Orchestral quality wind instruments start in the $3,000 range; harps at $12,500 and up. A good bassoon begins at $22,000. Violin-family instruments at the orchestral level are in the $50,000-and-above range, not including bows and cases.

The 2003–04 payroll for the Los Angeles Philharmonic showed $1.3 million for the conductor. It's not art. It's a rip-off. Kidding!!!

 

It's a very interesting subject. About the greatest conductors, I would say it depends on which composer or music of which era you feel like listening to.
Listen for yourself and compare different recordings of the same work by different conductors.

 

Last edited: Sep 5, 2019

I believe that in music, you need two kinds of inspired people:
the ones to put the music on paper
the ones to read more than what is strictly written on the paper
the conductor is this special visionary who reads between the lines
and characterizes all its intensities and subtleties in bodily movements that he inspires to his orchestra.

 

Last edited: Sep 5, 2019

i heard somewhere a conductor saying : "no you got it wrong, i PLAY the orchestra"

 

The “great symphonic boom” began in the 1930s and lasted some five decades. I don't want to say it's almost a dead art but people have found cheaper and more easily accessible alternatives for their entertainments.

 

Bradley Lubman is wonderful.

https://www.lincolncenter.org/video/59d4a327d1b282a171da9d9f

 

It may be that the "symphony" as we know it was born from musical forms of the 17th century, the baroque era.
A good 400 years. The term existed, but not to denote the same musical entity.
It goes a bit like this:

During the baroque, there were plenty of instrumental works for orchestra, but they were often arranged in "suites" of dance movements.
A good example of that is the "water music" from both G.F. Handel and G.P. Telemann.

The symphony coexisted with the a-b-a sonata form, but increasingly, symphonies from the 18th century, from composers like Mozart, Haydn, Dittersdorf, C.P.E. Bach are in 4 parts.

Beethoven straddles the line perfectly and ushers in the so called "romantic" era of the 19th century, the symphonic golden age and standard.
If you compare works from the 18th and 19th centuries, you will be able to tell them apart easily.

The 20th century is fascinating with symphonic works from the so called late romantic (exacerbated) or early contemporary composers like Mahler, R. Strauss, Debussy, Sibelius, and more composers like Hindemith, Hovhaness, R. Simpson, Stravinsky, Honegger, Shostakovich and Vaughan-Williams.

The symphony continues to be used by modern composers with vastly different styles like K.A. Hartmann, Schoenberg, Xenakis and others who wrote experimental symphonies also.

The 20th century is incredible for all this great variety in style, you have it all!
Music is still evolving. What comes next?

This may be one of the reasons new music students choose less the "symphonic form" as their choice of expression.

From breathing inspiration in a work using the strict romantic (like Schumann's symphony no.4) to very experimental works like "gruppen" and "carree"" from Stockhausen for 3 or 4 orchestras at once,
maybe it feels like it has all been done before or somehow heard before.
Maybe peoples' listening habits are changing.
Maybe symphonies moved on to the movies and we listen to them all the time without knowing

Nowadays, thanks to online, symphonies and rare recordings are more accessible for free, from your home than they ever were in the past!!​

There is an aspect of the "outdated" that is interesting.
I get that feeling when I listen to old 40's recordings of boogie woogie or old radio shows.
Entertainment moves on in a different way.

It's a question of style and sound esthetic.
Examples of change in these over time in both "popular" and "classical" forms of art are apparent.

 

Last edited: Sep 6, 2019

few months back I went to see Placido Domingo conducting Verdi's Aida at the Met. I've seen this before but Domingo was sensational, brought great aching and strength from these players, particularly in the quiet passages. Was a fantastic night out

 

Please let me point to a very fact about the contemporary music and audiences' changed tastes about their listenings:

Timbre refers to the quality of sound that distinguishes one instrument or voice from another. To hear timbre in action, we might think of the difference in Western music between art music and popular music traditions. Art music aims to produce a fairly standard timbre within a vocal range or class of instruments (which can make it difficult to distinguish one operatic soprano from another). Popular music, however, aims in the opposite direction, to distinguish one voice from another, one way of playing an instrument from another. Establishing a unique timbre is one way of doing so, and most listeners can probably tell the difference between Mariah Carey and Pink. Timbre is a powerful worldwide musical property. It is of great importance to most modern music.

Today, people want to hear different timbres, simple rhythms and melodies. For them, the various underlying structures of music are of little importance. Without attracting their attentions to those structures, classical music and its different genres will lose their chances to be turned into ubiquitous and requested commodities everywhere.

 

TIMBRE

whats is a fugue is also a great video of this dude..

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2019

Beat these

 

Done...with Litz Wire.

That was easy!

 

Dang

 

Igor himself conducting Stravinsky. Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, The Firebird.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Stravinsky Nice nod to Zappa, Lois Lane.

 

--------------- I played a contra Steinway in Vancouver BC, a couple months ago. $380,000 in Canadian dollars! Played like a dream. Too bad my skills were not very worthy.

 

Saw this Lady conduct Sibelius 1st with Helsinki in Columbus Ohio (Ohio Theater). Amazing.https://susannamalkki.com/biography/