Someone asked Virgil Thompson how to become an American composer. Virgil said: "It is easy, all you have to do is be an American and then write any damn thing you want.

22:00

Enemy of the People….propaganda which should have been worn as a badge of honor. Long live Shostakovich!

Nobody compares to this handsome guys talented ways!! Candide, my very fave

Lovely to hear the harmonium in " The poer of love"

Loving the jazzy scores in the West Side Story show n On The Town which I have on vinyl. CD as well. the latter I have on DVD. On the Town I'm looking out for..brilliant composer this guy, I read a little about him in a library book when he died. Now Maestro I'd like to see.

This is such a valuable resource to me. Thank you!

Wagnerian operas and singers leave me completely cold, and this hasn’t helped. In the supposedly wonderful Furtwängler recording, I think she sounds horrible, and her highest notes last a millisecond, just awful.

No one on this planet is more supercilious from the condescending, snobby and superior as the British critic, in whatever medium one cares to confront it. How odd that this critic and deconstructing the merits of West side story, pics. Of the most ardently sublime melodic and harmonic creations of the 20th century and proceeds, as British critics always do, to completely dismiss such high art as marginal. No matter... The time it doesn't British critics can produce a note of eternal beauty as Bernstein could and did.

Whoever it is here in this interview (Virgil Thomson I think) who accuses Bernstein of not emoting at all in a pit and just hamming it up for audiences when he is at center stage is dead wrong; complete horse dung. Wherever he was, in a recording studio, in rehearsal, he was who he was. Famously, during a recording of the 7th Symphony of Mahler he kept breaking into song in the middle of a particularly passionate moment in one of the movements. Producer John McClure begged him to stop. Bernstein apologized profusely and proceeded to do a retake. At the aforementioned place, he did not sing but about sixteen bars later couldn't help himself and started humming again. McClure said his love of the music and passion was unparalleled. This was not a ham. This was a truly great musician. His interpretations may not be everyone's cup of tea but hamming it up??? Not a chance.

The poor Brits! Why can't the English? Every English reviewer of American music I have ever encountered specializes in impeccunious belittlement, as if this in any way lessons the statue of the Great American composers, whether Gershwin, Bernstein, Aaron Copeland, Samuel Barber, or other peerless artists. But the British tend to minimize these through the wrong end of their microscope until they are nothing more than tempests in a teapot wanting in every way for quality, impact, originality, and so forth. Eric call a very condescending reviewer in his review of Samuel Barber's incredibly virtuosic and compelling piano sonata, managing to make it out as the work almost of a hack, with nothing of the depth, heights and profundity of the piece that won the Pulitzer prize that year, which it did. Nor can the British come up with anything remotely similar to any of these musical genres which they so condescendingly marginalize. Leave it to the Brits! The cat dance, they can't sing, they have no rhythm, and no real contemporary music to speak of, and yet they go on just as if they were in the midst of the inner circle of true music. Such other conceits and delusions of the intellect gotten out of hand.

So sad that we were robbed of Ms.Auger and Popp in the same year. Irreplaceable both.

WOW, AS ALWAYS... AMAZING ISNGING FROM jOAN. WONDERFUL MUSICALITY FROM BOTH.

❤️🇱🇨

By the way, the last London Lucias were 1985.

Unbelievable voice unbelievable singer. This sound is only possible by the human instrument trained perfectly! Love it!

Pure joy. Thank you. You

Thank you for this wonderful program. Strange that Culshaw doesn't mention that her first complete opera recording for Decca was Gluck's Alceste. Cheers.

I wish that Richard would produced a "History of Opera" with a worthy documentary team such as we see with Ken Burns. His knowledge in singing technique would be so enlightening. It would not be just an historical tracing of development as found in books. Maybe the BBC could do it.

This is very poignant

Thanks for posting this detailed historical memento. Bonynge’s insights are revelatory. Amis I only know of from the BBC My Music, which regrettably now seems unavailable. My father used to tape it regularly, and I played many of them after he died. Unfortunately, the tapes disappeared when his estate was finally wound up. It would be great if the BBC posted them on the net. Amis’s trove of anecdotes from his life in music, and his talent for mimicry, made entertaining listening, and should be preserved.

Wonderful ✨😍

This idea that he had "more misses than hits" in his symphonic works, I think is very misguided. It is perhaps indicative of an era when "experimentations" such as those of Xenakis were in vogue. But those were experiments, not music. LB wrote real music in a way that very few have done after WWII.

Oh the Sibelius. Glorious.

Have seen him on film much younger. Incredible he's 90 here, sharp as a tack & audibly not sounding a day older than 50! What a pleasure to be in his company again!

The late John Culshaw was one of the most gifted recording producers of all time.

Several of the Festivals' directors...

Regarding my comment below about Flagstad and Hotter: They sang Die Walkure in English in 1948 before Richard Bonynge was in England...

Would it be fair to say Flagstad was to Wagner as Callas and Tebaldi were to Belcanto

I can’t fund any of her Greig recordings

She hated people pronouncing her surname as if it were German.

Refreshing to hear an interviewer who understands the work of the interviewee.

What year was this?

Brava Diva. Gone far too soon

A true artist. Beautiful and talented. God rest her soul.

An absolutely fascinating programme about the great Flagstad, including her recorded advice to aspiring Wagnerian singers. A big thankyou for this important historical upload. This broadcast is going straight into My Favourites.

Virgil Thomson was a constipated snoot whose music is banal and boring and already forgotten except for the operas, whose interest is due to Gertrude Stein. He's not a scratch on Bernstein's toenail.

I met Maestro Bonynge twice backstage at the Met. Contrary to popular belief, he was absolutely delightful, and wasted 30 minutes chatting with me!

I don't think I have ever heard Richard Bonynge interviewed before. John Amis, whose voice is so familiar to me from My Music, does a wonderful job as always because he knows the opera world so well. Sadly John is no longer with us.

Always good to hear Lincolnshire Posy. I had the absolute pleasure of taking part in a performance of it under the baton of Mike Butcher back in the early 1980s. Just wonderful. Made me a fan of Percy. I've been to his museum in Melbourne twice. Lovely to hear Percy talking to John Amis. He sounds pretty sane to me!!

Is the date of this interview correct - 6th October 2010? Joan Sutherland died on 10 October 2010. I would think that Mr. Bonynge would have been in Switzerland assisting to his ailing wife.

This is excellent. Fascinating. Great interviews. Thanks for posting.

There is a longer version of this recording of Flagstad speaking, at: /watch?v=3PjMukkeG9s

Gorgeous, gorgeous voice. What a singer!

What a lovely man. Thanks for this

One of my heros. Thanks.

Isn’t he incredible for a 90 year old ,, ! 😍😍

Part2 is around ,,,, !!

So glad we managed to archive this fabulous talk of John Amis his program Talking about Music on the great Shovovitch ,, do listen Hope you can hear this

His strange "personal life" is more interesting than his music. Extensive collection of whips and restraints. BIZARRE mother, who would fake suicide just to see if he cared. ( She finally did it for real, as I recall). But he wouldn't talk about that , anyway.