Wolfgang Sawallisch has never been a name with the marquee appeal of his contemporaries among conductors (probably a good thing in the case of Herbert von Karajan), but an acquaintance with his career and recorded legacy is well worth cultivating. His training reached back to the interwar period in Germany, where the Late in life, when he could have kicked back and collected his accolades and honorary degrees, he ascended the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra, transplanting himself as a septuagenarian to a strange land, ...
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Wolfgang Sawallisch has never been a name with the marquee appeal of his contemporaries among conductors (probably a good thing in the case of Herbert von Karajan), but an acquaintance with his career and recorded legacy is well worth cultivating. His training reached back to the interwar period in Germany, where the Late in life, when he could have kicked back and collected his accolades and honorary degrees, he ascended the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra, transplanting himself as a septuagenarian to a strange land, simply because he was intrigued by American orchestras as products primarily of patronage rather than government support. Shortly after that move he returned to Germany, in 1994, to conduct Haydn's oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Chorus. The live performance was very cleanly recorded and released in 2010 by the Profil label -- with no explanation for the 16-year time lag. Perhaps the cause was simply the growing appreciation of...
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