Showing posts with label Oscar Levant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oscar Levant. Show all posts

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Honegger: Concertino for Piano and Orchestra

I'm posting this little gem, a Masterworks 10" LP ML 2156, in large part for the Honegger with Reiner and (as a friend of mine says) the "highly flammable" Oscar Levant. It is a charming piece and certainly not over-recorded. This reading, combining Reiner's consistent discipline and Levant's fiery passion, should be available. But --oh! -- the guilty pleasure of Ormandy conducting Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun, topping it off with The Sorcerer's Apprentice of Dukas. Whether Ormandy and the Philadelphia's Debussy is "authentic" (a value of questionable musical import) is of no interest to me: It is gorgeous, tastefully and musically presented, and a pleasure one should feel free to indulge without guilt, like Beecham's late orchestration of Messiah (which is, in truth, very Handelian in spirit). Link to all files