Nov 06
A Blast from the Past| Part Two Stravinsky and Strauss Since my last post, I have been going through the video archive of the NRK that feature the Oslo Philharmonic of my era (1983 -1998) and was able to come up with several that were of more than passing interest to me. The archive included …
Nov 01
A Blast from the Past| Viewing Concert Videos from the Past The Back Story During my fifteen or so years with the Oslo Philharmonic, part of each season was devoted to making radio and TV recordings for the Norsk Riks Kringkasting (Norwegian Radio and Television Broadcasting – NRK for short) as part of the government …
Sep 18
The Year 1987 – I begin to use calf heads As I mentioned in the last three blog posts, the year 1987 was a pivotal year for both the Oslo Philharmonic and for me. 1987 saw the emergence of the orchestra onto the international music scene through its tours to Italy and Spain in the …
Mar 20
The EMI Recordings 1987| Part Two Shostakovich and Svendsen In the previous post, The EMI recordings 1987|Part One, I wrote about how the OPO and Mariss made the transition from recording for Chandos to recording for EMI and wrote in some detail about our first EMI recording, an album of Tchaikovsky favorites, 1812 Overture, Romeo …
Feb 20
The EMI Recordings | 1987-97|Part One In my previous blog posts devoted to the recording activities of the Oslo Philharmonic during my tenure, I concentrated, naturally enough, on the recordings we made for Chandos Records LTD, of Colchester, England. These consisted of the complete symphonies of Tchaikovsky, the 9th Symphony of Anton Bruckner, and …
Jan 31
Bruckner’s Ninth I have written in detail about the Oslo Philharmonic’s recordings of the Tchaikovsky symphonies, which were eventually released on the Chandos label during the 1980s. They still stand the test of time, and sound as fresh as they day we recorded them. They were supposed to lead to a much more open-ended …
Dec 23
Recording The Tchaikovsky Symphonies | Part Seven “Manfred” Symphony, op. 58 You will recall from the last blog post that we re-recorded the “Pathetique” Symphony in the late fall of 1986, after having put it on tape the previous August. The reason for this was that our chief conductor Mariss Jansons felt that …
Dec 09
Recording the Tchaikovsky Symphonies|Part Six Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, op. 74 “Pathetique” By this time, it was clear to all of us in the organization that we had two symphonies left to record. Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 had been recorded (the Second and Third had not yet …
Dec 07
Recording the Tchaikovsky Symphonies | Part Five Symphony No. 3 in D major, op. 29 At this point in time, the Oslo Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons were on a roll (figuratively) when it came to recording the Tchaikovsky symphonies for Chandos. It was the early winter of 1986. Symphonies No. 5 and 4 …
Oct 12
Recording the Tchaikovsky Symphonies | Part Four Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, op. 17 “Little Russian” Now that we had three of the Tchaikovsky symphonies on tape – by this time two had been released, and the 1st Symphony was due for release in the late fall of 1985, the orchestra …
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