concerts in which Britten can be heard performing the music of his favorite composers, and this one ranks right up there with his unforgettable BBC broadcasts of the Mahler Fourth and Shostakovich Fourteenth Symphonies. Not that he does anything obviously startling. As always with Britten the performer, the insights are contained within an essentially traditional interpretative framework–but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there in abundance. His approach to the Mozart Requiem is both weighty and rhythmically forceful, with sonorities built from the bass line upward (an approach typical of many other composer-performers as well). The result is at once fresh and “centric,” so to speak.

The recording was made at a 1971 performance by the the Aldeburgh Festival Chorus, English Chamber Orchestra, and four of Britten’s favorite solo singers. It’s well sung and well played, with slightly congested but otherwise serviceable sound–none of which matters in the least. If you had a chance to hear Felix Mendelssohn conduct Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, you wouldn’t pass it up because the organ was out of tune, would you?

Should you require additional persuasion (and you shouldn’t), the filler is a half-hour interview in which Britten talks about such subjects as the process of composing, opera on TV, and his reluctance to teach. It’s worth the price of the album all by itself.

Almanac

August 13, 2003 by Terry Teachout

“One is justified in leaning towards severity in the laying down of principles, but should nearly always incline to indulgence in the application of them.”

Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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