QUOTE OF THE DAY: MAY 11, 2016: CARL MARIA VON WEBER & THE MAGIC THAT IS CARLOS KLEIBER

Today’s Quote of the Day comes to us from composer, musician and critic Carl Maria von Weber, one of late 18th – early 19th century Germany’s most influential and important composers of the Romantic era:

“What love is to man, music is to the arts and to mankind.
Music is love itself - it is the purest, most ethereal language of passion,
showing in a thousand ways all possible changes of color and feeling;
and though true in only a single instance, it yet can be understood by thousands of men - who all feel differently.”

-Carl Maria von Weber

Enjoy below one of the greatest Overtures in opera (according to the author of this blog!) from under the baton of the greatest conductor to have ever performed it: the famous Overture from Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (The Marksman) as performed by the Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester in this rare 1970 recording.*


Footnotes:

*Rare in the sense of the maestro’s ever-illusive mystique surrounding rehearsal footage - which was included alongside this concert footage, and whose distaste for such ventures included audio recordings in addition to video (see: Did You Know? Tristan und Isolde from my post on Schopenhauer). Kleiber, an infamous perfectionist and recluse “astonished” contemporary conductors across Germany (and indeed, across the continent), when he agreed, nearly 50 years ago - at what would be the very Zenith of his career as a much esteemed master of the baton and orchestra - to be recorded in rehearsal with the Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester, rehearsing the overtures of Weber and waltz king Johann Strauß II (Der Freischütz and Die Fledermaus, respectively – that latter of which would become a staple piece of his repertoire, along with Strauß' full opera). It is said the audience was so bowled over by the lush interpretation and personal aesthetics of Kleiber, that those attending the concert for the overtures became rhapsodized by the German maestro, and would begin what would become a trend in the later performances in which he would conduct – with all eyes on Kleiber.

I am of the opinion that when it comes to Carlos, the undoubted veracity of Weber's quote is put to the test with triumphant results - just look at that passion! The late maestro Kleiber was second to none in the esteemed realm of enrapturing an audience - how could one possibly witness a 'performance' like this - and not "feel" what Carlos is feeling? In Carlos, truly, the spirit of all men are united.

Ah, to have been there at such a moment!

-Rose.

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