Thursday, January 1, 2009

Fanfare For A New Administration

A hat tip to the folks at the Editor & Publisher blog who thought this piece directed by the greatest maestro of the 20th century, Arturo Toscanini, would have been an appropriate way to mark the arrival of 2009, perhaps as the Times Square ball descended.

I may have a better idea. The music opens the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, to my mind the greatest fanfare ever written. I’d suggest using it to open Barack Obama’s Inaugural Concert at the Kennedy Center.



I used to have a recording of this performance; the boxed album set included Toscanini directing all nine Beethoven symphonies. They were on records and I wish I could find the same set on CD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you tried Amazon.com? There are two sets of the complete Beethoven symphonies by Toscanini. One is the NBC orchestra, which may be your set: http://www.amazon.com/Ludwig-van-Beethoven-Symphonies-Toscanini/dp/B0000CNTLU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1230841194&sr=8-1

The other includes all of the symphonies plus selected overtures. Also NBC. http://www.amazon.com/Toscanini-Conducts-Beethoven-Symphonies-Overtures/dp/B000R7G6LI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1230841194&sr=8-2

I prefer Bernstein and Karajan myself.

Charley James - The Progressive Curmudgeon said...

Thanks for the suggestion! It is the NBC orchestra version that I have on records.

Charley