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Meet Andris Nelsons — On Video

These days it's easier to catch up with a classical musician on YouTube than it is trolling the bins of a CD store. Assuming you can find a CD store. You can also listen to Andris Nelsons on Spotify with a deliberate performance of Dvorak's New World Symphony, which certainly doesn't challenge George Szell, Christoph von Dohnanyi or the youthful Leonard Bernstein performances on the thrill-o-meter. There's also a recording of him accompanying Daniel Barenboim on the Chopin piano concertos.

But there is a wealth of Nelsons conducting videos on YouTube.

He certainly looks marvelous. Here he is conducting the end of Ravel's "La Valse":

There's a charisma that also seems to carry over to his relationship with musicians as you can see in this video of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra after it had announced him as the artistic director in 2008 titled auspiciously, "Arrival of a Maestro."

Nelsons will be conducting Richard Strauss's "Salome" with the Boston Symphony next season. He conducted a Strauss cycle with Birmingham and here he is talking about "Also Sprach Zarathustra."

But by his conducting so shall we judge him. And here he is in a section of the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony:

This program aired on May 16, 2013. The audio for this program is not available.

Headshot of Ed Siegel

Ed Siegel Critic-At-Large
Ed Siegel is critic-at-large for WBUR.

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