# Wonderful Viennese Evening from the Hollywod Bowl featuring Schwarzkopf.



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

If you like operetta, and I know quite a few of you do, do listen to this wonderful concert from the Hollywod Bowl in 1963, Willi Boskowsky conducts the LA Philharmonic and Schwarzkopf is in fabulous voice. Caught live and on the wing, she brilliantly refutes any suggestion that she was principally a recording artist. There's also a wonderful spontaneity about her singing that you don't always get in the studio.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf And Willi Boskovsky With The Los Angeles Philharmonic - Viennese Night 1963 - Past Daily Mi-Week Concert - Holiday Edition


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wonderful! Listening now. As a longtime connoisseur of Viennese light music - Strauss was my gateway to classical music and I spent countless delirious hours listening to and playing his waltzes on the piano - I'm noting what qualities Boskovsky can and can't get from his American musicians. Only the Viennese and I (ha!) really understand the flexible and subtly syncopated Viennese waltz rhythm. These Californians haven't a clue, but Josef Strauss's _Delirien_ waltz, a favorite piece by my favorite Strauss, survives their prosaic oom-pah-pah pretty well.

On to Dame Elisabeth. She's really letting it all out!


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Given how little rehearsal time they had for Hollywood Bowl concerts, Boskovsky probably didn't even try for that level of subtlety. Besides, remembering my experiences there, it would probably be lost on anyone further back than the front few rows. The Hollywood Bowl makes the Royal Albert Hall seem like an intimate venue.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Given how little rehearsal time they had for Hollywood Bowl concerts, Boskovsky probably didn't even try for that level of subtlety. Besides, remembering my experiences there, it would probably be lost on anyone further back than the front few rows. The Hollywood Bowl makes the Royal Albert Hall seem like an intimate venue.


Boskovsky probably couldn't have inculcated Viennese style into the orchestra no matter how many rehearsals they'd had. It's a matter of rhythm, as in jazz, and if you didn't grow up hearing it it doesn't come naturally. In a Viennese waltz, the exact placement of the second beat of the bar is highly variable; it's often, but not always, slightly anticipated, and the degree of anticipation depends on context. It gives the music lightness, exhilaration, propulsion and elasticity. You can hear it in the playing of any Viennese ensemble, but most non-natives just ain't got that swing.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Boskovsky probably couldn't have inculcated Viennese style into the orchestra no matter how many rehearsals they'd had. It's a matter of rhythm, as in jazz, and if you didn't grow up hearing it it doesn't come naturally. In a Viennese waltz, the exact placement of the second beat of the bar is highly variable; it's often, but not always, slightly anticipated, and the degree of anticipation depends on context. It gives the music lightness, exhilaration, propulsion and elasticity. You can hear it in the playing of any Viennese ensemble, but most non-natives just ain't got that swing.


This is no doubt true, but the UK based Philharmonia managed that authentic "swing" when Walter Legge recorded all those operettas with his wife, Schwarzkopf. His conductors were Karajan, Ackermann and von Matacic. One assumes, though, that they had a great deal more rehearsal than the Hollywood Bowl got for this concert.


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