10-08-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree drdna San Francisco, California Posts 526 Joined on 10-29-2005 Post #: 1 Post ID: 8465 Reply to: 8465 Koussevitsky and La Mer I recently heard Koussevitsky's interpretation of Debussy's La Mer as performed by the Boston Symphony, and I found it to be delightful, very fluid and pregnant with passion. Does anyone else have an opinion about this performance or have another preferred version? Adrian

10-08-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree Romy the Cat Boston, MA Posts 10,166 Joined on 05-28-2004 Post #: 2 Post ID: 8467 Reply to: 8465 The La Mer and Daphnis Et Chloé... Interesting timing for this question: just today the Radio of Amsterdam broadcasted their version of La Mer and had some thoughts about it, primary in audio contexts…. The Debussy’s La Mer is one of the “lucky” pleases of music and it is well performed, popular and many versions are available. If you like what Koussevitsky did then you need to try his follower - Munch with BSO. The Munch’s La Mer is one of those happy combinations of “right time performance”. Boulez with Cleveland did also phenomenal La Mer, do no miss their Daphnis Et Chloé. BTW, the Koussevitsky’s Daphnis Et Chloé think is better than the Koussevitsky’s La Mer…. BTW, it is very useful to hear a good play of La Mer live as the work has a lot those silky micro-waves that create that amassing breathing dynamic texture. Unfortunately many of today’s broadcasters use automatic gains control on microphones that wipes out those waves. The lazy dudes do not want to ride gain manually…. The Cat "I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche