Names to avoid, according to Ivan Hewett

[Monsieur Croche]

Maazel made two of my favorite recordingsl: that of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges with the Orchestre National de la R.T.F and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet with The Cleveland Orchestra.

... and that L'enfant et les sortileges has never been bettered; it is about as near perfection as it gets... other performances are likely to be only different, and more than unlikely to ever be better than.

[Monsieur Croche]

I suspect it is supposed to be a funny attempt at "bluff your way through pseudo-sophisticated intermission talk" (or fake it till you make it).
This seems true for the whole prologue (name-dropping with historical artists and ensembles only long-time listeners or collectors will recognize at all (like Cortot or the part-time Hollywood quartet) and avoiding more obvious stuff like Karajan or Kissin (one can even have both in a fairly soporific Tchaikovsky b flat minor concerto...). Or artists one could actually hear live on stage in 2016...

Insider jokes and relatively mean-spirited lampoons, especially when published as allegedly to the public, are profoundly snarky and as profoundly narcissist-self indulgent.

That kind of behavior, once made public, can and does completely undermine what credibility the person who does it may have, even if that perp is supposed to otherwise be well informed. Pull that sort of stunt just once, it is enough to completely and forever discount and dismiss whatever they may have had of worth. -- Life is far too short, everyone's time far to precious, and there are others just as qualified and well informed to go to for the exact same resources.

[Monsieur Croche]

Can we all at least agree that Richard Clayderman was awful?

My abiding memory of a cassette of his I suffered through as a child was that 'Fur Elise' was played as if it was in 6/8 time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jGZbheKpgc

No-one, but no-one should put themselves forward as a professional musician while committing that kind of atrocity.

B...b...but people luff him. 

[TonyACT]

I love Kissin's performance on the Beethoven Choral Fantasy from the early 90s New Year's Eve DG CD. I haven't heard much else by him - but if that was typical ...

[jochanaan]

...to the pubic at large...

Uh, you might want to edit that, Monsieur.

[Monsieur Croche]

Uh, you might want to edit that, Monsieur.

I swear that was just a typo, Dr. Freud.

lol... thanks.
Corrected; I also took out the 'at large,' -- made 'the public' sound like a bunch of sought-after escaped criminals on the lam 

[jochanaan]

I also took out the 'at large,' -- made 'the public' sound like a bunch of sought-after escaped criminals on the lam 

Or it might have been an unintended commentary on their body-mass index.

[Mirror Image]

The "problem" with Karajan is rather that until fairly recently (o.k. maybe more like 25 years ago) when you entered a record/CD store you were flooded with his recordings and many of them were also standard recommendations because he simply was by far the most famous conductor (alive or recently deceased). Some connoisseurs avoided them, of course, or at least were much more picky. And while I am everything but a Karajan fan (and for several reason I only "grew up" on a couple of his recordings) it also seems silly to avoid them on purpose. For Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Strauss one could probably do worse than get Karajan's recordings (one can usually also do better).

I really like his recordings of the Second Viennese School. Top-drawer performances. Also, his Honegger recording of Symphonies 2 & 3 have really opened my ears.