Topic: The Snowshoed Sibelius

[DavidRoss]

I recently had the opportunity to audition Vänskä's new 1st & 4th with Minnesota. Way different from his previous outing with Lahti! Whereas those recordings were restrained and relatively austere -- cool -- these are romantically interventionist, not just warm but hot -- much like the 2nd in V/M's previous Sibelius pairing. In both cases the vision presented is sufficiently strange that it may take a few hearings for me to come to grips with it.

The 1st is fast instead of mysterious and the 4th is blythe instead of bleak. It uses the dreaded glockenspiel instead of glocken, which is one of my biggest peeves with Sibelius performances. He wrote glocken in the score, he conducted the premiere performance with glocken, and I'm utterly baffled how anyone with any sensitivity to this music could possibly think that a tinkly little glockenspiel's character is appropriate. And the ending sounds almost blythe and inconsequential instead of tapering off into bleak, unresolved mystery. 

Yet the orchestra sounds great and the recording seems up to BIS's usual high quality, and my respect for Vänskä's Sibelius credentials commands open-minded attentiveness ... and though both performances seem a bit weird at first, they are consistent with his "new" vision and not at all wayward or willful, and I suspect I might end up liking them very much.

[Parsifal]

My main question is, "what possessed Vanska to go to Minneapolis?"  The Beethoven cycle he did there is a cure for insomnia.  The latest news I've read is that the lockout or the orchestra continues, an entire season has been canceled, including recording sessions, and Vanska has announced he will resign unless it is resolved immediately.

[jlaurson]

My main question is, "what possessed Vanska to go to Minneapolis?"  The Beethoven cycle he did there is a cure for insomnia.  The latest news I've read is that the lockout or the orchestra continues, an entire season has been canceled, including recording sessions, and Vanska has announced he will resign unless it is resolved immediately.

Recording sessions have been postponed and Vanska said he'll resign if they can't keep (or are uninvited from) the scheduled Carnegie Hall appearances and subsequent recording sessions.

Sad clusterf#@* that is taking down (I disagree, obviously, with your assessment of the Beethoven) an orchestra from having worked its way to the American Top 5 and may ensure its provincial status for the next 40 years (and who knows what happens to orchestras in minor markets after that!)

[Parsifal]

Recording sessions have been postponed and Vanska said he'll resign if they can't keep (or are uninvited from) the scheduled Carnegie Hall appearances and subsequent recording sessions.

Sad clusterf#@* that is taking down (I disagree, obviously, with your assessment of the Beethoven) an orchestra from having worked its way to the American Top 5 and may ensure its provincial status for the next 40 years (and who knows what happens to orchestras in minor markets after that!)

His Beethoven is just as good as most other Beethoven cycles out there.  But why record Beethoven again unless there is a really compelling reason.  (For some reason, my CD collection obsession does not seem to extend to Beethoven.  Karajan '63, Imerseel, Barenboim, Schuricht.  Katsaris, Why do I need another?)

[jlaurson]

His Beethoven is just as good as most other Beethoven cycles out there.  But why record Beethoven again unless there is a really compelling reason.  (For some reason, my CD collection obsession does not seem to extend to Beethoven.  Karajan '63, Imerseel, Barenboim, Schuricht.  Katsaris, Why do I need another?)

That's not a question anyone can answer for you. If that's the way you feel, which is more than reasonable (most people would stop at 1 cycle; albeit not in GMG territory -- and I think they're a wonderful fouresome (fivesome) that covers a great breadth of interpretative styles), then you don't need another... and other people's perceived needs wouldn't change that.

The more general answer is that every generation needs "it's" Beethoven, which is why we keep interpreting and keep performing and keep recording and keep listening. But of course anything of our generation will have to face the best of the past... and perhaps that "need" isn't a fix, definable thing, anyway.

I just happen to have come across Vanska (spearheaded by his Fourth) and had similar questions beforehand... and then had these questions all answered by a Fourth like I thought I had never quite heard before. Much like not long after it happened with Jaervi's Third.

[DavidRoss]

His Beethoven is just as good as most other Beethoven cycles out there.  But why record Beethoven again unless there is a really compelling reason.  (For some reason, my CD collection obsession does not seem to extend to Beethoven.  Karajan '63, Imerseel, Barenboim, Schuricht.  Katsaris, Why do I need another?)

I could probably be happy with Blomstedt's SFS Sibelius cycle alone. Along with Bernstein's NYPO one.  And Berglund's COE cycle. Maybe together with his Bournemouth cycle or Segerstam's HPO one as well.

Oh ... wait:  we're discussing Beethoven. Well, in that case, I wouldn't want to be without Brüggen's first cycle, or Abbado's last one, but those two would suffice to make the other dozen I've acquired superfluous. (Yet I like hearing them from time to time.)

[Parsifal]

I could probably be happy with Blomstedt's SFS Sibelius cycle alone. Along with Bernstein's NYPO one.  And Berglund's COE cycle. Maybe together with his Bournemouth cycle or Segerstam's HPO one as well.

Oh ... wait:  we're discussing Beethoven. Well, in that case, I wouldn't want to be without Brüggen's first cycle, or Abbado's last one, but those two would suffice to make the other dozen I've acquired superfluous. (Yet I like hearing them from time to time.)

I wouldn't want to be without Brüggen's first cycle, but I am.  I'm hoping that when he turns 80 next year they will release some portion of his vast out-of-print catalog.   And, ooop, I forgot, I have Harnoncourt's Beethoven too.