Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial Concert, Royal Festival Hall | reviews, news & interviews
Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial Concert, Royal Festival Hall
Sir Charles Mackerras Memorial Concert, Royal Festival Hall
Happy, energetic tribute to the long-serving master conductor
Friday, 05 November 2010
Sir Charles Mackerras during rehearsals for his final Philharmonia concert last DecemberClive Barda
In the last year of his life he was, as a colleague noted when we learned of Charles Mackerras’s death, the wise old gamekeeper in the spring forest of Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen. No wonder Mackerras, we were told last night by his conductor nephew Alexander Briger, wanted that most ecstatic celebration of the natural order for his memorial, just as Janáček had had it played at his funeral. Was it trivialised by an encore number from Mackerras’s deliciously arranged Sullivan potpourri-ballet, Pineapple Poll? Not a jot, mate.
In the last year of his life he was, as a colleague noted when we learned of Charles Mackerras’s death, the wise old gamekeeper in the spring forest of Janáček's Cunning Little Vixen. No wonder Mackerras, we were told last night by his conductor nephew Alexander Briger, wanted that most ecstatic celebration of the natural order for his memorial, just as Janáček had had it played at his funeral. Was it trivialised by an encore number from Mackerras’s deliciously arranged Sullivan potpourri-ballet, Pineapple Poll? Not a jot, mate.
While I didn't shed the expected tears at Mackerras's last, rather fraught performance of the Vixen at Covent Garden, they flowed freely last night
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