Richard Temple Savage in Covent Garden - April, 1937

from A voice from the Pit: Reminiscences of an Orchestral Musician, pages 53-54:

In the April season Flagstad was back to delight and it was out first "Ring" with Wilhelm Furtwängler.... The great man had a very strange beat, the only word to describe it is - wobbly.... For example: the opening of "Siegfried" has two bars timpani roll and then two bassoons come in, in thirds. Furtwangler would start quite steadily for two bars and then, just before the bassoon entry, he would begin to wobble and they didn't know where they were; poor Jack and George Alexandra would be sweating with terror.... Furtwängler considered the "Ring" purely orchestrally, it seemed to me. …   more >>
cite as

Richard Temple Savage, A voice from the Pit: Reminiscences of an Orchestral Musician (Newton Abbot, 1988), p. 53-54. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1429093278204 accessed: 2 November, 2024

location of experience: Covent Garden

Listeners

Richard Temple Savage
clarinettist music librarian, writer, music librarian, Clarinetist, Writer
1909-

Listening to

hide composers
Der Ring des Nibelungen
written by Richard Wagner
performed by other unspecified singers, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Kirsten Flagstad, Lauritz Melchior, London Philharmonic Orchestra

Experience Information

Date/Time April, 1937
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, indoors, in public

Originally submitted by iepearson on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 11:21:18 +0100
Approved on Sun, 20 Dec 2015 15:38:07 +0000