Tchaikovsky

[Maestro267]

I got Orchestral Suites 3 & 4 several years ago as filler with Dorati's complete Nutcracker ballet. Then some time later I got Marriner's recording of Suites 1 & 2.

[Albion]

A most HIP practice, for sure. 

For true Russian fire they'd have needed vodka. 

I drink mine a la Mussorgsky, one part water to two parts vodka, which may possibly explain my frequent incoherence...

 

...I have no problems with Marriner in the Suites, but he would have floundered in the symphonies and ballets.

[Brian]

Apparantly(!) whatever piece he was conducting, regardless of the time signature he gave exactly the same 2 clicks in - in the right tempo for the piece but it was always click click go.

Thanks much for this entertaining post and behind the scenes glimpse    One quick question. Clicks in - is this just to cue people in before the music? (Like the famous cliche of "and a one and a two..."?)

There is a certain skill involved with surrounding yourself with all the best players, keeping them, and trusting them to be brilliant together!

[Papy Oli]

A most HIP practice, for sure. 

HIP flasked ? 

[Roasted Swan]

Thanks much for this entertaining post and behind the scenes glimpse    One quick question. Clicks in - is this just to cue people in before the music? (Like the famous cliche of "and a one and a two..."?)

There is a certain skill involved with surrounding yourself with all the best players, keeping them, and trusting them to be brilliant together!

Exactly.  In orchestras you tend to be given "beats in" usually (for safety) two in the tempo the piece starts.  The old jazz band thing "a 1, a 2, a 1,2,3,4" where the first one and two are effectively half speed is just that or quite often the kit player will give you the beat in on his sticks.  Actual clicks are used on film tracks and in studios when you are laying down new tracks on top of exiting ones.  That way you can be sure everything is being played at the same speed no matter when or where recorded.  In musical theatre when a specific piece of music has to be coordinate with a scene change or lighting cue - or sometimes a pre-recorded track (Phantom had a lot of "extra parts" - syn drums etc - on a click track).  So then the conductor and probably drummer will have a pair of headphones on (usually wearing one on and one off so you can hear the live band too) with the click running in that - the conductor/drummer follows the click and hopefully the band follow you - hopefully.......

Going back to orchestras - the beginning of Bethoven 5 is notoriously hard to conduct because you can't really give anything "in" because the work starts with an out of tempo "gesture" after a quaver rest.  So there are all kinds of ways to fake that.  Apparently Menuhin - a notoriously BAD conductor once spent most of an entire rehearsal trying to get the start of beethoven 5 together...... and then he did it differently on the night.... that's Showbiz!

[Florestan]

Menuhin - a notoriously BAD conductor

And yet he recorded a surprisingly good Schubert cycle for EMI with the Menuhin Festival Orchestra no less.

[Brian]

And yet he recorded a surprisingly good Schubert cycle for EMI with the Menuhin Festival Orchestra no less.

A lack of podium leadership is often compensated by great musicians. I remember once as a teenager going to a concert and afterwards an orchestra member told us they'd been looking at the concertmaster for cues instead of the conductor. 

[Roasted Swan]

And yet he recorded a surprisingly good Schubert cycle for EMI with the Menuhin Festival Orchestra no less.

Bad in the sense of no technique but a fine musician can inspire good players as long as they know the music well enough not to need much conducting per se.  Menuhin's Elgar with the RPO is some of the very best - but the RPO know their Elgar - it might have been different it he was conducting say a French orchestra......

[Lisztianwagner]

About Tchaikovsky's Suites for Orchestra, I agree about the great beauty of those compositions, I've been listening to them today for the first time (I've finished the first two Suites) and they're really magnificent; they show an impressive, colourful orchestration, so fluent and elegant, yet so suggestive and compelling; there's always such a brilliant contrapuntal weaving among the profound, powerful brass, the gracefulness, the virtuosity and the expressiveness of strings and woodwinds, and the thunderous percussion. The contrasts depicted among the sections are marvelous too, it is passed so enchantingly from a fairy, evocative atmosphere to a thoughtful and melancholic one, to a lively and witty mood, and again to a restless and meditative one; absolutely stunning.

[Brahmsian]

About Tchaikovsky's Suites for Orchestra, I agree about the great beauty of those compositions, I've been listening to them today for the first time (I've finished the first two Suites) and they're really magnificent; they show an impressive, colourful orchestration, so fluent and elegant, yet so suggestive and compelling; there's always such a brilliant contrapuntal weaving among the profound, powerful brass, the gracefulness, the virtuosity and the expressiveness of strings and woodwinds, and the thunderous percussion. The contrasts depicted among the sections are marvelous too, it is passed so enchantingly from a fairy, evocative atmosphere to a thoughtful and melancholic one, to a lively and witty mood, and again to a restless and meditative one; absolutely stunning.

So happy to hear you are enjoying the suites, Ilaria.  If I might say, they are perhaps "underrated Tchaikovksy". if there is such a thing. 

[Lisztianwagner]

So happy to hear you are enjoying the suites, Ilaria.  If I might say, they are perhaps "underrated Tchaikovksy". if there is such a thing. 

Thank you, Ray. If it were the case, it would be such a pity, they are such exquisite music! Tchaikovsky is more than his ballets or his symphonies (althought no doubt they are masterpieces).....

[Albion]

I'd agree with all you say - BUT you've missed one of the very very best - Ermler with the Covent Garden Orchestra.  Wonderfully played, well recorded and with a great fusion of Russian passion and British poise.  I would always have Svetlanov in a collection too - although parts of the Nutcracker are eyewateringly harsh his Sleeping Beauty and Swanlake blaze.

Having heard the Ermler "Sleeping Beauty" I'm not impressed by the sluggish tempos and over-prominent brass which frequently obliterate all before them. The "Rose Adagio" and "Panorama" are a nightmare and Ermler often seems to be conducting as though he's watching a geriatric company shuffling on stage with Zimmer frames. Nope, I'll stick with Previn and Lanchbery...

[Roasted Swan]

Having heard the Ermler "Sleeping Beauty" I'm not impressed by the sluggish tempos and over-prominent brass which frequently obliterate all before them. The "Rose Adagio" and "Panorama" are a nightmare and Ermler often seems to be conducting as though he's watching a geriatric company shuffling on stage with Zimmer frames. Nope, I'll stick with Previn and Lanchbery...

Chacun as they say - but the point (often debated) is whether you go for a theatrical performance or a symphonic one - the latter tending to have faster tempi and the former dancer tempi.  Ermler is clearly in the former camp.  I have to say I find all his tempi completely convincing.

[lordlance]

Listening to Dorati's Tchaikovsky. The second is a really zippy performance and I was at the finale before I realized it. It works too. But the First... Oh my. What is with the third movement? Just ruins the performance by making it a complete slog. I feel like skipping the movement entirely honestly. I thought Dorati was lean and mean usually?

[Maestro267]

Picked up the string quartets and Souvenir de Florence sextet today. Listening to the Third Quartet and so far it's been in B flat major even though it's listed as E flat minor.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Picked up the string quartets and Souvenir de Florence sextet today. Listening to the Third Quartet and so far it's been in B flat major even though it's listed as E flat minor.

Whose recordings are you listening to?

PD

[Maestro267]

Keller Quartet

[Atriod]

About Tchaikovsky's Suites for Orchestra, I agree about the great beauty of those compositions, I've been listening to them today for the first time (I've finished the first two Suites) and they're really magnificent; they show an impressive, colourful orchestration, so fluent and elegant, yet so suggestive and compelling; there's always such a brilliant contrapuntal weaving among the profound, powerful brass, the gracefulness, the virtuosity and the expressiveness of strings and woodwinds, and the thunderous percussion. The contrasts depicted among the sections are marvelous too, it is passed so enchantingly from a fairy, evocative atmosphere to a thoughtful and melancholic one, to a lively and witty mood, and again to a restless and meditative one; absolutely stunning.

Which performances were you listening to?

[Lisztianwagner]

Which performances were you listening to?

Antal Dorati/New Philharmonia Orchestra.

[Roasted Swan]

Antal Dorati/New Philharmonia Orchestra.

Good 'uns!!