The Snowshoed Sibelius

Started by Dancing Divertimentian, April 16, 2007, 08:39:57 PM

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Tapkaara

Quote from: Elgarian on July 22, 2009, 11:52:11 AM
Thanks! Great! Keep 'em coming and we'll add 'em up in a day or two, to get the Definitive Answer.

That's the nice thing about music...definitive answers can always be reached.

Elgarian

Quote from: Tapkaara on July 22, 2009, 11:53:10 AM
That's the nice thing about music...definitive answers can always be reached.

Yes. We will prove it, once and for all, so there will never be any argument about the matter ever again.

But which one? Which one, of your two?

Tapkaara

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 22, 2009, 11:50:26 AM
Hate it. His Boston 1, 2, and 5 I no longer listen to.

Sarge

Hahaha, well I find this completely rational. And now I'm thinking...am I over-hating the Davis/BSO cycle? I guess now that I think about it (especially after "rediscovering" his good go at the 7th just this morning), perhaps its just the 1st, 2nd and 5th I have issues with...

Tapkaara

Quote from: Elgarian on July 22, 2009, 12:01:15 PM
Yes. We will prove it, once and for all, so there will never be any argument about the matter ever again.

But which one? Which one, of your two?

Oy vey, that's hard. By just a hair...Segerstam/Helsinki.

Elgarian

Quote from: Tapkaara on July 22, 2009, 12:02:32 PM
Oy vey, that's hard. By just a hair...Segerstam/Helsinki.

A hair is good enough!

Renfield

It's a fine balance between Vänskä/Lahti and Segerstam/Helsinki, here; though I haven't heard the Maazel yet.

(It was one of my last purchases before all my time and stamina ran out a couple of months ago. Pending a relative recovery of mental and physical resources, however, I certainly should devote some time to that cycle...)

DavidRoss

Quote from: Elgarian on July 22, 2009, 11:10:15 AM
You're going to spend 6 months in a wooden hut in Lapland, and you can only take one version of Sibelius 1. Which one? (DR, I presume, would opt for Bernstein and the NYPO.)

Well, not that this is definitive for me (natch), but I just played the first few minutes of several contenders (Bernstein NYPO & WP, Maazel/WP, Vänskä/Lahti, Segerstam/HPO, Blomstedt/SFS, Ashkenazy/Philharmonia, Berglund Bournemouth & COE) and on that basis narrowed it down to Vänskä, Blomstedt, and Berglund/COE, finally selecting the last because of the combination of intensity with exemplary clarity revealing inner voices unheard elsewhere--and then I played Bernstein/NYPO once again and forgot all the others.  Sure it's not the best in every respect, but it's pretty damned good and nothing else comes close to the outstanding musicianship coupled with decent sound and white hot incandescence.  I might miss the others, but suspect I'd get over that every time I put Lenny's on the platter.  ;D
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

DavidRoss

Quote from: Tapkaara on July 22, 2009, 12:01:23 PM
Hahaha, well I find this completely rational. And now I'm thinking...am I over-hating the Davis/BSO cycle? I guess now that I think about it (especially after "rediscovering" his good go at the 7th just this morning), perhaps its just the 1st, 2nd and 5th I have issues with...

If only there weren't all those better cycles available, without the weaknesses:  Bernstein, Blomstedt, Vänskä, Segerstam, Maazel, Berglund, Berglund, Berglund.  Heck, I'd take Ashkenazy to the desert island Lapland hut before I'd take Davis.  (Especially the 1st, which is probably the best of the whole cycle.)  And I'm still scratching my head over the lukewarm reception given Berglund's COE set.

"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Tapkaara

Well, there really is no perfect Sibelius cycle, is there? Segerstam/Helsinki missed being pefect, though, by one symphony: the 2nd. It is such a lukewarm, dragging performance. It's almost weird how affected it is. I am not sure what Segerstam was trying to acheive by sucking this symphony dry of its lusty romantic asperations, but the results were not good. But where the 2nd is lacking, he lets things go much better with the 1st and indeed the 5th. (Segerstam's 5th is, I believe, the best currently on disc.)


DavidRoss

Quote from: Tapkaara on July 22, 2009, 02:52:51 PM
Well, there really is no perfect Sibelius cycle, is there? Segerstam/Helsinki missed being pefect, though, by one symphony: the 2nd. It is such a lukewarm, dragging performance. It's almost weird how affected it is. I am not sure what Segerstam was trying to acheive by sucking this symphony dry of its lusty romantic asperations, but the results were not good. But where the 2nd is lacking, he lets things go much better with the 1st and indeed the 5th. (Segerstam's 5th is, I believe, the best currently on disc.)

To me there are several perfect cycles, with Bernstein, Blomstedt, Vänskä, Segerstam, Maazel, Sakari, and Berglund all having completed cycles I find wholly satisfying. (Note that each has also recorded Tapiola, and most also have a fine Luonnotar and maybe even a Kullervo or Lemminkäinen Suite to flesh out the cycle.) 

Of course, you and I doubtless have very different ideas of "perfection."  I'm one of those fellows who doesn't think there is such a thing as a "perfect" or "definitive" performance or interpretation.  I think that great music is open to a variety of interpretations that are equally valid, and that different performers offer us different views of a piece that is greater than any one approach can capture fully...or even the same performer at different times in life will offer different interpretations informed by learning, life experience, and personal spiritual growth, all of which are reflected in the performance.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Tapkaara

Quote from: DavidRoss on July 22, 2009, 05:41:11 PM

Of course, you and I doubtless have very different ideas of "perfection."  I'm one of those fellows who doesn't think there is such a thing as a "perfect" or "definitive" performance or interpretation.  I think that great music is open to a variety of interpretations that are equally valid, and that different performers offer us different views of a piece that is greater than any one approach can capture fully...or even the same performer at different times in life will offer different interpretations informed by learning, life experience, and personal spiritual growth, all of which are reflected in the performance.

Sure, any one piece of music is open to interpretation, but there is BAD interpretation as well as good, and Segerstams' 2nd symphony is, to me, a bad one. Taking a ho-hum approach to Sibelius 2 is certainly how he wanted it to sound, but I find little worth in it.

For me, the two cycles that come closest to "perfection" is Maazel/Vienna and Davis/LSO Live.

Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 22, 2009, 09:39:40 AMTapiola and Blomstedt: I'm lovin' it!
Of course you're loving it. Anybody except a few completely lost souls loves Tapiola with Blomstedt.

Elgarian

Let's see what we've got:

Berglund/COE
Bernstein/NYPO
Blomstedt/SFS
Davis/LSO Live
Maazel/WP
Segerstam/Helsinki
Vanska/Lahti

OK. Now, what I want is to buy the 'best' 1st symphony I can, to accompany me to the Lapland hut. I already have Sakari/Iceland which is OK. And I have Davis/LSO (RCA) which is very much not OK. (I'm somewhat prejudiced in favour of Vanska, because if his 1st is anything like his Wood Nymph, then I know he produces my kind of Sibelius.) I think I might start a poll in a separate thread and ask for votes, and maybe get still more opinions from passing Sibelians who might miss this thread but would stop and do the poll.

Any more contenders, before I make the poll?


Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich

I'm no expert at Sibelius' symphonies, but I think you forgot Järvi/Gothenburg as an important nowadays Sibelius interpreter.

Elgarian

Quote from: Wurstwasser on July 23, 2009, 12:40:27 AM
I'm no expert at Sibelius' symphonies, but I think you forgot Järvi/Gothenburg as an important nowadays Sibelius interpreter.

No one's mentioned him yet. Here goes:

Berglund/COE
Bernstein/NYPO
Blomstedt/SFS
Davis/LSO Live
Järvi/Gothenburg
Maazel/WP
Segerstam/Helsinki
Vanska/Lahti

My Wood Nymph CD has just arrived.....

DavidRoss

Quote from: Tapkaara on July 22, 2009, 06:50:26 PM
Sure, any one piece of music is open to interpretation, but there is BAD interpretation as well as good, and Segerstams' 2nd symphony is, to me, a bad one. Taking a ho-hum approach to Sibelius 2 is certainly how he wanted it to sound, but I find little worth in it.
Hmmmm.  The 2nd is my least favorite so doesn't get much play...but Segerstam is one of my favorites among the more Romantic interpreters.  Hard to believe he wanted a boring rendition; usually he goes in the other direction, emphasizing drama rather than just letting the music speak for itself.  Guess his second with the HPO is long overdue for a spin.  8)
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

DavidW

Well if you are going to have Bernstein, you might as well add Ormandy and Barbirolli, I might be the absolutely one to find positive things to say but it would certainly contrast the overwhelming modernist list that you have now Elgarian. :)

Elgarian

Quote from: Wurstwasser on July 23, 2009, 07:39:19 AM
Well, you don't like the 4th? This fine mysterious piece? Give it a try with Segerstam.

My problem - well, it's hardly a problem, as such - is that I'm in the process of discovering an endless ocean of Handel, Vivaldi, and baroque in general, that I love so much that it hurts; and there's so much of it to explore and so little time. By contrast, there's Sibelius 4, 6 and 7, all of which have had a fair amount of my time already, with little success. My revisiting of the 6th today suggests to me that I haven't changed much in this area; so ... I'm not keen to keep pushing at this one.

Tapkaara

Quote from: DavidRoss on July 23, 2009, 04:27:40 AM
Hmmmm.  The 2nd is my least favorite so doesn't get much play...but Segerstam is one of my favorites among the more Romantic interpreters.  Hard to believe he wanted a boring rendition; usually he goes in the other direction, emphasizing drama rather than just letting the music speak for itself.  Guess his second with the HPO is long overdue for a spin.  8)

It's hard for me to believe that Segerstam wanted full-throated romanticism in this reading of the second. he delivers it in the 1st and 5th, but something is strangly lacking here. It's as if he wanted to do something different to what is usually listed as people's favorite symphony of the 7. It's like he wanted to go for some "classical" style approach and de-emphasize the dramatic qualities in favor of something else. I'm not sure what that something else is, but his interpretation just does not work for me. I remember the first time I heard it, I was massively dissapointed.

Tapkaara

Quote from: Elgarian on July 23, 2009, 07:49:34 AM
My problem - well, it's hardly a problem, as such - is that I'm in the process of discovering an endless ocean of Handel, Vivaldi, and baroque in general, that I love so much that it hurts; and there's so much of it to explore and so little time. By contrast, there's Sibelius 4, 6 and 7, all of which have had a fair amount of my time already, with little success. My revisiting of the 6th today suggests to me that I haven't changed much in this area; so ... I'm not keen to keep pushing at this one.

I would urge you NOT to give up on symphonies 4, 6 and 7. For a while, even in all of my Sibelius-mania, the 6th was the symphony I returned to the least. It was just too strange, too ephemeral. But I never gave up on. I would always remember a (somewhat curious) quote by the composer himself on the 6th: "passion and rage are essential in it." Passion and rage? This is, for the most part, a very serene work. What could the composer be talking about? But I discovered after a few deep listens, there did seem to be something seething, just below the surface. It occasionally manifests with a brief brass outburst, but it is usually hidden below. I don't know if it's power of suggestion from the composer's quote, but that latent rage and passion did make me understand a little bit better.

And then there is another quote on the 6th that I love. Sibelius said that, in this work, "the shadows lengthen." What does he mean by this? It's often taken that Sibelius is beginning to come to terms with that fact he was really entering into old age. The lengthening of the shadows is something like getting closer to death. Though this work is not grim, it's like a sort of peaceful resignation.