Recently there was a discussion of the 1960's performance of the Shostakovich Symphony #10 on DGG by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
In the last weeks I have been revisiting the famous Sibelius set of complete symphonies from the 1960's performed by the Japan Philharmonic with Akeo Watanabe conducting.
Certainly there may be better recordings today, e.g. a certain amount of "hiss" is audible in the Sibelius recordings now and then.
However, I am biased in favor of these on one level because of the memories attached to them, when I first heard them. Listening to these performances brings back an entire universe of other people, places, and events now lost forever, except in my memory.
And that aspect remains a reason to prefer them! 8)
Does anyone else share a similar preference/bias?
Of course.
In fact the HvK recording of the Sibelius Sixth was the first I heard. I know that other recordings are better, but I remain fond of that HvK recording
I have a similar relationship with HVK's performance of Honegger's 3rd Symphony 'Liturgique'. In the case of Shostakovich's 10th Symphony, my nostalgic emotional connection is with Ormandy's recording which my older brother had on LP at a time, during my teenage years, when I was first discovering classical music:
(//)
Quite a number. There are a lot of pieces where I imprinted on my first recording
I must have heard Anda's Mozart 21 more often than my name and it is still the standard I judge by.
Sibelius 6 & 7 HVK 60s is another pertinent example.
Quote from: vandermolen on September 18, 2019, 01:58:57 PM
I have a similar relationship with HVK's performance of Honegger's 3rd Symphony 'Liturgique'. In the case of Shostakovich's 10th Symphony, my nostalgic emotional connection is with Ormandy's recording which my older brother had on LP at a time, during my teenage years, when I was first discovering classical music:
(//)
For the
Honegger symphonies, my memories keep taking me back to
Ernest Ansermet's recordings on
London. My associations take me back to Christmas vacations in high school in the middle 1960's. I believe the
Second Symphony was in fact paired with the
Christmas Cantata on a London "FFRR" LP. ("Full Frequency Response Recording" for you whippersnappers!)
Ormandy was very important for several recordings, among them the
Rachmaninoff Symphony #1. That record was earth-shaking...especially for an adolescent! Again I associate it with the Winter and the 5-bedroom house where we lived for several years.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 18, 2019, 01:46:26 PM
Of course.
In fact the HvK recording of the Sibelius Sixth was the first I heard. I know that other recordings are better, but I remain fond of that HvK recording
Yes, that is a classic, and had better sound (of course!) than the
Watanabe set.
The
Maazel Tchaikovsky set on London was another favorite: I played the
Third Symphony for a high-school friend of Polish heritage. Despite the works nickname ("Polish") he was unable to agree that anything Polish was involved. He lived across town, and I had to ride my bicycle for 45 minutes (one way) with one hand carrying the record and one on the handlebars to regale him with the symphony. (His record player had better sound than mine!)
The title of this thread led me to think of the famous painting by Dalí. :D
Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony conducted by Karajan/BPO (EMI) and VW's 2nd Symphony conducted by Bakels/Bournemouth SO (Naxos) are some examples where I was utterly hooked by when I started listening to classical music. Very good memories are brought to my mind when I relisten to them.
Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 18, 2019, 05:35:12 PM
The title of this thread led me to think of the famous painting by Dalí. :D
Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony conducted by Karajan/BPO (EMI) and VW's 2nd Symphony conducted by Bakels/Bournemouth SO (Naxos) are some examples where I was utterly hooked by when I started listening to classical music. Very good memories are brought to my mind when I relisten to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNA2pfzD4k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNA2pfzD4k)
Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 18, 2019, 05:35:12 PM
The title of this thread led me to think of the famous painting by Dalí. :D
Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony conducted by Karajan/BPO (EMI) and VW's 2nd Symphony conducted by Bakels/Bournemouth SO (Naxos) are some examples where I was utterly hooked by when I started listening to classical music. Very good memories are brought to my mind when I relisten to them.
Allow me a variation on your theme: the recording which hooked me on
Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony was an old
Serge Koussevitzky/
Boston Symphony record from RCA.
I just placed some comments under the
Mahler Mania topic and mentioned the
Ninth Symphony recording by
Leopold Ludwig and the
London Symphony Orchestra: I still recall listening to it in our "rumpus room," where I had placed my fairly new stereo system. Nobody else was in the house (somehow), and I had borrowed the score from the library. THAT first hearing was quite an experience, especially after the first movement, which qualified as a complete work itself (I thought at the time).
Our curious cat, a small, medium-brown, female "tiger" cat, had come down the steps to listen as well, although she eventually succumbed to a nap.
The silence at the end of the work was emphasized by the silence in our house. 20 years ago or so, I was able to hear the
Cleveland Orchestra play the work in concert: Severance Hall was being remodeled at that time, so the concert was a in a downtown theater.
Christoph von Dohnanyi allowed the silence at the end to persist for a long time, before he turned around. A marvelous moment!
Quote from: Cato on September 19, 2019, 04:29:50 AM
Allow me a variation on your theme: the recording which hooked me on Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony was an old Serge Koussevitzky/Boston Symphony record from RCA.
I just placed some comments under the Mahler Mania topic and mentioned the Ninth Symphony recording by Leopold Ludwig and the London Symphony Orchestra: I still recall listening to it in our "rumpus room," where I had placed my fairly new stereo system. Nobody else was in the house (somehow), and I had borrowed the score from the library. THAT first hearing was quite an experience, especially after the first movement, which qualified as a complete work itself (I thought at the time).
Our curious cat, a small, medium-brown, female "tiger" cat, had come down the steps to listen as well, although she eventually succumbed to a nap.
The silence at the end of the work was emphasized by the silence in our house. 20 years ago or so, I was able to hear the Cleveland Orchestra play the work in concert: Severance Hall was being remodeled at that time, so the concert was a in a downtown theater. Christoph von Dohnanyi allowed the silence at the end to persist for a long time, before he turned around. A marvelous moment!
Nice!
Quote from: Ken B on September 18, 2019, 07:14:39 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNA2pfzD4k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apNA2pfzD4k)
That was a charming piece, albeit there the title The Persistence of Memory is definitely more pastoral. Music to soothe the soul. Thanks for sharing it.
I'd say a good 85% of my "can't-live-without" choices for the mainstream standard repertoire are recordings 40-65 years old (I generally want at least stereo sound for orchestral music but I've heard great mono performances of course) ... How many Beethoven Concerto cycles are there? 30? More? Leon Fleisher got it perfect nearly 60 years ago ... A little minor hissing and close mic aggressiveness will never be anywhere near sufficient to disqualify those recordings... they are a paragon of insight, refinement, beauty, intelligence ...
There's also a incalculable quality of being closer to the source... let me put it this way ... think of Arthur Rubinstein playing Brahms... we're hearing him play that stuff recorded in the 1950s or 1960s and to us it's this grand old musician playing the music of a long-dead "Great Composer"... but Rubinstein's perspective is he's playing the music of a man who died when Arthur was a young teenager! Someone who was alive and famous when Rubinstein was growing up. When Rubinstein or later Horowitz played the music of Rachmaninoff, they were playing the music of a colleague, a man they knew... For Sviatoslav Richter, Prokofiev and Shostakovich weren't ancient dead figures with halos of reverence; he knew these guys as living, breathing, complex human beings... You can do this with loads of great musicians of the older days (Casadesus with Ravel/Debussy, etc)
When George Szell or Fritz Reiner or Rudolf Kempe conduct Till Eulenspiegel or Don Juan, they're interpreting the music of a man they actually knew personally ... Mravinsky knew Shostakovich, he knew Prokofiev... They didn't see these people and their compositions under glass in a display
These people were from another time much closer to the music they were conducting or playing
and it feels like that to me when I hear them ... there's a special feeling of insight because there's not that barrier of time and the dogma of reputations, etc ...
In the 25 years since I first surprised the merchant of my local record store by purchasing a genuine classical recording (a Bernstein/NYPO Tchaikovsky cassette) as a long-haired pot-smoking teenaged hoodlum ;) I've heard, for example many nicely played, appropriately interpreted London Haydn symphonies, some of them "HIP", others standard ... they're fine ... none of them touch the only set I ever had no choice but to buy - Szell's. I heard them and that was it. Had to have them. In the Classical/Romantic/Early 20th Century repertoire it's rare that a recording from say the last 30 years becomes one I purchase.
Baroque (not sure why, honestly) and obviously later 20th century and contemporary music, it's a wide open field and I'm all over the place ... old records, brand new records... no real preference pattern has emerged
Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on September 20, 2019, 03:53:32 PMThere's also a incalculable quality of being closer to the source.
Though note that you did indeed calculate it, and very accurately as well. :)
The first recording the Beaux Arts Trio did of Shostakovich's second piano trio, first released the year Shostakovich died (recorded before he died?), is a splendid thing, fresh and lively and fairly crackling with energy. I noticed that other recordings of this were not so lively--somber, magisterial, reverent. They were all playing, it was clear, the work of a master, an important composer with weighty things to say about the world of the second world war. All of them but one (of the ones I found): the Eroica Trio. But while they put in a spirited performance, it was also quite ragged, as if the Eroica had not yet rehearsed it enough to be comfortable with it.
And "all of them" included, sadly enough, a subsequent recording by the Beaux Arts Trio, which is as lugubrious and reverent as all get out. By then (1989), Shostakovich had been dead long enough to have been deified as "A GREAT MASTER," and hence all his works had to be performed as if "PROFOUND and IMPORTANT."
I saw the same thing happening, live and in concert(s), after Mauricio Kagel died. Some groups played his music as he had written it, witty, sarcastic, and tongue-in-cheek. (Yes, I have heard Kagel perform his own music, live and on recordings.) Other groups, however, awed and sobered by death, performed even Kagel with the sobriety and reverence appropriate for a grand master. Getting it, as a result, painfully wrong.
Even the dead masters should be performed as if they still walked among us. Not as zombies, I don't mean.
Quote from: some guy on September 21, 2019, 02:09:30 AM
Though note that you did indeed calculate it, and very accurately as well. :)
The first recording the Beaux Arts Trio did of Shostakovich's second piano trio, first released the year Shostakovich died (recorded before he died?), is a splendid thing, fresh and lively and fairly crackling with energy. I noticed that other recordings of this were not so lively--somber, magisterial, reverent. They were all playing, it was clear, the work of a master, an important composer with weighty things to say about the world of the second world war. All of them but one (of the ones I found): the Eroica Trio. But while they put in a spirited performance, it was also quite ragged, as if the Eroica had not yet rehearsed it enough to be comfortable with it.
And "all of them" included, sadly enough, a subsequent recording by the Beaux Arts Trio, which is as lugubrious and reverent as all get out. By then (1989), Shostakovich had been dead long enough to have been deified as "A GREAT MASTER," and hence all his works had to be performed as if "PROFOUND and IMPORTANT."
I saw the same thing happening, live and in concert(s), after Mauricio Kagel died. Some groups played his music as he had written it, witty, sarcastic, and tongue-in-cheek. (Yes, I have heard Kagel perform his own music, live and on recordings.) Other groups, however, awed and sobered by death, performed even Kagel with the sobriety and reverence appropriate for a grand master. Getting it, as a result, painfully wrong.
I need to hire an editor for my posts ;)
Yours is a great post, by the way.
Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on September 20, 2019, 03:53:32 PM
I'd say a good 85% of my "can't-live-without" choices for the mainstream standard repertoire are recordings 40-65 years old (I generally want at least stereo sound for orchestral music but I've heard great mono performances of course) ... How many Beethoven Concerto cycles are there? 30? More? Leon Fleisher got it perfect nearly 60 years ago ... A little minor hissing and close mic aggressiveness will never be anywhere near sufficient to disqualify those recordings... they are a paragon of insight, refinement, beauty, intelligence ...
There's also a incalculable quality of being closer to the source... let me put it this way ... think of Arthur Rubinstein playing Brahms... we're hearing him play that stuff recorded in the 1950s or 1960s and to us it's this grand old musician playing the music of a long-dead "Great Composer"... but Rubinstein's perspective is he's playing the music of a man who died when Arthur was a young teenager! Someone who was alive and famous when Rubinstein was growing up. When Rubinstein or later Horowitz played the music of Rachmaninoff, they were playing the music of a colleague, a man they knew... For Sviatoslav Richter, Prokofiev and Shostakovich weren't ancient dead figures with halos of reverence; he knew these guys as living, breathing, complex human beings... You can do this with loads of great musicians of the older days (Casadesus with Ravel/Debussy, etc)
When George Szell or Fritz Reiner or Rudolf Kempe conduct Till Eulenspiegel or Don Juan, they're interpreting the music of a man they actually knew personally ... Mravinsky knew Shostakovich, he knew Prokofiev... They didn't see these people and their compositions under glass in a display
These people were from another time much closer to the music they were conducting or playing
and it feels like that to me when I hear them ... there's a special feeling of insight because there's not that barrier of time and the dogma of reputations, etc ...
In the 25 years since I first surprised the merchant of my local record store by purchasing a genuine classical recording (a Bernstein/NYPO Tchaikovsky cassette) as a long-haired pot-smoking teenaged hoodlum ;) I've heard, for example many nicely played, appropriately interpreted London Haydn symphonies, some of them "HIP", others standard ... they're fine ... none of them touch the only set I ever had no choice but to buy - Szell's. I heard them and that was it. Had to have them. In the Classical/Romantic/Early 20th Century repertoire it's rare that a recording from say the last 30 years becomes one I purchase.
Baroque (not sure why, honestly) and obviously later 20th century and contemporary music, it's a wide open field and I'm all over the place ... old records, brand new records... no real preference pattern has emerged
Many thanks for the nice comments!
Yes, I recall thinking 50+ years ago how a performance of e.g.
Rachmaninov conducted by
Eugene Ormandy was more special because he knew the composer.
George Szell: always a good choice, I believe.
Quote from: Cato on September 21, 2019, 02:20:35 PM
Many thanks for the nice comments!
Yes, I recall thinking 50+ years ago how a performance of e.g. Rachmaninov conducted by Eugene Ormandy was more special because he knew the composer.
George Szell: always a good choice, I believe.
Exactly!
Szell/Cleveland... their records are very, very special to me. They check all of the boxes that I hold most dear in classical music. I admire many conductors and ensembles but none have ever so consistently hit me so squarely in the head and the soul ... I only wish they had made 100 more recordings
Quote from: Cato on September 18, 2019, 05:16:48 PM
For the Honegger symphonies, my memories keep taking me back to Ernest Ansermet's recordings on London. My associations take me back to Christmas vacations in high school in the middle 1960's. I believe the Second Symphony was in fact paired with the Christmas Cantata on a London "FFRR" LP. ("Full Frequency Response Recording" for you whippersnappers!)
Ormandy was very important for several recordings, among them the Rachmaninoff Symphony #1. That record was earth-shaking...especially for an adolescent! Again I associate it with the Winter and the 5-bedroom house where we lived for several years.
Yes, that is a classic, and had better sound (of course!) than the Watanabe set.
The Maazel Tchaikovsky set on London was another favorite: I played the Third Symphony for a high-school friend of Polish heritage. Despite the works nickname ("Polish") he was unable to agree that anything Polish was involved. He lived across town, and I had to ride my bicycle for 45 minutes (one way) with one hand carrying the record and one on the handlebars to regale him with the symphony. (His record player had better sound than mine!)
The Ansermet Honegger Symphony 2 and Christmas Cantata are familiar to me from a famous old Decca Ace of Diamonds LP. Like you, Ormandy was my introduction to Rachmaninov's First Symphony - still one of the finest performances I think. Like Cesar this thread title immediately brought to mind Dali's painting.
Quote from: vandermolen on September 23, 2019, 01:42:29 PM
Like you, Ormandy was my introduction to Rachmaninov's First Symphony - still one of the finest performances I think.
Oh yes! I had an LP of
Ormandy and Company playing the
Second Symphony, which contained cuts. Until I obtained a score, I never knew that parts had been excised, as the symphony seemed whole, with no abrupt transitions or anything. I once knew an aficionado who thought the cuts to be proper and an improvement.
Quote from: vandermolen on September 23, 2019, 01:42:29 PM
this thread title immediately brought to mind Dali's painting.
I certainly hope so! ;)
Similar story: a performance of
Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony on RCA with the NBC Symphony and
Arturo Toscanini conducting also had cuts, which I did not realize until later. And this time, I thought the cuts (mainly in the last movement) may have improved the impact of the work: the shorter version of the last movement was a fast sledgehammer to the psyche!
Ormandy gets ripped on for his interpretations (or rather lack of) in some material but in his defense I'd say the following are beyond dispute:
1) he led an orchestra for decades that was one of the world's greatest playing and greatest sounding ensembles and that can't just be a coincidence
2) because of his steady discipline and that great playing, all of the records are enjoyable to listen to even when his lack of interpretation is maddening
3) he was a faultless, expert Concerto accompanist
4) he clearly had a genuine genius for the Russians ... especially Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and somewhat surprisingly Shostakovich (his 1st symphony remains my favorite recording of the work and his 5th is one of the tightest played ever put to disc)
Overall, there's a lot to look upon positively
Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on September 23, 2019, 08:50:27 PM
Ormandy gets ripped on for his interpretations (or rather lack of) in some material but in his defense I'd say the following are beyond dispute:
1) he led an orchestra for decades that was one of the world's greatest playing and greatest sounding ensembles and that can't just be a coincidence
2) because of his steady discipline and that great playing, all of the records are enjoyable to listen to even when his lack of interpretation is maddening
3) he was a faultless, expert Concerto accompanist
4) he clearly had a genuine genius for the Russians ... especially Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and somewhat surprisingly Shostakovich (his 1st symphony remains my favorite recording of the work and his 5th is one of the tightest played ever put to disc)
Overall, there's a lot to look upon positively
I can agree with all of this. For me at least, Ormandy for a long time was over-shadowed by his flashier Columbia compatriots (Lenny, Szell, and Walter), but recently I've revisited a lot of his recordings, and invested in a few of those cheapie Sony white box sets. In general, I've been very pleased (it's hard not to smile while listening to the sound of that orchestra), particularly with his Sibelius set, which is outstanding.
You're right about the Russians -- Ormandy's Shostakovich is excellent, as is his Tchaikovsky (and I'm not generally all that into Tchaikovsky). Now they just need a box collecting all of his Rachmaninov recordings; I would definitely snap that up...
I've been slowly working my way through this... lots of good stuff in here....
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71BRVNJEdUL._SY355_.jpg)
Quote from: j winter on September 24, 2019, 11:42:11 AM
I can agree with all of this. For me at least, Ormandy for a long time was over-shadowed by his flashier Columbia compatriots (Lenny, Szell, and Walter), but recently I've revisited a lot of his recordings, and invested in a few of those cheapie Sony white box sets. In general, I've been very pleased (it's hard not to smile while listening to the sound of that orchestra), particularly with his Sibelius set, which is outstanding.
You're right about the Russians -- Ormandy's Shostakovich is excellent, as is his Tchaikovsky (and I'm not generally all that into Tchaikovsky). Now they just need a box collecting all of his Rachmaninov recordings; I would definitely snap that up...
I've been slowly working my way through this... lots of good stuff in here....
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71BRVNJEdUL._SY355_.jpg)
You said it... the quality of that playing and the sound of that orchestra was a real pleasure no matter what they played ... all the while the same fellow was in the podium ... can't be just a coincidence
Agreed, though I think we also have to remember that many elements of that "Philadelphia Sound" were inherited from Stokowski. Still, as you say Ormandy was there for many years, and had a huge role in both refining and maintaining that sound.
Compare that sound to any of Riccardo Muti's recordings in Philadelphia after Ormandy left -- the sound of the orchestra was quickly "modernized" in the ensuing years. Whether that was a good thing or not is another whole can of worms, and probably a topic for another thread...
Quote from: j winter on September 24, 2019, 12:28:05 PM
Agreed, though I think we also have to remember that many elements of that "Philadelphia Sound" were inherited from Stokowski. Still, as you say Ormandy was there for many years, and had a huge role in both refining and maintaining that sound.
Compare that sound to any of Riccardo Muti's recordings in Philadelphia after Ormandy left -- the sound of the orchestra was quickly "modernized" in the ensuing years. Whether that was a good thing or not is another whole can of worms, and probably a topic for another thread...
Absolutely, Stokowski was the originator but Ormandy basically eliminated the free-bowing style while still keeping that same lush tone... no mean feat
I have gathered that a lot of close followers of the Orchestra blame Muti for it falling in stature (though recent recordings I've heard with Yannick suggest to me that the old Philadelphia sound lives again) ... in his defense, I'd say that while I haven't heard a lot of his recordings with that orchestra, I thought their Scriabin cycle was terrific
Quote from: j winter on September 24, 2019, 12:28:05 PM
Agreed, though I think we also have to remember that many elements of that "Philadelphia Sound" were inherited from Stokowski. Still, as you say Ormandy was there for many years, and had a huge role in both refining and maintaining that sound.
Compare that sound to any of Riccardo Muti's recordings in Philadelphia after Ormandy left -- the sound of the orchestra was quickly "modernized" in the ensuing years. Whether that was a good thing or not is another whole can of worms, and probably a topic for another thread...
I freely admit that I like the
Muti/
Phila. recording of
Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette very much.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 24, 2019, 01:41:50 PM
I freely admit that I like the Muti/Phila. recording of Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette very much.
I'll give it a listen!
Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on September 20, 2019, 03:53:32 PM
When George Szell or Fritz Reiner or Rudolf Kempe conduct Till Eulenspiegel or Don Juan, they're interpreting the music of a man they actually knew personally ... Mravinsky knew Shostakovich, he knew Prokofiev... They didn't see these people and their compositions under glass in a display
This is why I've always loved this cover photo:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81AH2p8T%2B4L._SX425_.jpg)
As well as the definitive recordings it fronted, of course.
This is completely co-incidental to the thread having turned into an Ormandy/Philadelphia love-in, by the way.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 24, 2019, 01:41:50 PM
I freely admit that I like the Muti/Phila. recording of Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette very much.
The various recordings of this have long been interesting to me. I never liked Davis' first one, the only Davis performance of Berlioz that I didn't like. And for a long time, the Monteux was only available in a very (s)crappy recording (since cleaned up very nicely--you can't even find that earlier version any more). And the Monteux has yet to be beat, I think.
Before the cleaned up recording of Monteux, I spend many years trying to/failing to find an equally superb performance of i]Roméo et Juliette.[/i] One of Davis' later recordings came pretty close (the one with Borodina, Moser, and Miles), but I think Muti's is the closest to Monteux's at being wholly satisfying. It is, I think, a perfect piece (if there can be such a thing*), but it is also a tricky piece to pull off--you also have to perform it perfectly. I also couldn't believe that Muti (Muti?) could have done such a thing, and so I kept listening to it, wondering what was wrong with it and what was wrong with me that I liked it, hahaha.
And now, there is a Berlin Philharmonic performance of this (with some guy named Harding) which, if the various snippets of the five minute trailer are any indication, will rival and even surpass Monteux's. I can't believe I'm saying this. But those snippets are perfect. Later today, I'll be buying a ticket for the streaming and will listen to the whole thing. So later today (or tomorrow), I'll come back and report. (I'm in Sofia, which is GMT +3 at the moment.)
*Of course there cannot.
Quote from: some guy on September 25, 2019, 02:02:55 AM
The various recordings of this have long been interesting to me. I never liked Davis' first one, the only Davis performance of Berlioz that I didn't like. And for a long time, the Monteux was only available in a very (s)crappy recording (since cleaned up very nicely--you can't even find that earlier version any more). And the Monteux has yet to be beat, I think.
Before the cleaned up recording of Monteux, I spend many years trying to/failing to find an equally superb performance of i]Roméo et Juliette.[/i] One of Davis' later recordings came pretty close (the one with Borodina, Moser, and Miles), but I think Muti's is the closest to Monteux's at being wholly satisfying. It is, I think, a perfect piece (if there can be such a thing*), but it is also a tricky piece to pull off--you also have to perform it perfectly. I also couldn't believe that Muti (Muti?) could have done such a thing, and so I kept listening to it, wondering what was wrong with it and what was wrong with me that I liked it, hahaha.
And now, there is a Berlin Philharmonic performance of this (with some guy named Harding) which, if the various snippets of the five minute trailer are any indication, will rival and even surpass Monteux's. I can't believe I'm saying this. But those snippets are perfect. Later today, I'll be buying a ticket for the streaming and will listen to the whole thing. So later today (or tomorrow), I'll come back and report. (I'm in Sofia, which is GMT +3 at the moment.)
*Of course there cannot.
Shows how tastes vary - Davis' 1st one is probably my favourite though this might be a case of 'first recording syndrome'. However, the first CD mastering of it is not up to the standard of the LPs. It sounds like I should investigate the Monteux.
Back in the early 80s EMI had the bright idea of adding stupid bleeping noises at the beginning and end of each cassette side. There was some pseudo-technical garbage explaining why. I bought the Muti/Philadelphia R&J on cassette and was horrified to find that the rapturous Love Scene died away into a burst of high-tech bleeping. I took it back to the dealer who gave me a full refund. His only comment was 'EMI used to be the best, now they are the worst'. I now have the Muti on CD, must give it a spin soon.
Quote from: j winter on September 24, 2019, 12:28:05 PM
Agreed, though I think we also have to remember that many elements of that "Philadelphia Sound" were inherited from Stokowski. Still, as you say Ormandy was there for many years, and had a huge role in both refining and maintaining that sound.
Compare that sound to any of Riccardo Muti's recordings in Philadelphia after Ormandy left -- the sound of the orchestra was quickly "modernized" in the ensuing years. Whether that was a good thing or not is another whole can of worms, and probably a topic for another thread...
Besides the "unsynchronized" bowing of the strings, there was an innovation from Ormandy (I believe) of having extra violas at times double the second violins. Are there not also more first violins than in other orchestras?
Try this for an example:
https://www.youtube.com/v/Uc8Ex_Wnmpg
Quote from: Cato on September 25, 2019, 03:37:09 AM
Besides the "unsynchronized" bowing of the strings, there was an innovation from Ormandy (I believe) of having extra violas at times double the second violins. Are there not also more first violins than in other orchestras?
Try this for an example:
https://www.youtube.com/v/Uc8Ex_Wnmpg
I listened to the CD rather than the embedded example. I found the swimming bath acoustic of the Broadwood Hotel very off-putting and thought the pieces recorded in the Town Hall, Philadelphia (Grieg, RVW) showed the orchestra to better effect.
The original jacket has a diagram showing a rather idiosyncratic layout for the orchestra. It has the basses at the front to the conductor's right with the cellos behind them and the violas behind them. The violins are in one body to the conductor's left. The photo of the orchestra on the Bartok disc shows a more conventional layout.
My first recording of the Eroica, Kletzki on LP had the funeral march split (as usual) and also a scratch in the last movement. I didn't listen often enough or remember well enough for the split in the marcia funebre to remain in my mind but for years afterwards I half expected several loud klicks in a certain passage in the finale. I think it was the first fugato but I am not sure, mercifully the memory got overwritten by listening to other recordings on CD without strange noises.
Another odd memory: My first LP with Tchaikovsky's 1812 was a Soviet era recording (Melodiya Eurodisc) that changed the tsarist hymn at the end to some other tune. So I got imprinted on this and was seriously surprised when I heard another recording (I think the second one was Karajan with Wellington's victory on the flip side, I loved that battle stuff at 15...).
Last year or so I listened to Gounod's Faust for the first time. I was surprised to re-encounter a soldier's choir I had completely forgotten about but that was a favorite before I even got into classical music because as a ~ elementary school kid I liked some bits of a "famous opera choruses" LP my parents hat. Other favs were the sailors/ghosts from Flying Dutchman and the gipsies from Il trovatore but I had not forgotten about these pieces the way I totally forgot Gounod's March and Chorus.
Quote from: aukhawk on September 25, 2019, 12:35:35 AM
This is why I've always loved this cover photo:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81AH2p8T%2B4L._SX425_.jpg)
As well as the definitive recordings it fronted, of course.
This is completely co-incidental to the thread having turned into an Ormandy/Philadelphia love-in, by the way.
Yes! Exactly
My favorite Shostakovich 1st
Update on the Berliner Philharmoniker performance of Berlioz:
Well, it's good. In places, it's very good. (The five minute clip--as I strongly suspected, but didn't want to believe--was very cleverly confined to just the very good places.
I'm not going to forget Harding's name, though. If he records this for CD, say, I'll be interested. But the performance here in Berlin is marred most by simply being too cautious. It is a very timid performance, technically polished but not quite music. But I think he's got a good sense of the piece, even though that does not come through in this performance except in brief flashes. Well, oh well. We still have Monteux. We still have Davis. And we still have Muti.
We should try to be less greedy, I guess.
So much for high hopes.... ;D
But back to Ormandy. One thing hasn't been mentioned yet and that is Ormandy's talent for playing modern music well. Bernstein gets a lot of credit there, but at the end of the day, I can't help thinking that Bernstein performed modern pieces out of a sense of obligation, and Ormandy performed modern pieces because he liked them. I don't really have any evidence for that, nothing to point to, anyway. Just a feeling. And feeling's aren't very reliable. But Ormandy's performances of Nielsen and Ives and Bartok are very fine--no one's done Nielsen's sixth so well. And he's got several nice recordings of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as we know.
Quote from: some guy on September 25, 2019, 11:00:04 AM
Update on the Berliner Philharmoniker performance of Berlioz:
Well, it's good. In places, it's very good. (The five minute clip--as I strongly suspected, but didn't want to believe--was very cleverly confined to just the very good places.
I'm not going to forget Harding's name, though. If he records this for CD, say, I'll be interested. But the performance here in Berlin is marred most by simply being too cautious. It is a very timid performance, technically polished but not quite music. But I think he's got a good sense of the piece, even though that does not come through in this performance except in brief flashes. Well, oh well. We still have Monteux. We still have Davis. And we still have Muti.
We should try to be less greedy, I guess.
So much for high hopes.... ;D
But back to Ormandy. One thing hasn't been mentioned yet and that is Ormandy's talent for playing modern music well. Bernstein gets a lot of credit there, but at the end of the day, I can't help thinking that Bernstein performed modern pieces out of a sense of obligation, and Ormandy performed modern pieces because he liked them. I don't really have any evidence for that, nothing to point to, anyway. Just a feeling. And feeling's aren't very reliable. But Ormandy's performances of Nielsen and Ives and Bartok are very fine--no one's done Nielsen's sixth so well. And he's got several nice recordings of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as we know.
Excellent point! Stokowski too was undeterred by modern composers... Bernstein (likely from Copland's influence) was almost patronizing of Ives, like he was some goofball eccentric and Bernstein was doing him a favor by performing his music. Well, my ears have always found Ives startlingly original (even works I don't care for) and I think his music holds up better all these years after the fact than Copland's. Some insist Copland's music is the quintessential "American" classical music but to me it's always sounded like a detached academic's idea of what "American" constitutes (just my opinion; no offense to Copland fans)
Ormandy's recordings of Ives show real enthusiasm for the material ... I think his account of the first symphony is brilliant
Quote from: Jo498 on September 25, 2019, 04:39:59 AM
My first recording of the Eroica, Kletzki on LP had the funeral march split (as usual) and also a scratch in the last movement. I didn't listen often enough or remember well enough for the split in the marcia funebre to remain in my mind but for years afterwards I half expected several loud klicks in a certain passage in the finale. I think it was the first fugato but I am not sure, mercifully the memory got overwritten by listening to other recordings on CD without strange noises.
Another odd memory: My first LP with Tchaikovsky's 1812 was a Soviet era recording (Melodiya Eurodisc) that changed the tsarist hymn at the end to some other tune. So I got imprinted on this and was seriously surprised when I heard another recording (I think the second one was Karajan with Wellington's victory on the flip side, I loved that battle stuff at 15...).
Last year or so I listened to Gounod's Faust for the first time. I was surprised to re-encounter a soldier's choir I had completely forgotten about but that was a favorite before I even got into classical music because as an elementary school kid I liked some bits of a "famous opera choruses" LP my parents had. Other favs were the sailors/ghosts from Flying Dutchman and the gipsies from Il trovatore but I had not forgotten about these pieces the way I totally forgot Gounod's March and Chorus.
Was it replaced with
Hooray for Stalin! ??? ;) or the
Internationale? I have never heard of such a replacement before by Soviet orchestras!
And many of us liked classical music instinctively without knowing what it was supposed to be. 8) Fortunately my city's public library had a good amount of classical music and I discovered that part of the library fairly early!
Quote from: some guy on September 25, 2019, 02:02:55 AM
The various recordings of this have long been interesting to me. I never liked Davis' first one, the only Davis performance of Berlioz that I didn't like. And for a long time, the Monteux was only available in a very (s)crappy recording (since cleaned up very nicely--you can't even find that earlier version any more). And the Monteux has yet to be beat, I think.
Before the cleaned up recording of Monteux, I spend many years trying to/failing to find an equally superb performance of i]Roméo et Juliette.[/i] One of Davis' later recordings came pretty close (the one with Borodina, Moser, and Miles), but I think Muti's is the closest to Monteux's at being wholly satisfying. It is, I think, a perfect piece (if there can be such a thing*), but it is also a tricky piece to pull off--you also have to perform it perfectly. I also couldn't believe that Muti (Muti?) could have done such a thing, and so I kept listening to it, wondering what was wrong with it and what was wrong with me that I liked it, hahaha.
And now, there is a Berlin Philharmonic performance of this (with some guy named Harding) which, if the various snippets of the five minute trailer are any indication, will rival and even surpass Monteux's. I can't believe I'm saying this. But those snippets are perfect. Later today, I'll be buying a ticket for the streaming and will listen to the whole thing. So later today (or tomorrow), I'll come back and report. (I'm in Sofia, which is GMT +3 at the moment.)
*Of course there cannot.
Most interesting, thanks.
Quote from: Cato on September 25, 2019, 02:08:44 PM
...many of us liked classical music instinctively without knowing what it was supposed to be.
My experience of it exactly. I just took to it, even while continuing to enjoy the Hollywood music I was surrounded by.
My experience of twentieth century music, though it came much later, when I was a much more experienced and sophisticated listener, was much the same--liking it instinctively and viscerally, even while continuing to enjoy the classical music I had surrounded myself by.
No, the Soviets were still too fond of Russian culture (overall the Soviets cared much more for traditional Russian culture than most Western governments nowadays care for their respective cultural history). It's a tune from Glinka's "A life for the tsar" ("Ivan Susanin" during Soviet times) that also glorifies the tsar. For whatever reason this was deemed less obviously tsarist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOEAtiBNMvc
at ca. 12:50, I think. I still like it at least as much as the original because I simply prefer that tune.
Quote from: some guy on September 25, 2019, 11:00:04 AM
Update on the Berliner Philharmoniker performance of Berlioz:
Well, it's good. In places, it's very good. (The five minute clip--as I strongly suspected, but didn't want to believe--was very cleverly confined to just the very good places.
I'm not going to forget Harding's name, though. If he records this for CD, say, I'll be interested. But the performance here in Berlin is marred most by simply being too cautious. It is a very timid performance, technically polished but not quite music. But I think he's got a good sense of the piece, even though that does not come through in this performance except in brief flashes. Well, oh well. We still have Monteux. We still have Davis. And we still have Muti.
We should try to be less greedy, I guess.
So much for high hopes.... ;D
But back to Ormandy. One thing hasn't been mentioned yet and that is Ormandy's talent for playing modern music well. Bernstein gets a lot of credit there, but at the end of the day, I can't help thinking that Bernstein performed modern pieces out of a sense of obligation, and Ormandy performed modern pieces because he liked them. I don't really have any evidence for that, nothing to point to, anyway. Just a feeling. And feeling's aren't very reliable. But Ormandy's performances of Nielsen and Ives and Bartok are very fine--no one's done Nielsen's sixth so well. And he's got several nice recordings of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as we know.
I also listened to the Harding R&J yesterday and have mixed feelings. I would use the word 'bland' rather than 'timid'. Harding got off to a cracking start in the Prologue with brilliant playing from the Berliners but after that I have reservations. It was all beautifully played and sung but lacked character and the performance as a whole seemed to lack forward momentum. By the Finale I was losing concentration and found myself thinking 'Does Friar Lawrence's narration really last as long as this'. I have Monteux and Boulez in my Spotify library and have briefly sampled them. The sound quality of the Monteux is a bit dated but I will have to give it a more extended play.
I have little experience of Daniel Harding, only a rather dull Mahler 6.
Quote from: Jo498 on September 25, 2019, 11:42:31 PM
No, the Soviets were still too fond of Russian culture (overall the Soviets cared much more for traditional Russian culture than most Western governments nowadays care for their respective cultural history). It's a tune from Glinka's "A life for the tsar" ("Ivan Susanin" during Soviet times) that also glorifies the tsar. For whatever reason this was deemed less obviously tsarist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOEAtiBNMvc
at ca. 12:50, I think. I still like it at least as much as the original because I simply prefer that tune.
Aha! Many thanks!
Today I was remembering my first hearing of the
Sibelius Second Symphony:
Anthony Collins conducting the
London Symphony Orchestra. I heard it during the afternoon of a hot summer day, some hours after my mother had said that it was too hot to listen to
Schoenberg's String Quartets #3 and 4 and told me to turn the stereo off or find something else to play!
The stereo had speakers the size of my hands, so the sound was not too large, but
Sibelius saved the day. I suppose his music felt "cooler" to my mother. 0:)