José Serebrier
Who has heard any recordings conducted by him? How do you like him?
He's not exactly a full-time conductor (as I've heard him called, he's a composer who conducts on the side), but I think he has a very good mentality when it comes to interpreting a piece of music correctly.
Personally, I think he has made perhaps one of the greatest contributions to the revival of Glazunov's music by finishing an entire (and superb) Symphonic Cycle recently.
"Music is an art, and art is forever. Music should not succumb to fashion, which is passing and forgotten."
Glazunov
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re:Serebrier
I like him a lot. I have only two recordings of his: The Makropoulos Case and Sinfonietta. Both are music by Janacek and both are wonderful.
Many years ago I played under him. I was a totally untalented clarinetist and he was conducting an amateur orchestra. I thought he was terrific, but am probably not qualified to have an opinion.
Serebrier IS more or less a full-time conductor as far as I know. He juggles his composing and conducting careers in the same way that Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös and Esa-Pekka Salonen do.
As a composer, I find his music rather bland, over-conservative and not particularly gripping. I think he is a very good conductor who can elicit a great deal of enthusiasm from orchestral players.
His 2 CDs of Bach transcriptions by his conducting teacher and mentor Leopold Stokowski are very enjoyable (and wondrously over-the-top!), as is the disc of Stocky's Wagner orchestral opera syntheses. I also have discs of him conducting wind-band arrangement of Bizet's Carmen (a project with mixed results) and one of Stkowski's version of Musorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition, A Night on the Bare (Bald) Mountain and Khovanshchina.
Lastly, I have an old vinyl LP from 1974 of his recording of Charles Ives' Fourth Symphony - a work in which he was an assistant conductor when Stokowski recorded it in 1965. The performance is excellent, but the terrible recording is execrable, making it almost unlistenable for me.
That's an influential opinion - one of the three tests for a conductor.Originally Posted by mahlerite
What can he do with amateur musicians - can he loosen them up so they can play the music together and with feeling?
Can he get a professional orchestra to accept his leadership and direction?
Can he communicate his conception of the music to the orchestra, so that it all hangs together?
Serebrier has demonstrated on recordings that he can do the latter two; your post suggests that he could do the first.
I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people don't like me anyway.
I have the same LP...
Serebrier has been a bit of a journeyman conductor, creeping up in Adelaide and in Bamberg. I own some of his "Tchaikovsky/Shakespeare trilogy" with the Bamberg, as well as some of his French music with the Adelaide SO. I think his stint as Stokowski's assistant makes him a very dependable guy across the entire repertoire, from what I can judge...
Now, Serebrier has finished a recording of the Complete Concertos by Glazunov! I really want it, I need a new recording of the Violin Concerto anyway.
"Music is an art, and art is forever. Music should not succumb to fashion, which is passing and forgotten."
Glazunov
Join TC's Official Russian Composer Fanclub!
Oh, and, here's my professional website!
Serebrier cannot save Glazunov.
I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people don't like me anyway.
I'm not going to let you kill my spirit. I've learned my lesson before.
"Music is an art, and art is forever. Music should not succumb to fashion, which is passing and forgotten."
Glazunov
Join TC's Official Russian Composer Fanclub!
Oh, and, here's my professional website!
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