Day 300: Big music day at Mai Fest
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
300 — Big music day at Mai Fest
28-May-1972
(Sonntag–Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Big musical day of Mai
Fest. Dropped in at church to see the Vienna Choir
Boys [Boys’ Choir].
After that, at 11:00, was able to sneak in
(kostenlos) to my orgel-balkon standing place for the
opening concert: Wiener Philharmoniker with David and
Igor Oistrach in an all Mozart program. Enjoyable,
but for me seemed too “Beethoven” (dynamic, heavy,
and forceful) and not “Mozart” (light, happy, and
gay).
Night saw premiere of Der
Freischütz—Staatsoper. Really
fantastic. Music (conductor Böhm), Janowitz singing
and the stage setting was so fantastic. The visual
impact of the 3rd scene was so strong. I found it so
great and am now really more enthusiastic about the
visual, than ever before. Of course, the old argument
arises—it “took away” too much from the music. Of
course; but an intelligent observer can achieve a
good balance and the total result is what counts.
REFLECTIONS
Choppy
writing. My writing
is getting choppier and my spelling of names is
probably all wrong (the Internet fixed that). The
biggest issue is that I am having trouble reading my
writing.
300
days of blogging. That’s
amazing. And a lot of content. Google doesn’t reward
consistent content, they reward popularity. The
number of visits, and the number of people linking to
you are more important. Content is not king. Take
that, Google.
Big
music day. Today was
a great day for music:
Vienna
Boys’ Choir. A pleasure
to see the boys’ choir in the morning. Mass.
All
Mozart. Before
noon, an all-Mozart concert with the Vienna
Philharmonic. Apparently, I’ve returned to my
criminal ways and snuck into the standing room in the
organ balcony. I don’t think I have enough nerve to
do this on my own, so I’ll attribute this to my
following the shepherd’s flock. Not all Mozart is
light, happy, and gay and so I am equating dynamic,
heavy, and forceful with being Beethovenesque. Well
Mozart can be powerful as well.
Der Freischütz premiere. I am
blown away by the Staatsoper premiere of Carl Maria
von Weber’s Der
Freischütz. The
stage settings were amazing, making me appreciate the
“visual” aspect of opera. Legendary conductor, Karl
Böhm, was in charge. Soprano Gundula Janowitz
headlined. As always, in my mind’s eye, I don’t
remember the specifics of a performance, I am
interpolating based on what I am writing in the
journal. Wouldn’t it be incredible to see, today in
2009, this specific performance and compare it to my
journal? What I need is a time machine. If I can find
this performance on YouTube, I’m going to faint. (See
below. I’m feeling a little faint.)
The
Amazing Time Machine – The Internet.
Holy cow!
I do a Google search (“May 28 1972 Vienna” concerts
and operas) today and look what I get.
(1)
Oistrach Mozart. The
exact
concert program and
information from
the David Oistrach Mozart concert on May 28, 1972.
Today. The Internet and Google are truly a time
machine. This was the opening concert of the
“Vienna Spring Festival.” Below is a picture of
the concert program from the Oistrach (Oistrakh)
page.
(2)
Gundula Janowitz sings. A
listing of
Gundula Janowitz’s
performances includes
today’s opera performance of Der
Freischütz. The
opening photo is from that page. It also looks
like there are recordings available. Here is a
musical example on YouTube of
Janowitz singing from Act
III in
Der
Freischütz. No
video, just slides. Below are the credits to this
day’s performance from the above website.
(3)
ORFEO CD C 732 072 1. The
Der
Freischütz performance
of this exact May 28, 1972 opening of the Vienna
Spring Festival performance is available today (in
2009) on CD from Orfeo. How incredible is that? It’s
not a YouTube video but it’s pretty close. The
album description on the Orfeo
website is like
a review of the actual concert and being there.
Once you get to the page, search on “Der
Freischütz.” Now, I’m fainting.
Other links:
Der Freischütz
in
Wikipedia
John
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