Sir Charles Mackerras

[mbhaub]

Sadly, Charles Mackerras has passed away at age 84. He was such a fne conductor and left so many great recordings, and maybe he didn't explore the unsung repertoire too much, but he certainly helped the case of Dvorak and Janacek. His Scherehezade is still my absolute favorite of all, and who else could have made such a great recording of Rusalka. I've long considered him a British conductor, even though I knew he was Australian. What I didn't know was that he was actually born in Schenectedy, NY! RIP and thanks for so many hours of listening pleasure.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, a great conductor indeed. He will be missed.

[eschiss1]

Yes, a great conductor indeed. He will be missed.

Agreed.
Heard an interview with him on Naxos' podcast a few months back. They largely focused on his contribution to the Janacek opera renaissance, but other subjects were covered as well.  Was a good interesting interview.  But then his career covered Brian to Janacek to Sullivan (and others and others and others, including some excellent small-orchestra Mozart recordings) and all the more reason to miss him (and be glad of the legacy of course too.)
Apologies for lack of eloquence verging on banality and thanks mbhaub for passing on the news.
Eric

[TerraEpon]

Oh wow. And he was stuff doing great even in his 80s -- hardly unsung of course, but the recent Mozart symphonies recordings were fantastic and showed Stokowski-like vigor, unlike most conductors at that age.

I for one will probably mainly remember him for creating Pineapple Poll...

[JimL]

I think, IIRC, that he was the conductor on at least some of Raymond Lewenthal's LP explorations of unsung PCs for Columbia back in the '70s.  Did he not conduct that release of the Henselt (with Lewenthal's version of the Liszt Totentanz)?

[edurban]

Yep, he did a bang-up job with the Henselt!  And let's not forget that all those Janacek operas were seriously undersung outside of the Iron Curtain when Mackerras went to work on them...

David

[giles.enders]

Janacek would be in our Unsung composers list if it were not for Sir Charles Mackerras and it is to him I owe many hours of pleasure seeing and listening to Janacek operas and which made me much more aware of Czech music in general.

[Alan Howe]

I agree: although performed in Czechoslovakia pre-Mackerras, we owe the popularisation of Janacek to Mackerras more than to anyone else.

[chill319]

Mackerras was second to none when it came to Janacek, and his persistent advocacy of the operas moved them out of the penumbra of operahouse culture. This, of course, was a remarkable achievement. But to maintain perspective, on this side of the pond many of us first learned to love Janacek from Kubelik's splendid DGG recordings of the orchestral and choral works. Still, I remember that when Mackerras's thrilling recordings of the instrumental/choral pieces were later released, they sealed the deal.  Janacek was part of the canon.

[Kriton]

I for one will probably mainly remember him for creating Pineapple Poll...

One should remember him, in my opinion, for reconstructing Sullivan's beautiful cello concerto (quite the interesting story!), otherwise this work would've completely passed us by...

I missed the news of Mackerras passing away, 'since' (...) I was on vacation. Amazing how this can strike one as an almost logical, dry fact, reading it 2 weeks after it happened. He will be missed - I'll give his Schubert fragments a spin today!

[Gerontius]

Mackerrras not only excelled in Janacek and other Czech masters, but he was a supurb conductor of composers as diverse as Mozart and Sullivan. He shall be greatly missed.

[Albion]

One should remember him, in my opinion, for reconstructing Sullivan's beautiful cello concerto (quite the interesting story!), otherwise this work would've completely passed us by...

It was a great pity that his interpretation of Sullivan's masterly The Golden Legend was not set down on disc. Despite obvious flaws, and a last-minute substitution (Brian Rayner Cook) in the role of Lucifer, the live centenary performance from Leeds Town Hall in 1986 had a passion and energy than the Hyperion recording (valuable though that is) lacks. The Sullivan Society could not persuade EMI to take any interest at the time (no surprises there).