{"id":3312,"date":"2011-12-01T15:10:51","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T19:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=3312"},"modified":"2011-12-30T12:38:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T16:38:29","slug":"missed-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=3312","title":{"rendered":"Missed Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon after I moved to New York in the fall of 1968, Charles Munch brought the Orchestre de Paris on tour to Carnegie Hall. He programmed three of his favorites: Berlioz\u2019s Symphonie fantastique<\/em>, Barber\u2019s Medea’s<\/em> Meditation and Dance of Vengeance<\/em>, and the second suite from Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/em>. The next afternoon, Jean Martinon led the orchestra in Bart\u00f3k\u2019s Miraculous Mandarin <\/em>Suite, which he had recently recorded for RCA with the Chicago Symphony. Having money for only one concert, I figured that I could hear Munch do those pieces anytime. Two weeks later he dropped dead of a heart attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forgive myself for missing my one opportunity to see and hear Munch in the flesh, even though I am glad to have heard Martinon\u2019s Bart\u00f3k, which turned out to be the only time I would hear him<\/em> live.<\/p>\n

These concerts come to mind as I think of my friend Andrew Kazdin, who died on Monday after a four-year battle with cancer. I didn\u2019t know he was ill and hadn\u2019t seen him or spoken with him since running into him a couple of years ago at Lincoln Center. Like his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 at Columbia Records, Steven Epstein, who wrote an affectionate appreciation of Andy and his work for MusicalAmerica.com<\/em> on Wednesday, I knew and admired several Kazdin recordings before I met him. Many were by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic. Boulez spoke highly of Andy, and indeed they were a perfect team, for they were both fanatical about clarity of detail and ensemble perfection.<\/p>\n

Andy let me attend many Boulez recording sessions at Manhattan Center. Foremost in my memory is the mind-boggling sonority conjured in the ballroom\u2019s immense acoustic in Stravinsky\u2019s Firebird<\/em>, Ravel\u2019s Daphnis et Chlo\u00e9<\/em>, and Var\u00e8se\u2019s Arcana<\/em>, superbly captured by Andy\u2019s army of microphones. His multi-miking technique was controversial, to say the least, and the golden-ear crowd consistently panned his productions. Andy didn\u2019t mind bad reviews as much as he did critics who claimed to know how he had achieved his results. He did not suffer fools gladly, for he knew his craft absolutely\u2014and an extraordinary range of other subjects as well.<\/p>\n

One of those subjects was pizza. Wherever Andy went to make a recording\u2014Cleveland, Israel, Los Angeles, Marlboro\u2014he first scoped out the town\u2019s best reputed pizza parlor. He had <\/em>to have pizza on Friday nights. In all his travels he thought Grimaldi\u2019s, underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, was the tops. We had planned to go together one Friday night for years but, I\u2019m very sorry to say, never got around to it. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts:<\/p>\n

12\/1. Avery Fisher Hall. New York Philharmonic\/Daniel Harding. Mahler: Symphony No. 10 (Deryck Cooke performing version).<\/em><\/p>\n