Once Upon... The Airwaves

This is my post from this week's Tuesday Blog.

For this month's Once Upon the Internet, I chose to share a rather recent discovery, and one that brought back lots of personal memories.

About 30 years ago, I was in Graduate School and I was still doing a lot of Classical Music Radio listening. One of the shows I listened to regularly was a CBC Stereo program whose name has changed many times over the years - I think it was then called In Performance.

The program, weeknights at 8 PM, regularly featured live concerts, recitals and orchestral programs, from across Canada, but mainly from Toronto. What was unique about the night in question was that it featured the Montreal Symphony, and I took the extra step of recording the conceit for my musical collection - I still have the cassette in the basement, which explains why I have detailed recollections, substantiated by my notes and the performance!

In doing some research for upcoming posts, I stumbled onto a digital recording of that very same concert, though it was repackaged for an International audience, and it is that version that I am sharing with you today..

The host for this performance is a voice that brings back a ton of memories: Henri Bergeron was for many, many years the main TV announcer for the French Rado Canada television service, and host of Les Beaux Dimanches the main Sunday evening showcase of cultural programming for the network. Mr. Begeron is originally from Manitoba (thus, from a region of the country where French is the minority language) yet was seen by all as the prototypical French-speaking announcer. His accent comes through in his Eglish presentation, giving it a unique - and dare I say distinguished - flavour.

The orchestra is guest-conducted by Gunther Herbig, and features Italian violinist Salvatore Accardo. The MSO is not renowned for a German sound, but you must admit they sound quite the part in a quintessentially German piece...

Enjoy!

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in Concert (27 May 1986)
Gunther Herbig, guest conducting

Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)
Symphony no. 95, in C Minor, Hob.I:95

Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Violin Concerto in D Major (1931)
Salvatore Accardo, vioin

Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Tzigane, MR 76
Salvatore Accardo, violin

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony no. 5, in C Minor, op. 67

Original Hyperlink - http://pastdaily.com/2015/11/04/salvatore-accardo-with-gunther-herbig-and-orchestre-symphonique-de-montreal-1986-past-daily-mid-week-concert/