David Hurwitz

Started by Scion7, January 11, 2016, 06:42:39 PM

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Madiel

Quote from: Daverz on May 20, 2021, 01:08:48 AM
No need to watch it.  It's the kind of thing you listen to while doing housework.

That's what MUSIC is for! Or podcasts.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Brian

Quote from: Madiel on May 20, 2021, 03:50:09 AM
That's what MUSIC is for! Or podcasts.
I used to listen to comedy podcasts while doing house chores. While working from home due to covid lockdown I might listen to a Hurwitz while brushing teeth and so forth. Now, my day job leadership is behaving erratically, morale is low, apathy is high, and I listen to DH/podcasts on headphones at my desk while doing tasks that can appear productive to outsiders...  :P

Madiel

Quote from: Brian on May 20, 2021, 05:16:13 AM
I used to listen to comedy podcasts while doing house chores. While working from home due to covid lockdown I might listen to a Hurwitz while brushing teeth and so forth. Now, my day job leadership is behaving erratically, morale is low, apathy is high, and I listen to DH/podcasts on headphones at my desk while doing tasks that can appear productive to outsiders...  :P

I've never tried podcasts while at work, listening to words is too distracting. I'm subscribed to... I think it's around 30. The episode queue is scary though I have a strategy to gradually curtail it (I tend to go back to the beginning of new discoveries, which in a couple of extreme cases added over 100 episodes to the queue).

I haven't done much in the way of comedy podcasts, but have you ever tried Wooden Overcoats? Or Everything Is Alive?
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: kyjo on May 19, 2021, 09:28:43 AM
I generally like Hurwitz, but not his recent obsession with reviewing mega conductor-centric boxes. I find this stuff pretty pointless. I mean, what's the use in getting a 100CD box when you can find better recordings of 80% of the repertoire featured in it (as he himself admits)? My favorite videos of his - naturally - are the one where he spotlights lesser-known composers - but those seem to be becoming fewer and farther between these days.

My thoughts exactly. I miss the videos where he talks about non-mainstream repertoire. Some of his last videos have been quite funny, though.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

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kyjo

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on May 20, 2021, 03:53:19 PM
My thoughts exactly. I miss the videos where he talks about non-mainstream repertoire. Some of his last videos have been quite funny, though.

Yeah, like the "Inappropriate Music" videos. The Ibert and Shostakovich examples had me in stitches! :laugh:
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Brian on May 20, 2021, 05:16:13 AM
I used to listen to comedy podcasts while doing house chores. While working from home due to covid lockdown I might listen to a Hurwitz while brushing teeth and so forth. Now, my day job leadership is behaving erratically, morale is low, apathy is high, and I listen to DH/podcasts on headphones at my desk while doing tasks that can appear productive to outsiders...  :P
Oh, my!

I do like the idea of listening to comedy podcasts....whilst doing housework (and maybe gardening).  The one or two times that I tried using an armband with a slit in it to hold an old iPod Touch, I found it to be quite awkward.  I'll have to find an appropriate thread to ask what you guys like to use.

Listened to Hurwitz's youtube upload comparing versions Janacek's string quartets (which I was quite pleased to see that he also loves):  most of the ones that he liked, I don't own (some of them have been on my wish list for a while).  The only thing that surprised me, he mentioned briefly that he liked the ones by the Pavel Haas Quartet but then said that he was really going to be including them in his survey here as he was focusing on discs which had both quartets on them.   :(  I love them myself and enjoy the other works on the two CDs, so I think that it wasn't necessary for him to exclude them.  Anyhoo...

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Biffo

Ironing is the only household chore when I listen to music and then I play Spotify through my hi-fi. I choose a suitable album and just let it run. Baroque orchestral is my usual choice.

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on May 26, 2021, 08:04:09 AM
Oh, my!

I do like the idea of listening to comedy podcasts....whilst doing housework (and maybe gardening).  The one or two times that I tried using an armband with a slit in it to hold an old iPod Touch, I found it to be quite awkward.  I'll have to find an appropriate thread to ask what you guys like to use.

Listened to Hurwitz's youtube upload comparing versions Janacek's string quartets (which I was quite pleased to see that he also loves):  most of the ones that he liked, I don't own (some of them have been on my wish list for a while).  The only thing that surprised me, he mentioned briefly that he liked the ones by the Pavel Haas Quartet but then said that he was really going to be including them in his survey here as he was focusing on discs which had both quartets on them.   :(  I love them myself and enjoy the other works on the two CDs, so I think that it wasn't necessary for him to exclude them.  Anyhoo...

PD

PD:  if you like the Janacek quartets try and hear this disc (perhaps Hurwitz mentioned it - I've no idea)



Not only were these the first recordings of a new critical edition of the quartets - with several terrifyingly hard passages reinstated on the "original" instruments, but also the filler is a brilliantly idiomatic transcription of movements from "On an Overgrown Path" for quartet.  Its nearly as good as having a third quartet by Janacek!

Brian

Quote from: Roasted Swan on May 26, 2021, 08:32:22 AM
on the "original" instruments
i.e. viola d'amore where called for?

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Roasted Swan on May 26, 2021, 08:32:22 AM
PD:  if you like the Janacek quartets try and hear this disc (perhaps Hurwitz mentioned it - I've no idea)



Not only were these the first recordings of a new critical edition of the quartets - with several terrifyingly hard passages reinstated on the "original" instruments, but also the filler is a brilliantly idiomatic transcription of movements from "On an Overgrown Path" for quartet.  Its nearly as good as having a third quartet by Janacek!
No, he didn't mention them.

I have heard a recording with the Mandelring Quartet on Audite; it's from 2010.  When is yours from?  I must admit, that it didn't send me, but I was dying to hear it!  Wonder if that's the same edition?  I had thought at the time that this (the Mandelring recording) was the first time that someone had done a recording with the viola d'amore?

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on May 26, 2021, 08:49:30 AM
No, he didn't mention them.

I have heard a recording with the Mandelring Quartet on Audite; it's from 2010.  When is yours from?  I must admit, that it didn't send me, but I was dying to hear it!  Wonder if that's the same edition?  I had thought at the time that this (the Mandelring recording) was the first time that someone had done a recording with the viola d'amore?

PD

Here is a quote from a review of this disc - it was recorded in  2014

As to the significance of the 'original' editions to my ear that is more of interest than necessity.  Slightly frustratingly the liner alludes to the differences without actually specifying them.  Apparently they are mainly in the 2nd Quartet "Intimate Letters" so it has been a case of following the standard score while listening to this version and spotting the differences - a less than perfect scenario!  Using my all-too fallible ear it appears that nearly all of the changes are practical/performance related ones - this is not a case of major compositional reworkings.  The leader of the Moravian Quartet who gave the work's premiere in 1928 - a month after the composer's death - was František Kudláček and he instigated many of the amendments that were incorporated into the published score.  The two main ones transplant stratospheric viola writing into the more manageable violin register. The first such passage is in the 3rd movement - figures 1-3 in the 'standard' UE score [around the 1:00 minute mark - track 17] - the viola has the melody lead which passes to the second violin at figure 2.  Not here; the viola keeps playing going up to a G sharp two and a half octaves above middle C.  The other main passage is the very end of the work where the 'top' line again stays in the viola whereas 'normally' it has passed to first violin.  The viola of the Quartetto Energie Nove, Ivan Vukčević, plays these challenging passages quite superbly - the tone of the instrument in this register more cutting than a 'sweeter' violin.  Elsewhere the differences seem to be more use of pizzicato either to mark passages more clearly or to give a folksier character.  Most telling is the very opening to the 4th movement which has a aptly stamping rumbustious character from all the players which the heavy pizzicati chords reinforce.

In other words "original" refers to Janacek's "original" disposition of the musical lines, NOT the use of a viola d'amore

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Roasted Swan on May 26, 2021, 02:13:08 PM
Here is a quote from a review of this disc - it was recorded in  2014

As to the significance of the 'original' editions to my ear that is more of interest than necessity.  Slightly frustratingly the liner alludes to the differences without actually specifying them.  Apparently they are mainly in the 2nd Quartet "Intimate Letters" so it has been a case of following the standard score while listening to this version and spotting the differences - a less than perfect scenario!  Using my all-too fallible ear it appears that nearly all of the changes are practical/performance related ones - this is not a case of major compositional reworkings.  The leader of the Moravian Quartet who gave the work's premiere in 1928 - a month after the composer's death - was František Kudláček and he instigated many of the amendments that were incorporated into the published score.  The two main ones transplant stratospheric viola writing into the more manageable violin register. The first such passage is in the 3rd movement - figures 1-3 in the 'standard' UE score [around the 1:00 minute mark - track 17] - the viola has the melody lead which passes to the second violin at figure 2.  Not here; the viola keeps playing going up to a G sharp two and a half octaves above middle C.  The other main passage is the very end of the work where the 'top' line again stays in the viola whereas 'normally' it has passed to first violin.  The viola of the Quartetto Energie Nove, Ivan Vukčević, plays these challenging passages quite superbly - the tone of the instrument in this register more cutting than a 'sweeter' violin.  Elsewhere the differences seem to be more use of pizzicato either to mark passages more clearly or to give a folksier character.  Most telling is the very opening to the 4th movement which has a aptly stamping rumbustious character from all the players which the heavy pizzicati chords reinforce.

In other words "original" refers to Janacek's "original" disposition of the musical lines, NOT the use of a viola d'amore
Quite interesting...thank you for posting this.  In order not to waylay the thread, I had posted a comment (re your comments, etc.) in the Janacek thread.  I would love you to copy this over there so that everyone who is interested in Janacek can find it.  :)

Best wishes,

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

kyjo

Quote from: Daverz on May 19, 2021, 10:37:40 AM
I really enjoyed the 90 minute review of the 120 CD Ormandy box.  The preceding takedown of the Grammophone review was great, too.

By the way, there are some classic recordings of lesser known composers in that box.

I listened to the Ormandy box review - it just annoyed me a bit how he would often skim over the discs containing lesser-known repertoire by just saying generic statements like "it's very good", "it's very beautiful", etc. instead of actually describing the style, character, background etc. of the music in question. I guess he was just eager to get through the box!

On a more positive note, he featured Braga Santos' Encruzilhada (Crossroads) in the most recent installment of "The World's Most Beautiful Melodies"!

https://youtu.be/D3KlttFhzh0
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Roasted Swan

In a certain way my admiration for Hurwitz grows.  He undoubtedly has a skill for speaking off the cuff at considerable length with litle or no editing and rarely taking breath.  But in the last couple of weeks alone he has "reviewed" the best Mahler & Bruckner cycles AND The Ring.  There are simply NOT enough hours in the day to have revisited and reconsidered opinions reached in all probability some time ago and then filtered through memory and the passage of time.  Yet he will speak with seeming complete authority this version is great, that one is bad etc.  I admire the confidence he has in himself to apparently remember with such certainty huge rafts of repertoire and their associated recordings.  I can't say I violently disagree with his overall assessments - although I dislike his often disparaging dismissal of versions he does not like (I'd still back any of the conductors/orchestras he damns to be finer more considered musicians than he is) - but I can't regard them as anything except bar-room generalisations.  But I still watch them - so who's the idiot there! (no answers required - I know its me)

Madiel

Opinions might well be filtered through memory and the passage of time, but they are also readily filtered through written notes.

Mostly in the form of all of the reviews he has posted.

Besides, don't we all constantly post our opinions of recordings based on memory rather than relistening to them again? When I ask for people's recommendations for a work or their opinion on a particular recording, I don't expect everyone to go scurrying off to play it before answering, precisely because people don't have that much time.

So if we all do that, I don't see why it's a problem for Hurwitz to do the same. If we all can say what our favourites are, so can he.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Madiel on August 04, 2021, 03:42:40 AM
Opinions might well be filtered through memory and the passage of time, but they are also readily filtered through written notes.

Mostly in the form of all of the reviews he has posted.

Besides, don't we all constantly post our opinions of recordings based on memory rather than relistening to them again? When I ask for people's recommendations for a work or their opinion on a particular recording, I don't expect everyone to go scurrying off to play it before answering, precisely because people don't have that much time.

So if we all do that, I don't see why it's a problem for Hurwitz to do the same. If we all can say what our favourites are, so can he.

Because Hurwitz is a critic who makes his money by providing his opinions.  Also, direct comparison at the point of reviewing does provide different perspectives.  Differences in recordings, tempi, style etc are thrown into a sharper contrast which isolated memory does not.

Madiel

#616
Quote from: Roasted Swan on August 04, 2021, 04:14:50 AM
Because Hurwitz is a critic who makes his money by providing his opinions.

There's an underlying assumption that this somehow changes the basic process, and I don't agree with that assumption. It doesn't miraculously grant him more than 24 hours in the day.

The skill in professional reviewing consists in making your opinions engaging - it's about whether you can write or speak in an interesting way. When it comes to the listening side, if anything the skill he'd have to develop is to become more efficient in his listening.

I actually find MusicWeb International reviews, where many reviewers spend 3/4 of the time revisiting their old favourite recordings for a comparison and then telling you about the comparison in detail, to be frequently really really boring to read.

EDIT: And that kind of comparison is frequently wrong-headed as well. That isn't how 'normal' listeners will actually listen to the music.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Brian

Quote from: Roasted Swan on August 04, 2021, 04:14:50 AM
Because Hurwitz is a critic who makes his money by providing his opinions.
That is relatively recent. I believe his day job is at a bank.

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Brian on August 04, 2021, 05:16:50 AM
That is relatively recent. I believe his day job is at a bank.

that I did not know!

Roasted Swan

#619
Quote from: Madiel on August 04, 2021, 04:41:56 AM
There's an underlying assumption that this somehow changes the basic process, and I don't agree with that assumption. It doesn't miraculously grant him more than 24 hours in the day.

The skill in professional reviewing consists in making your opinions engaging - it's about whether you can write or speak in an interesting way. When it comes to the listening side, if anything the skill he'd have to develop is to become more efficient in his listening.

I actually find MusicWeb International reviews, where many reviewers spend 3/4 of the time revisiting their old favourite recordings for a comparison and then telling you about the comparison in detail, to be frequently really really boring to read.

EDIT: And that kind of comparison is frequently wrong-headed as well. That isn't how 'normal' listeners will actually listen to the music.

Horses for courses - personally I like comparative reviews but then I choose to own multiple versions of works so the comparison is useful

EDIT;  Entertainly and with commendable self-deprecation Hurwitz has JUST released a video where he relates reviewing the same disc twice (in a re-release) without realising and giving vastly differing opinions.  But that rather supports my view that relying on your own recall (or even notes!) of a performance from before is potentially flawed.  To say at any given time "X is best" you have to have done comparisons at the same time in the same listening conditions (and preferably the same mood!!).  Otherwise there are too many variables.