Tuesday, February 22, 2011

#53 The Smell of Heat

One can hardly forget that this symphonic poem has a program, beat by beat. It's wild, dirty, abrasive. You can smell fear and abandonment. "Give me the child!" in trombones is pure horror.

But I really stare in consternation when Dvořák forms the heat of a summer day with all its terrible compactness and unfulfilled expectations. The combination of idyll and terror is unbeatable.




Composer: Antonín Dvořák
Work: The Noon Witch
Recording: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

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