Saturday Evening Concert

Welcome to the Weekend and your Saturday Evening Concert.  I have a couple of terrific classic live performance recordings lined up for you tonight.  The concerts, both here in these pages and over on my tumblr, offer excellent interpretations of the Music of my favorite Russian Gay Icon & Composer, Pyotr Tchaikovsky.  Tonigh's performances feature all star casts, the recordings of which I am sure will last forever. 

Down below you will find Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio, Opus 50, the recording of which comes from a 9 CD box set featuring the artistic talents of Pinchas Zuckerman on Violin, Daniel Barenboim on Piano and the late Jacqueline Du Pre on Cello.  The Amazon.com Editorial Review reads:

"In the main, the youthful Beethoven chamber music collaborations between Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zuckerman, and the late Jacqueline du Pré are characterized by broad, liberally fluctuating tempos, ripeness of tone, and a tendency to place expression ahead of stylistic considerations. Zuckerman's sweet vibrato, for instance, seems misplaced in Beethoven's terse, combative syntax (the earlier trios and violin sonatas, for example). Likewise, du Pré's throbbing solo lines impose a late-Romantic patina on the music that some listeners will find more appropriate to Arensky or Glazunov. More often than not, Daniel Barenboim's piano provides the decisive voice, by way of setting tempos and effecting transitions.

While the leaner, more economically expressive Abegg Trio (Tacet) and Vienna Piano Trio (Nimbus) Beethoven Trio offerings better reflect the composer's headlong brio and nervous energy, the Barenboim-Zuckerman-Du Pré team oozes sheer musicality and involvement in every bar. For this reason, one might well prefer Zuckerman and Barenboim's overwrought rapport in the Violin Sonatas to the violinist's tighter RCA remakes with Marc Neikrug at the piano. Du Pré's tragic illness prevented her and Barenboim from tackling the Cello Sonatas in the studio. Happily, their exciting, communicative live 1970 Edinburgh Festival traversals (plus the variation sets) were broadcast by the BBC and captured in excellent sound. So was a touchingly indulgent Tchaikovsky Trio preserved from one of Du Pré's final concerts, included as both a bonus and a memento. Tully Potter's excellent booklet notes give equal time to music and artists, and rightly discuss the performances in the context of their time. It's good to have these recordings gathered in a budget-priced, space-saving box. --Jed Distler"

While over on my tumblr you may join the legendary figures of Arturo Toscanini and Vladimir Horowitz along with the NBC Symphony Orchestra for their 1943 performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number 1 in B Flat Major recorded live at Carnegie Hall.  

Then to top off the evening with more beauty to behold in all its glory is this week's edition of  Naked of Nearly So posted down below.  Cruise on down and you will find it chock full of sizzling studs all of whom are hale and hearty, while some are even horny!  Then over on my tumblr, Marco Scott, Your Hottie of the Day! will make you want to dive right in and suck him right up, dammitall!  Thanks for sharing a part of your Weekend with me, see you again on Monday for another week of Music, Men & More!  Until next time as always, Enjoy!