This weeks Friday Favorites is brought to you by David De Lyser, artistic director! Enjoy. I’m going to come at our “Friday Favorites” from the view of a conductor and talk a bit about Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. I chose this piece because it was the first major chorus & orchestra piece I conducted and I was not at all prepared for the exhilaration and emotion of standing amidst the massive wall of sound that came at me as the musicians thundered away during the final, climatic moments of this work. This is “Heroic” Beethoven at his best – passionate, raw and glorious sonic power that unapologetically grabs your heart and soul and screams, “THIS is what it means to be alive!!” There’s a reason this man’s music still moves us 200+ years later. I was not, as Maestro Barenboim is in this video, playing the piano while conducting (and this is a very good thing). That duty went to the fabulous, Chicago-based pianist, Jeffrey Panko. This video is best enjoyed at maximum volume.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 19:58:36 +0000
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