# Conductors - revelatory performances?



## apbsen (Jun 14, 2013)

On rare occasions, a conductor manages to create a revelatory performance/recording,

in which the conductor uncovers and reveals completely new aspects of a piece...and the piece presents itself in a wholly new and unknown light.

Has anyone had this experience of stumbling across a particular performance/recording, which has created this sense of "epiphany"?

And which recordings or conductors have created this feeling of discovery and re-evaluation of a piece?


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Actually, yes. For years, I was afraid to listen to The Rite of Spring, beyond the introduction and the F flat Major/E Flat Dom7 polychord. Until I heard/saw Michael Tilson Thomas' program with the SF Symphony "Keeping Score" program on that piece. MTT did a great job of explaining the piece, its influences, structure etc... Now I listen to this version all the time, and have long since lost my "fear" of this piece.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I won't say it really produced anything new, but after years or hearing/liking/getting used to Stravinsky's own very good Columbia recording of Petrushka, I heard Boulez' with the NYPhil and was completely blown away. It was like someone used Windex on the score. I still like both, but that was one of my first experiences with a performance that caused a complete reevaluation.


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## Guest (Mar 13, 2014)

Gielen in Mahler's ninth.

Plays it as if it were a piece of music rather than a philosophical treatise or a meditation on mortality.

And what a novel idea that is, eh?

(I'm sure there are others. Gielen's is the only one I've heard that just plays the music. And splendid music it is, to be sure.)


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I am finding many of Hogwood's Haydn symphonies to be revelations. I also greatly enjoy Gardiner's Schumann Symphonies.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> I am finding many of Hogwood's Haydn symphonies to be revelations. I also greatly enjoy Gardiner's Schumann Symphonies.


Yes, I agree about Hogwood's Haydn symphonies cycle. So fresh and exhilarating!

My pick for most revelatory conducting job would be the Thomas Sanderling Mahler 6th with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. His understanding of the overall architecture of the work is amazing. He gears the tempo and dynamics throughout with the sole aim of arriving at the crashing minor chord ending of the finale in the most devastating fashion.


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## Animato (Dec 5, 2013)

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

I never came accross a recording which I liked more than Zubin Metha's version with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
It's superb !


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Ivan Fischer was hired as a last minute replacement conductor for a performance of Mahler 4 with the New York Philharmonic. It was a magical, wonderfully nuanced performance and if I could get a recording of it, I would favor it over any I have heard.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Leonard Bernstein created a sensation with his first recording of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony.
At the time I had never even heard of Shostakovich and I fell for the hype and bought the record.
I'm not sorry that I did. I loved it!


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## themysticcaveman (Jul 9, 2013)

Any Beethoven recording by Harnoncourt, namely the 3rd and Missa Solemnis, I had listened to the third so many times by so many of the greats I had listened to it so much it was losing it's spark, I had pretty much over listened to Beethoven's symphonies they were dying, and my goodness when I came across that Harnoncourt cycle I jumped so high in the air with the excitement and joy over how much he had revived Beethoven for me


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