[6/3/2011] Flashback: Catching up on our overtures (continued)

As I explained back in July 2009, it was via this LP in Capitol's Paperbacks Classics budget-reissue series that I first got to know and love these c1958 Leinsdorf overture performances. More about them in tomorrow night's flashback. (No, this isn't my copy, which is in a bit better shape -- but I can't scan anything that wide.)

When I did that original July 2009 "comfort music" post ("Just like there's comfort food, there's comfort music"), I was still dependent on "found" music, but that week I made one of my happiest finds: a video clip of a November 2000 Tokyo performance by Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic. As I pointed out at the time, "This clip looks and sounds amazing." On digging up the post, I'm not surprised to find that not only is the clip gone, but the poster has been rewarded by having his account terminated.

Let's listen now to the performance for which Maestro Jansons & co. were standing in.

WEBER: Oberon: Overture

Philharmonia Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. EMI, recorded c1958

While it' seems kind of silly to talk about a "favorite" among pieces of the caliber of the six included on the original Leinsdorf Opera Overtures LP -- after all we're talking here about music that down the line falls in the category "as good as it gets, it doesn't get better than this" -- I think I might be able to say that perhaps the two pieces that I most loved listening to on this record were Oberon and the Overture to Rossini's Italian Girl in Algiers (L'Italiana in Algeri). I'm not sure that we've ever actually had the L'Italiana Overture. So here it is!

ROSSINI: L'Italiana in Algeri: Overture

Philharmonia Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. EMI, recorded c1958


TOMORROW NIGHT: More flashback overtures


AND IN SUNDAY'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST: Fun with Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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