It’s easy to get lost in watching even just a fraction of the classical music videos available online. And they’re not just
all cats playing the piano.
You can find wonderful historic performances, including
Stanislaw Richter and his take-no-prisoners performances of Chopin. There’s also current classical stars, like conductor Gustavo Dudamel (who will be the Music Director of the LA Philharmonic starting next year)
conducting an energetic performance of Bernstein’s Mambo with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Record labels have started promoting their artists with online video, probably most successfully in the case of Telarc with pianist
Simone Dinnerstein performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
There seems to be an audience out there for classical music on Youtube, even when the performers aren’t very famous. A few years ago, I played viola on a conductor’s recital, and I found out that
our performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is online and has been viewed over 93,000 times!
Another one of my favorite videos is of
Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing a duet from “Don Giovanni.” Even though it’s just a concert and they don’t have costumes or sets, they act very convincingly.
Check out the comments on some of these videos—in addition to some of the typical back and forth, people are arguing about detailed nuances of diction and performance style!
I’ve certainly whiled a way a good part of my day enjoying these videos. I hope you enjoy them too, and let me know if you recommend any others that I should check out.