Aw, Heck — Sir Charles Mackerras, 1925-2010

I’ve just learned via Stephen Baggaley, a Facebook friend in Australia, that one of my favorite conductors, Sir Charles Mackerras, died a few days ago. I have a pile of his recordings on Vanguard, Hyperion, Telarc, RCA, and at least a dozen permutations of EMI, but the sole concert I saw him conduct was memorable — an incandescent performance of Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (the soloists included the incomparable and still sorely missed Lorraine Hunt Lieberson). Australian ABC will be broadcasting a tribute to the maestro Saturday (late Friday in North America — link to their mp3/m3u stream here).

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