Domestic Helper

My wife is giving birth to the baby in Jan, so we have hired a Philippine maid. She has just arrived today. She is OK but does not talk a lot. My wife said she has not got used to having somebody else at home, because we have been alone for 9.5 years since we got married. I am sure we will get used to it soon.

Furtwangler's Beethoven Choral Symphony

Bought this 4-CD set from ProSound the other day. It is interesting to compare the three historical versions of Furtwangler's Beethoven Choral Symphony. There is a separate CD that includes excerpts of several performances by Furtwangler and other conductors. To me, I still think the recording made in 1951 Bayreuth is the best of all. The slow movement of this recording is absoultely divine. It is second to none in all the recordings that I have, including Karajan, Abbado, Rattle, Berstein, Toscanini, Wand, etc. The nearest one is Harnoncourt, which I also enjoyed listening to all the time.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

2006年11月21日，台北 8:00 PM
楊頌斯 (Mariss Jansons) 與阿姆斯特丹皇家大會堂管弦樂團在國家音樂廳上演貝多芬第八號和馬勒第一號。

Why can't we take this opportunity to invite them to HK? What a waste!

de Waart conducted Mahler 3

I have been looking forward to this concert (Sat one) in the past few days. I have listened to quite a number of versions to prepare for it, including Bernstein, Abbado, Horenstein, MTT.

de Waart took the whole piece at a slow tempo, particularly the 1st, the 4th and the last movement. The brass is still the weakest link - the french horns were not together, the trumpets were flawed in intonation. Only the Trombones were OK. The woodwinds maintained their bright sound throughout. The strings have registered significant improvement compared with pre-de-Waart era. The guest concertmaster gave a very warm sound in her solo. The choir also performed well.

There were a number of accidents tonight, e.g. the assistant principal of the violas dropped her shoulder rest during a very quite passage, the solo trumpet was noticeably flat, etc. Some people left after the 1st movement. However, it was good that the audience did not clap between the movements.

All in all, it was a very powerful Mahler 3. de Waart has already done his best. I am satisfied with the performance. Perhaps I was sitting in the middle of the balcony, the acoustic was much better than last year's Mahler 2. I shall choose seats at the balcony in the future.

Bryn Terfel's Recital

This is the most terrific concert I have attended in recent years! What a shame that it was not a full house. There has not been much information about this concert and no poster was seen. In fact, there were more foreigners than locals in the audience. As Bryn is such a famous singer and he is at the peak of his singing career, I am so lucky that I haven't missed his concert. His voice is so solid, yet very flexible. And he is a good actor with a sense of humour. I 110% enjoyed it and I think more people should have attended his concert!

Name

Still got no idea about my son's name. It is so difficult to think of a name that is meaningful, sounds good, not so popular, and suits my surname. Any suggestions ar?

Andras Schiff's Bach

Just got this set from Amazon.de! Schiff has been concentrating on Bach for a number of years, and I am glad that I finally own a set by him that covers all the solo keyboard works of Bach. Hardly available anywhere else at a reasonable price!