Musicians in Live Performances or on Recordings

Naturally, most of my most memorable performances and favorite recordings are by some of my favorite artists listed below. Anyway, here are some of my favorite musicians, in performances or on recordings:

• Singers: (or opera singers, if you insist.) My favorite male voice is Placido Domingo. I was blessed with three occasions to hear him live, once in Tosca with Washington Opera after I stood in line for about 7 hours for a standing room ticket in November, 1988, once in concert in Toronto's Maple Leaf Garden in 1992, and once at LA Opera for a concert version of Wagner acts with Maryinsky/Gregoriev in 2000. I enjoy the many Domingo CDs I have (almost) as much. Most often, if there is a recording of a particular opera with Domingo in it, that's the version I get. I also like some recent ones like Ben Hepner, Bryn Terfel and Richard Margison (only one I heard live in this group, in Mephistophile with Royal Opera, 3/98). My favorite female voices are Renee Fleming (absolutely beautiful in live performance in Rusalka with Royal Opera in 7/03, far superior experience to her recording of the same!), Frederica von Stade, Cecilia Bartoli, Kathleen Battle, (all heard live) Tatiana Troyanos, and Judith Blegen (unfortunately, never hear these two live).

• Conductors/Orchestra/Ensembles/etc.: I love the way Mstislav Rostropovich (and Neeme Jarvi too) doing Shostakovich with NSO (and CSO too), and almost everything Leonard Bernstein did. I also think that Bernstein is vastly under-rated as a composer. I enjoy his symphonies a lot. Helmut Rilling/Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart playing Bach passions/contatas/etc., John Eliot Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists/Monteverdi Choir (anything!), Solti's Ring (should I say Wagner's ring by Solti?), Von Dohnanyi's Beethoven (I appreciate Von Dohnanyi/Cleveland the most among the major conductor-orchestra pairs),

• Instrumental Soloists and Chamber Ensembles: I love the way Mstislav Rostropovich playing Bach Cello Suites, Dvorak and Shostakovich Cello Concerti, and almost everything else for cello. Other great matches to me are: Glenn Gould playing Bach, Borodin Quartet (the older one 1970's to 1990's, not the original one which I've never heard, nor the new one reconstituted a couple of years ago) playing Shostakovich Quartets. I love Cleveland Quartet too, attended their concert at the University of Maryland Community Concert Series quite a few times, and was very much saddened to see them disband.

• Other Performers/Musicians: I love Anna Russell, whose hilarious comments I cannot wipe clean whenever I listen to Wagner, ``art songs'', Gilbert-and-Sullivan, etc. I enjoy PDQ Bach too, and even have his authentic biography, in additional to the numerous recordings. I also enjoy jazz musicians like Wynton Marsalis (who, together with Claude Bolling, opened the door of jazz for me, I guess, because of their classical connections), Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck etc.

• Musicians Close to Home: It's pity that I don't play any musical instrument, although I enjoy tremendously my weekly excursion to accompany my daughter Christine in her piano classes with Ms. Marina Tverye, by the way, a wonderful music teacher. Since we have a nice piano at home, I've tried to follow some textbooks myself, but have stuck on level 1 (not the first, I passed the "premier" level!) for many-many year. (So embarrassing to count the years!). But, who knows, it might be a blessing in disguise, to allow me to concentrate on the appreciation of music rather than trying to figure out "what I can learn from this, to play/make music like that". What is more, it make me appreciate the supreme work of real musicians even more, including the spirited play of Christine, whom I think should devote much more time in order not to waste the great potential, when she's really into it.

• Concert/Recording Programming: Coupling in recordings as well as in concerts sometimes leads to happy, but unintended consequences, such as Prokofiev No.1 to Shostakovich No.1 on the same tape, and Mozart Mass (#?) to Haydn Mass No.9 on the same CD, ... Sometimes, they can be a major source of frustration, especially on recordings (two-sided media more than one-sided). I still remember my first recording of Beethoven No.5, with Egmont Overture tagged to the end. For a long time, I mistook it as the 4th movement of No.5, also because of the no-break 3rd-4th connection! And, some familiar/famous pieces are ever perplexing to me because I mixed up the name/number from the very beginning because one of them was on side A and the other on side B.

• Recordings: I never bought my recordings at full price, in order to maximize my musical enjoyment within limited budgetary constraints. Music clubs are great if you don't need to get something in a hurry, and I discovered many treasures from their limited catalogue. Tower Records seem to follow my moves, from Washington to Toronto to Dallas, to provide me with real browsing opportunities and some buying ones too, especially the cut-out bins. I also got many CDs/LDs from close-out sales of our local Sound Warehouse, Blockbuster Music, Blockbuster Video (LDs) etc., in Dallas. and miss the competition down Yonge Street (Toronto) among HMV, Sam&Sam, Tower (and the original A&A).