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2014-02-06 16:34:18
Musician refugee from Hitler plays in Berlin
This video from Switzerland is called Menahem Pressler – Interview – Verbier Festival 2013. By Verena Nees in Germany: Pianist Menahem Pressler, refugee from Nazism, performs at the Berlin Philharmonic 6 February 2014 In January, an audience of thousands experienced a moving event: a slight, 90-year-old man sat nimbly at the piano in a Berlin concert hall and played Mozart ’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major (1784). During his performance, he was visibly cheerful, communicated with the orchestra, particularly with the wind section, and spoke through Mozart’s music to the audience—urging the listener to enjoy every trill. The pianist was Menahem Pressler, born Max Jacob Pressler in 1923 in Magdeburg, Germany. Seventy-five years ago, in 1939, he and his family were barely able to flee the Nazi terror against the Jewish population . His family’s clothing store was ransacked and destroyed on November 9, 1938, during the […]
2012-05-16 00:43:00
Hans Graf/HSO: Two Faces of Shostakovich in Houston
by Paul Robinson Photo by Craig Chesek/Carnegie Hall Shostakovich/Milman: Anti-Formalist RayokShostakovich: Symphony No. 11 in G minor Op. 103 “The Year 1905” Nikhail Svetlov, bassHouston Symphony/Hans GrafJones HallHouston, TexasMay 3, 2012 Over 44 years ago, Leopold Stokowskiconducted the first North American performance of the Symphony No. 11 byShostakovich. Stokowski was then music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra (HSO) and had already conducted a number of important Shostakovich (photo: right) premieres. Around the time of those 1958 performances of Symphony No. 11, Stokowski and the HSO also made the first commercial recording of the piece. Hans Graf, the current music director of the Houston Symphony, is making news again with this Shostakovich masterwork. The May 3rd HSO program paired Symphony No. 11 with one of the composer’s lesser known works, the Anti-Formalist Rayok. A few days later Graf took this same program to New York’s Carnegie Hall, and on […]