Purchases Today

[Madiel]

The kind of remarks I am seeing in this thread right now about Marin Alsop, I don't recall ever seeing about a male conductor.

It is one thing to say that some recordings are bad. But folks, the name-calling and the idea that there's something inherently wrong with her recording things that OTHER conductors are just as much flooding the market with...

Cut it out. Seriously.

[SimonNZ]

I just went and re-read the comments above, and they seem exactly the kind of thing one would say about a male conductor. Apart from "Alslob" (which got quickly corrected) I don't see hostility, certainly not gender-specific hostility, just a mixed response, lukewarm enthusiasm and some perfectly standard criticisms - as well as more positive reviews and recommendations from others.

Lamenting the endless and largely unnecessary re-recording of warhorses has been done wrt a very great many male conductors and is not in the least bit remarkable.

[Madiel]

Lamenting the endless and largely unnecessary re-recording of warhorses has been done wrt a very great many male conductors and is not in the least bit remarkable.

Lamenting the fact, yes. Couching it language of "who gave her permission", no. Male conductors get "why did he record that", but I don't recall seeing one get "why was he allowed to record that".

Because people don't talk about male conductors as if they need permission from someone else - presumably another man - to make these decisions.

[SimonNZ]

Fair enough, but then it seems that you're taking issue more with one member and their choice of words, rather than everyone involved in the discussion.

[Madiel]

Fair enough, but then it seems that you're taking issue more with one member and their choice of words, rather than everyone involved in the discussion.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment further.

[Ken B]

Lamenting the fact, yes. Couching it language of "who gave her permission", no. Male conductors get "why did he record that", but I don't recall seeing one get "why was he allowed to record that".

Because people don't talk about male conductors as if they need permission from someone else - presumably another man - to make these decisions.

Ridiculous. The context of the discussion was Naxos's business model. How can Naxos justify, as a commercial decision, carrying yet more Brahms symphonies in their catalog? Conductors DO need permission in such cases, and in the past even HvK and Bernstein were denied it by their labels. Von Karajan accounted for more than one quarter of DG's sales, yet still needed permission to record yet more Beethoven. Bernstein left Columbia over their refusal to allow him to record opera. Recording is expensive and labels are businesses which must justify to their stakeholders the risks.
So questioning why a conductor, even a trendy marketable one like Alsop, is allowed to record warhorses is not a new, not an irrelevant, not a sexist question.

[SimonNZ]

Apparently even Karajan had to finance his Second Viennese box out of his own pocket, after DG vetoed it.

[Madiel]

I know very well how record companies work. That's not the point. The point is that the language used was noticeably different from the language used when discussing males.

I'm not stupid enough to think that male conductors don't have to discuss with record companies what is going to be recorded. But in my experience the language used to describe such relationships is one of peers, not one of master and servant.

It is of course entirely possible I wouldn't have thought much about the language used on that point if it wasn't for the earlier slur.

[mc ukrneal]

Since Robert Simpsons's string quartets all on Hyperion (which does not license their recordings to streaming services) - I splurged

Usually not my thing, but these are very well recorded and performed. I normally am not a huge fan of the more modern stuff and particularly the chamber modern stuff, but I find much of this quite riveting. Will be interested to hear how you get on with it.  Enjoy!

[The new erato]

I like this one a lot.

I know. I listen to you guys!

[ritter]

An unplanned purchase, but when I saw this at 9 € at FNAC while strolling around downtown Madrid this afternoon, I thought it was too good an opportunity to let slip by:

[asin]B001KK6RBK[/asin]

[aligreto]

Finzi: Cello Concerto & Clarinet Concerto....





Yo-Yo Ma sure does look young there 

[Mirror Image]

Finzi: Cello Concerto & Clarinet Concerto....





Yo-Yo Ma sure does look young there 

Great! For my money, Ma's performance of Finzi's Cello Concerto is the best performance on record. Enjoy!

[aligreto]

Great! For my money, Ma's performance of Finzi's Cello Concerto is the best performance on record. Enjoy!

Thank you and to whoever it was who recommended it to me. I do not have any performance of this work at all so I am looking forward to hearing it.

[Mirror Image]

Thank you and to whoever it was who recommended it to me. I do not have any performance of this work at all so I am looking forward to hearing it.

You're welcome! It's certainly in my 'Top 5 Cello Concertos'. Finzi was dying as he wrote the work, so it retains a bittersweetness to it that I find wholly palpable.

[Karl Henning]

(* makes note to wait until he's dying before writing a cello concerto *)

[Mirror Image]

(* makes note to wait until he's dying before writing a cello concerto *)

Well, I hope this won't be the case, Karl. I suppose it would have been a bittersweet work whether I knew this extramusical knowledge about Finzi or not. There's just this atmosphere surrounding that work that is entirely haunting.

[Brian]

Ridiculous. The context of the discussion was Naxos's business model. How can Naxos justify, as a commercial decision, carrying yet more Brahms symphonies in their catalog?

Three things.

1. Naxos primarily makes money on distribution, streaming, and other business activities. They view recordings as a "prestige" project - in essence, the Naxos distribution and digital services finance the recordings, which in turn make the company as a whole more respectable and more known as an 'institution' in the music world.

2. Naxos DOES very occasionally make money off a recording - but it usually involves very famous music and/or famous artists. It makes sense to combine those two factors. Even though "yet another Brahms symphony" might sound like a loser to GMGers, the Alsop Brahms CDs certainly sold far better than, say, the Turina solo piano music series.

3. "yet more Brahms symphonies" is actually not a problem for Naxos - so far as I know the only previous recordings in their catalog were from the early 1990s, with the Belgian Radio & TV Orchestra under Alexander Rahbari and the Slovak Philharmonic under Michael Halasz. Re-recording the works with a reputable group of artists did indeed make sense - even if we might all agree that Naxos had other artists better suited for the job, e.g. Wit/Warsaw.

[jlaurson]

What is truly amazing is that she is allowed to record such warhorses like the final 4 of Dvorak Symphonies, Tchaikovsky's 4th, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Music for String Percussion and Celeste, BlueBeard's Castle, Carmina Burana, Mahler's 1st etc. ! Even in Naxos' own catalog there are some very good recordings of these works already. In today's economics this has to be a sort of quasi-miracle.

They are cheap to make and they sell (surprisingly) well. And even if Heimann throws the occasional bone to a conductor (for example an implicit "I'll record your Bruckner 4th if I get the Wagner Orchestral Songs with Singer X", to take an example from a Naxos sub-label), it's a business decision first and foremost.

Or I could just quote Ken BBrian, who is perfectly right on every one of his points.

[Karl Henning]

They are cheap to make and they sell (surprisingly) well. And even if Heimann throws the occasional bone to a conductor (for example an implicit "I'll record your Bruckner 4th if I get the Wagner Orchestral Songs with Singer X", to take an example from a Naxos sub-label), it's a business decision first and foremost.

Or I could just quote Ken B, who is perfectly right on every one of his points.

Did you mean Brian's last post, Jens?