Ivor’s blog

Sunday 26th July, 2009

Salzburg Festival Blog 4 (26 July)

A beautiful day and a free one. A rare combination so far this Salzburg summer. I lunch with family at the terrific Gasthof Schloss Aigen. Many of the customers were at last night's premiere and were complimentary about the performance. In the evening Tess and I attend Harnoncourt's concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. A gentle first-half of Schubert's waltzes arranged by Webern and Josef Strauss Waltzes (this felt like a very odd combination and confused the public somewhat-certainly insofar as to when to applaud!) was followed by Harnoncourt's intense and searching reading of Schubert's great C major Symphony. The opening...

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Ivor’s blog

Saturday 25th July, 2009

Salzburg Festival Blog 3 bis (25 July)

We finish the last bars of Handel's unutterably beautiful final chorus -reminiscent of the end of J.S. Bach's Passions and I bring down my baton to show the end of Handel's brief but profound orchestral playout, the choir and soloists freeze momentarily on stage before the lighting blackout, the Festival House is silent for a few seconds and then... wonderful,enthusiastic applause from the public who have been so concentrated through the last four hours. The performance has gone marvelously well. Christine (Schaeffer) and Bejun (Mehta) were sensational, particularly in Act 2 culminating in their glorious Duet. This Act, in many Handel...

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Ivor’s blog

Saturday 25th July, 2009

Salzburg Festival Blog 3 (25 July)

I wake up early with a sense of anticipation and a few nerves. Not only must I conduct the Festakt live on TV but also the opening Festival Premiere. It had better be a good day at the office! The Festakt goes smoothly: the orchestra plays well-concert-master Markus Tomasi in commanding form and Terry sings with aplomb. For all the performers it is quite nerve-racking to sit through many speeches (five in total) and then switch on for one movement of a symphony or an aria in the full glare of the TV lights and the nation's finest. In many ways, it's...

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Ivor’s blog

Friday 24th July, 2009

Salzburg Festival Blog 2 (24 July)

I rehearse with my Mozarteum Orchestra in Orchesterhaus for Saturday's opening Festakt. Not a lot in terms of minutes of music but as always it must be good. The versatility of the Mozarteum Orchestra is so impressive. Today we have to prepare two pieces from Handel's 'Theodora' for the Festakt; this repertoire, increasingly the preserve of specialist baroque orchestras, holds no terrors for our players and very quickly we develop a well-shaped style and baroque sonority. I think the ability to develop a composer/style specific sound-world is as much a defining characteristic of today's best orchestras as an orchestra's claims to ...

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Ivor’s blog

Wednesday 22nd July, 2009

Salzburg Festival Blog 1 (22 July)

Salzburg puts on it's summer clothes-certainly meteorologically speaking. Glorious weather is appropriate for the final countdown to this, the most intense of Festivals. For today after lunch is the Dress Rehearsal of Theodora, the first offering of the 2009 Festival Five soul-searching,stimulating weeks of rehearsal have been accompanied by what has felt like incessant rain. Our cast, directed by our inspirational and also tenacious director Christof (Loy) have certainly been able to concentrate deeply on this perhaps the most profound of Handel's oratorios. 1pm -the area around the festival house is filling up, as people take advantage of the sun to enjoy...

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