I couldn't agree more strongly with Théo . As Colin Davis said when he took over at the LSO, what the orchestra needed was to play a great deal of Mozart and Haydn, string tone often having been the Achilles heel of London orchestras. Davis has also said that, of works he would most still like to record he would most like to record, he would choose the St Matthew Passion, but noted that, alas, the 'specialists' would never allow that. As our good host points out, the present situation would have been incomprehensible to great conductors of the past, whether Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, or Furtwängler. How is one to hear the Bach in Mahler, let alone the Mahler in Bach, if one does not know Bach - and know him intimately? Even if one were to take the ayatollah-like view that Bach and Handel were and could only be chamber music, it would be necessary to play them for that reason alone. Those would confine Bach, Mozart, Monteverdi, or anyone else, to a (generally grossly mis...
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Please. Given some of the activities in the news recently of actual police, this comment goes beyond silly.
As I said in a recent comment, I have easy and inexpensive access to a wider variety of recorded, downloadable, streamable, and live classical music than ever before in my 40+ years as a listener.
I understand that you are deeply unhappy about some of the means and mechanisms, but the reality is as I've stated it.
And wouldn't it be wonderful if the music humour police could be persuaded to hibernate as well?