Sunday Classics preview: Announcing (finally) an updated listing of the posts, with some music thrown in at the end

Feel free to identify the music if you like. Or it might be more impressive to identify the conductor.


by Ken

Some of you may have noticed that I've been remiss lately in updating the list of Sunday Classics posts. As the quantity of posts and the quantity of music in each have increased, I've felt a need to revamp the format to make it more manageable, and also to make it easier for you to peruse. Unfortunately, I haven't had any blazing inspiration as to how to do it, so I've just let it slide.

Partly, I just don't know which information is more or less useful to which readers. I'm flying blind here, and any guidance would be much appreciated.

Since the list is important to me -- I don't know of any other way of alerting both new and old readers to the storehouse of, er, stuff we've covered in the series (or to put it more personally, some of the pieces that mattered most to me have gotten the least attention, and I'd like people to at least be able to be made aware that they exist) -- what I've undertaken for now is simply an update in more or less the existing format.

You'll find the new, improved list here.

This may also be the place to note that I've let some other onetime features of Sunday Classics slide, notably the "Quick Hits" recordings recommendations, as well as occasional slightly fuller discographic once-overs. I used to think these were really, really important -- kind of the payoff for the piece. Since I don't recall ever hearing a word about them, I came to the tentative conclusion that I was the only one to whom these mattered, and frankly, they're a bitch to do. Oh, not the spouting off of opinions -- that's a cinch. (Well, actually, i do often feel the need to do a certain amount, sometimes an extensive amount, of relistening before plunging those opinions into print. But the links, and indeed figuring out which recordings might actually be available, and assembling all that information -- that's a bitch!

Again, my criterion here is usefulness, and any feedback anyone cares to offer is appreciated.

MEANWHILE, MORE IN THE NATURE
OF A PREVIEW, HERE'S SOME MUSIC!



Yes, this audio clip is in mono -- and we may have another one in mono tomorrow, but Sunday's offerings will be all stereo. For tonight's clip, it was necessary to return to mono years in order to represent this conductor. That might give you a clue as to his identity. (Yes, I'll give you that much: It is a man.)

Many of you will recognize the music, of course. It's hardly obscure. But I'm almost as interested, maybe even more, in those of you who are hearing it for the first time.

UPDATE: THE CONDUCTOR IDENTIFIED

Although I'm not the greatest fan of Wilhelm Furtwängler's Bruckner, Bruckner was an important part of his repertory, and of course it wouldn't have been possible to include him in an all-stereo post like Sunday's. This is the Scherzo from a broadcast performance of the Fourth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic, on tour in Stuttgart, Oct. 22, 1951.

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