Friday, May 20, 2011

Time out for Schubert


Today, all kinds of work to do. A to-do list a mile a long!

With which, YouTube.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing "Auf Der Bruck."

The version with Gerald Moore is superior to the one with Sviatoslav Richter. Gerald Moore has a spring in his step. Well, he is sitting at the piano but you know what I mean.

Richter is just a tad, a tad slower. It is only a microsecond's worth but it makes a difference. However, I have a treasured vinyl record with Fischer-Dieskau teaming up with Richter where they take it over the top. Fischer-Dieskau is older on that record and his voice is rawer but I do reckon that might be the best recording of all.

I wonder if that recording is on YouTube. I will have to go looking for it.

La la la la la la la.

As if I have no work to do!

The fun of the Fischer-Dieskau/Richter video is that it is an actual video. There are all kinds of pieces of this recital kicking around YouTube. I have watched a bunch of them. They are hilarious because Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is just so, so charming. He is having the most wonderful time. He is looking this way and that and enjoying the songs that he sings and he is handsome and cuddly like a big puppy ...


... and you just want to hug him and kiss him. Here he is in a song I have loved since I was a teenager, "Fischerweise." The way he sings that last line: "Den Fisch betruegst du nicht." Then the way he listens up to the piano. Ha, ha! Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, you sweet thing! Get over here, you.

Meanwhile you get Richter and he is just this icy ugly old guy at the piano squinting at the music and forging grimly ahead.

Too funny.

More fun than I have time to be having right now.

Alas.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The diva does Pilates



Yesterday I went to a Pilates class and later I was writing about it on my other Web log. I got on the 'Net and began looking at pictures of Joseph Pilates.

And I found that great old picture up above of Pilates coaching the great coloratura soprano Roberta Peters!

Isn't that classic? It was taken in February 1951. I love when you find a picture of someone beautiful and glamorous ...


... and there she is in her exercise clothes, doing Pilates, just like me.

Well, not exactly just like me.

She gets Joseph Pilates herself to teach her!

"This is my trainer, Joe Pilates." That would be the greatest. Well, it would have been. It is too late now because Pilates is no longer among us. He was around for a long time, healthy as a horse, but all good things must come to an end and now you may no longer take Pilates from Pilates.

Here is a great vintage "Traviata" starring Peters.

Those Pilates lessons paid off!