Stravinsky "Le sacre du printemps", 2005 conductor Paul Mauffray

Conductor Paul Mauffray with the Brno Philharmonic performing Igor Stravinsky's "Le sacre du printemps" in March of 2005.

For this engagement, I was called on 24 hours to replace another conductor, and this was my first appearance with this orchestra. One of my favorite spots in this video is at 3:25-26 where you can see up close that one of the violins has ripped some hair loose from the bow!

For those of you who are familiar with the score, I should mention that I chose to conduct two spots (2:22 & 2:37) according to the original notation as opposed to the simpler method changed in the Boosey & Hawkes edition to constant bars of 9/8. This was done on the personal advice of Claudio Abbado who said that "if you can conduct the more complicated Danse Sacrale, then why simplify these two bars which aren't that difficult as originally notated"!

(This video upload on youtube still seems to have a slight problem with sychonization of sound and image.)

www.paulmauffray.blogspot.com

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  Music

[Joachim Schuster]

Very good Maestro. I like this piece very much. In the age of 13 (41 years ago) I'v started my posession for classical music because of an excellent music teacher at school (as you can see, my english teacher wasn't very successful). He conducted "Firebird" by Stravinsky with the Nürnberger Symphoniker. For many years I wanted to become a conducter too. But I only became a very musically bookkeeper :-)

Best wishes from Germany.

At the present time I hear a lot of Shostakovich.

[barnalorinc]

Bravo!!!

[wltjd4718]

perfect very.verygood!!~~~~.....

WOW.......

[Anandtaza s.h.lemke]

Wonderful conduction, sir. Inclusive the size of the baton... perfect... very good, thank you... TAZA tazamusic @ gmail.com

[Anandtaza s.h.lemke]

Wonderful explanation from the heart... Thanks achim

[82224561]

Well conducted and if we take in consideration that it was for a remplacement one day before it acheived all the expectations!

[Lawrence Dunn]

When I last played this I noticed that particularly the sacrificial dance, but much else besides, really required the performers to play it as a chamber piece. I sort of have the feeling if the players can't play it (fairly) well without the conductor, they won't be able to play it with him either. I mean the piece is so well known now, for decent musicians not to know it is pretty stupid.

[Mauro Henrique Dalosto]

excelente condução,porém faltou mostrar mais os músicos....

[Issurah King]

this is helping me a ton. i have to be able to recognize works of certain composers for an exam in 2 days, Stravinsky is one of them. Thanks so much!

[RabbiMendel]

achim, du bist cool.

[ayse say]

i love my music teacher that he shows me this compositon it is so unnormal but interesting

[weidiocrow]

This reminds me very much of H.P. Love Crafts short story Ancestors, It plays in one of the more ominous scenes.