On hold music ...

[Novi]

I've just been on hold on the telephone for over 10 minutes. Guess what the music was?

Bruckner 8!  0:)

(It was, however, the Edinburgh International Festival number though).

[mahlertitan]

I've just been on hold on the telephone for over 10 minutes. Guess what the music was?

Bruckner 8!  0:)

(It was, however, the Edinburgh International Festival number though).

which movement?

[knight66]

Did you not ask them to put you back on 'hold' again so you could hear the rest? What did you book?

Mike

[Novi]

which movement?

The 4th  . Couldn't tell who was playing though.

Did you not ask them to put you back on 'hold' again so you could hear the rest? What did you book?

Mike

In general, I prefer my Bruckner not to be punctuated by regular 'all our staff are busy at the moment, your call has been placed in a queue, blah, blah' .

Actually, 10 minutes waiting time is quite reasonable these days. I can think of places where you could go through the entire Brucknerian corpus and a couple of acts of Parsifal before you get to speak to anybody. Like British Airways. Only it would be 5 hours of muzak-al Delibes.

Mike, I booked a good handful of tickets because this may well be my last Festival .

Some highlights:

Monteverdi's L'Ofeo with Jordi Savall and his lot - fully staged

This one I'm particularly looking forward to:

Strauss, Final scene from Salome
Mahler 7

SFSO (MTT) and Deborah Voigt

Various concerts with
Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Adès)
BRSO (Jansons)
Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venuzuela (Dudamel)

Also, Dame Evelyn Glennie recital, because I have no idea what a percussion solo recital will be like.

And various chamber gigs at the Queen's Hall, including the Tokyo Quartet, Yuri Bashmet and Mark Padmore.

There's also a series of early vocal music at Greyfriars Kirk which is really attractive, but the credit card is protesting a little.

Here's the link if you want to have a look:
www.eif.co.uk

[knight66]

Looks like an exciting three weeks. I hope you enjoy it...and give us reports.

Mike

[Choo Choo]

I wonder if that 8th is last August's Blomstedt / Philharmonia performance from the Usher Hall?  If so, I recorded it off R3 at the time - and thought it fine.  It's not the Blomstedt of Staatskapelle Dresden days - but not bad all the same.  Over the phone, you probably don't hear it at its best though.

[mahlertitan]

The 4th  . Couldn't tell who was playing though.

you must be kidding me, aren't they afraid that this music will scare people off?

[Novi]

I wonder if that 8th is last August's Blomstedt / Philharmonia performance from the Usher Hall?  If so, I recorded it off R3 at the time - and thought it fine.  It's not the Blomstedt of Staatskapelle Dresden days - but not bad all the same.  Over the phone, you probably don't hear it at its best though.

That was a good performance, wasn't it? I enjoyed the 7th with Belohlávek as well. Surprisingly though, it was the 1st with Oramo that really left a mark on me. I'd never heard this one before and not knowing really anything at all about Bruckner, wasn't expecting great things from an early symphony (more fool me!).

Last year's format replaced a regular concert programme with 3 separate ones: Beethoven symphony; a second piece; and Bruckner later on. That evening was Beethoven 3, Das Lied, and Bruckner1, the first two being personal favourites, and while the Beethoven was good, I was really disappointed by the Mahler (rubbish soloists and a scrappy orchestra), but the Bruckner was a revelation: taut, exciting, energetic. Pity the hall was barely half full.

you must be kidding me, aren't they afraid that this music will scare people off?

Hey, MahlerTitan, the Festival hotline gets geeks like me calling to book tickets for Baroque operas. You think a bit of Bruckner would scare us off?

[Wanderer]

Actually, 10 minutes waiting time is quite reasonable these days. I can think of places where you could go through the entire Brucknerian corpus and a couple of acts of Parsifal before you get to speak to anybody. Like British Airways. Only it would be 5 hours of muzak-al Delibes.

Post of the Week nomination! 

The Monteverdi and Mahler & R.Strauss evenings sound indeed awesome.