Classics Today's Rating System

[MN Dave]

Why buy anything that's not a 10/10? Is 9/9 nearly as good? How about 6/9?; that seems appealing somehow.  Should 7/8s be avoided? What's going on here? 

[DavidW]

Their scale is retarded, they don't really use it fairly, consistently or even in a way that meshes with the review.  Just read the review, ignore the #s I say.

[Brian]

DavidW is basically right.

10/10 = wow, we are ecstatic over this! [50% of the time, they forget about these recordings next time a CD of the same music comes along; 50% they really mean it]
9/9 = awesome in every way, but we filled our 10/10 quota for the day or just wanted to spite the artists
8/8 = nothing basically wrong with it, but still good
7/8 or 7/9 = blah

3 in sound quality = anything and everything in mono
6 or lower in artistic quality = varying degrees of suck

1/9 = Simon Rattle

I play a game where I cover the rating with my hand, read the review, and guess what numbers they assigned it. I'm almost always right, but sometimes 7s and 8s will be totally unguessable from each other.

[Bunny]

I only consider the sound/technical/production number when buying.  I find that my taste differs from the critics on too many levels.  I do however read the reviews because sometimes a bad performance is a really bad performance, especially if other critics hold a similar opinion.

[Bulldog]

Why buy anything that's not a 10/10? Is 9/9 nearly as good? How about 6/9?; that seems appealing somehow.  Should 7/8s be avoided? What's going on here? 

The only thing going on is a couple of numbers that represent the opinion of a particular reviewer - no big deal.

Hopefully, you don't only acquire recordings that others shower with praise. 

[MN Dave]

I mean a 10/10 must be a miracle of music-making! How do you get past that? 10/10!!! Makes a 9/8 look weak by comparison.

[Clever Hans]

Depends on who's reviewing. I think Jed Distler is usually reliable, except perhaps when reviewing Rachel Podger.

[Bulldog]

I mean a 10/10 must be a miracle of music-making! How do you get past that?

You get past it by not giving it much weight to begin with.

[Bunny]

You get past it by not giving it much weight to begin with.

Especially if the record company is BIS.  They just love BIS over there.

[Bulldog]

Especially if the record company is BIS.  They just love BIS over there.

True, but I'd say that BIS also does very well from every other review source.  It's a great label.

[Guido]

It's difficult to take David Hurwitz seriously when he is so predictable and musically bigoted.

[Sergeant Rock]

It's difficult to take David Hurwitz seriously when he is so predictable and musically bigoted.

But isn't predictability a good thing in a critic? Maybe we're talking about two different things here but I like a critic who has his own standards which he applies to each new recording.

About his alleged bigotry: I assume you mean his bigotry towards certain British musicians. Since I share his lukewarm response to most Rattle recordings I don't see it as prejudice but simply astute criticism    But the real reason I don't see it as prejudice is because when he does review a Rattle recording he likes (and they are numerous) he says so and awards a 9 or 10. For example, Rattle's Nielsen concerto CD, the Shosty/Prok VCs, Messiaen Éclairs, Dvorak tone poems, Orf Carmina, Shosty 1 and 14, Szymanowski symphonies.

He gives Rattle's Beethoven cycle an 8 and ends the review with this (hardly sounding like someone who hates Rattle, or hates British conductors and bands in general):

"So what's the bottom line? There's no question that Rattle has assembled a Beethoven cycle that is well played, well recorded, and has plenty of character. Several of the performances are outstanding, most are good, and only the Sixth is what I would call a failure. Still, there are too many really excellent cycles out there (and Rattle's view of the music is too inconsistent) for this to become a first recommendation. One of the very best of the recent editions is also on EMI: Charles Mackerras' with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. It's as fine a "period" approach as any, and it has gotten absolutely zero support from its own company, to EMI's lasting shame. As for Rattle, serious Beethoven collectors can rest assured that if they take the plunge and purchase this set, there will be more than enough that is interesting, unusual, or striking to justify the investment--and more importantly, the majority of performances are enjoyable enough to listen to repeatedly."

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

1/9 = Simon Rattle

   ...very funny, Brian.

Unfortunately it's not true. The lowest score Rattle has ever gotten from the Hurwitzer is a 2 (for the Haydn symphonies "They represent the coming of the Anti-Haydn, and Simon Rattle is his apostle" and Schubert 9 "a soulless parody of good playing and good taste, a narcissistic joke made at Schubert's expense"). Rattle will have to try much harder if he ever hopes to win that coveted number one.

Sarge

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The only "1" I've seen from the Hurwitzer was his trashing of Horenstein's so-called legendary live Mahler 7. Now there's a conductor he really can't stand. And in essence, I have to agree with him that it's a ridiculously overrated recording, though I'd probably give it a 4 or 5 rather than a 1.

As Sgt. Rock points out, his reviews of Rattle are more mixed and span a wide spectrum.

[Brian]

It's difficult to take David Hurwitz seriously when he is so predictable and musically bigoted.

I mostly disagree. Hurwitz has a big problem with the HIP movement when they eschew vibrato totally and play rough-and-ready. But he has his reasons for feeling like that, and in fact generally, when he dislikes things, he has his reasons. The very best reviews he writes are the 1s and 2s, like the Rattle Schubert or Haydn, because he cites innumerable examples of why he's criticizing the CD with track timings or bar numbers; the guy very obviously listens with score in hand even to some pretty obscure music. I like him mostly because I've only really strongly disagreed with him once or twice. Sometimes he gives something a 10 that I'd give an 8, or vice versa, and sometimes he complains about "dry" acoustics that I like, but generally I can take it as a rule of thumb that if Hurwitz dislikes it, I will too, and if he's crazy about it, I will at least enjoy it a great deal.

[Gurn Blanston]

Even this review (which seems to me entirely accurate in every detail) gets a 2...

I completely agree with every word of that review. How does Hurwitz come out looking like the bad guy? (I've heard he did in earlier threads).

[Franco]

Even this review (which seems to me entirely accurate in every detail) gets a 2...

OTOH, he gave a CD I was considering a 10/10 - so I may have to take the plunge since I agreed wholeheartedly with his Mahler/Norrington review.

[Brian]

OTOH, he gave a CD I was considering a 10/10 - so I may have to take the plunge since I agreed wholeheartedly with his Mahler/Norrington review.

That is a really good one. Dausgaard's Beethoven 3rd is slightly preferable to Jarvi's - they're interpretively VERY similar, but D has the edge on energy and J in sound quality - but those are stupendous Eroicas, so you can't go wrong.

[Keemun]

How does Hurwitz come out looking like the bad guy? (I've heard he did in earlier threads).

I suspect some people don't care for his excessive sarcasm and condescending tone. 

[DavidW]

Even this review (which seems to me entirely accurate in every detail) gets a 2...

This illustrates well what Keenum is saying.  Hurwitz is personally attacking Norrington, implying that he is a fool and that the musicians involved knowingly produced bad music.  That is not professional criticism.  Attack the ideas not the person. 

I might have said this before, but Hurwitz misses the mark because he doesn't understand that the lack of vibrato in that recording is an artistic choice.  A conductor is not a reproducer of printed text as music, he is an interpreter, an artist.  How do we know that Norrington made the right choice?  He has an audience.  Even flying against tradition is not "wrong" because there is no wrong in music performance, only art.