David Hurwitz

[Karl Henning]

I would never say "Dave good" or "Dave bad" as an absolute opinion. When he is on point, he can be extremely insightful. The talk from two weeks ago on "Music Chat: Two Kinds of 'Authenticity'--Which Is More Valid?," for example, was superb, and makes highly convincing points about the shortcomings of the HIP movement. I remember also an excellent talk on the Bruckner 6th Symphony. And numerous others. On the other hand, the talk on "How and why Development Sections Work" seemed to me inadequate, talking about happy themes and sad themes and saying nothing (for instance) about the important matters of tonality within the development section or the re-transition back to the recapitulation.

And his record reviews are often on point too. I just got the 2CD set of French Symphonic Poems, which he raved about and I would agree.

I don't call it "surprising," absolutely, but it's very good to read this. I suppose that Hurwitz, like John Rutter, is good when he's at his best, but 'tis pity that he is at his best so very seldom.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I will second his thoughts - they're elegant, stylish, comfortable, witty where appropriate, and free of the various mannerisms that annoy me in many Haydn recordings (too much harpsichord, dull or frantic minuets, dust-dry slow movements, etc.). The lovely paintings on each CD sleeve are a bonus. One small problem with my set was that the recording of 6/7/8 has a low-level mechanical humming noise throughout. It's OK if you keep the volume low or are in a listening environment with ambient noise, but when you want to focus on the music, it is frankly a dealbreaker.

Hmmmm. Yes, the artwork alone sells the set. I shall listen for that noise morning, noon, and night when my copy arrives. Though you'd expect the engineer to take care of such a matter, there is a way to rip the tracks and edit out low-level noise that I've found successful on some occasions. I'll let you know if I can do it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It was getting a little long in the tooth.  There wasn't much meat left on the bone.

True, it had become ossified.

[Atriod]

Hurwitz actually likes Bach, he wouldn't do that even for views.  Out of curiosity I watched the video, and it was a work that I personally dislike enough that I forgot that Bach even wrote it!  I don't think it is bad, but it is certainly is his weakest.  And no it is not something slightly esoteric like the Anna Magdalena notebooks or the reconstructed St. Mark Passion.

Now, he also did a Mahler one and I could not imagine myself being agreeable on that one.  Mahler didn't write many works, and I don't know of a single dud including his early piano quartet.

I was just joking, I'd never heard of the work until I bought the Suzuki Secular box. I was excited about the thought of Bach being a fellow joe'er tamping pucks and pulling shots but doing a search on what it was about made a lot more sense 

I don't think it's a great piece of music but that is mostly because of the goofy tenor part. I don't listen to any of the secular cantatas as much as the sacred ones from my four favorite cycles. They just aren't as captivating to listen to for me. That Suzuki Secular box was a reminder why I shouldn't break my rule of stream first buy later no matter who the musician.

Hurwitz actually likes Bach, he wouldn't do that even for views

I think it's a much worse piece of music than BWV1065 which is a masterpiece on form.

[Atriod]

One place I completely disagreed with Hurwitz was his dismissal of Marriner, and especially of Marriner's Haydn. I love the (relatively) new box. I just saw though, that he has completely flip-flopped, and enthusiastically endorses the Marriner Haydn box. (This happened a year ago. I'm behind the times; this is all new to me.) He talks about "the time is right to re-evaluate Marriner's Haydn" rather than "I was completely wrong."
 Still, he got there in the end.

I have to say I can't think of any Marriner releases I consider essential other than one. Marriner, Alfred Brendel, Hogwood all of them grouped in my mind as these musicians that make fine unoffensive music.

That essential Marriner release being Rossini's String Sonatas, up there with my favorite pointless background music to listen to while working.

[Atriod]

This thread truly never changes... People who've decided "Dave good" or "Dave bad" repeat their positions as if they will ever convince each other (or as if we forgot where everyone stands)... At least this time I learned about Spontini and got some possible tips on where to start listening to Boulez?

My natural progression was from Schoenberg to Boulez (only discovering other less famous composers like Leibowitz and Dallapiccola later on) and I loved Schoenberg's piano music so Boulez's Piano Sonatas were a logical progression.

[Mookalafalas]

I think he means unsubscribing from alerts about new posts in this thread.

  I doubt that he will. He cannot leave an argument alone, even when there isn't one, and it isn't directed anywhere in his direction. When I first joined GMG I posted how much I loved box sets, and how much better I considered it to buy a large group of CDs for 1-2 dollars a piece than to pay $15 a piece for them. He appeared out of nowhere and interpreted the statement as a personal attack agains him. I was flabbergasted. I went to another thread and posted, and he followed me there and continued attacking me. I apologized to him profusely, just to end the onslaught. In the post above, I was not attacking Hurwitz, although I did say he should have owned up a little more to how much his view has changed. He himself says how his opinion of Marriner's "proto-hip" Haydn symphonies have changed from negative to positive as a result of what he considers the excesses of the "full-on-hip" movement.
   Part of the reason I posted it in the first-place was to try to nuance the thread's "Good Dave/Bad Dave" dichotomy by pointing out an "evolving Dave." Really, my main complaint against Hurwitz is he now has me trying to simultaneously listen to about 6 mega-box sets which his rave reviews have gotten me excited about. 

[Karl Henning]

I doubt that he will. He cannot leave an argument alone, even when there isn't one, and it isn't directed anywhere in his direction. When I first joined GMG I posted how much I loved box sets, and how much better I considered it to buy a large group of CDs for 1-2 dollars a piece than to pay $15 a piece for them. He appeared out of nowhere and interpreted the statement as a personal attach agains him. I was flabbergasted. I went to another thread and posted, and he followed me there and continued attacking me. I apologized to him profusely, just to end the onslaught. In the post above, I was not attacking Hurwitz, although I did say he should have owned up a little more to how much his view has changed. He himself says how his opinion of Marriner's "proto-hip" Haydn symphonies have changed from negative to positive as a result of what he considers the excesses of the "full-on-hip" movement.
  Part of the reason I posted it in the first-place was to try to nuance the thread's "Good Dave/Bad Dave" dichotomy by pointing out an "evolving Dave." Really, my main complaint against Hurwitz is he now has me trying to simultaneously listen to about 6 mega-box sets which his rave reviews have gotten me excited about. 

(* chortle *)

[LKB]

In the last couple of hours Hurwitz has uploaded a fairly lauditory review of Decca's new Janet Baker set:

https://youtu.be/3wWCF1-pAlA?si=icsZ5S_jh2kxhQ8J

Dame Janet has been a favorite of mine since l heard her Kindertotenlieder on EMI back in the '70's. Hurwitz has nothing but good  things to say about her, just as he should.

[Madiel]

I doubt that he will. He cannot leave an argument alone, even when there isn't one, and it isn't directed anywhere in his direction. When I first joined GMG I posted how much I loved box sets, and how much better I considered it to buy a large group of CDs for 1-2 dollars a piece than to pay $15 a piece for them. He appeared out of nowhere and interpreted the statement as a personal attack agains him. I was flabbergasted.

ROFL.

Read the first page and a bit of the Boxset blather thread. Not just you. Everyone. Revisionist history at its finest.

It's the first page, I'm contributing to the first page just like you are rather than coming to respond to you, and then you say I made excellent points.

The other thread you're talking about... you basically seem shocked that anyone would have read what you said and responded to it? And as we're picking over something from 9 years ago, I can see I was not the only person who responded to you. Glad I was so memorable. But I do find it fascinating how often people seem to think that the role of a message board is for them to be able to post things, without anyone else actually doing the same. It's a message board, not a blog. You said a certain thing I disagreed with. I said so. I explained why I disagreed. This apparently is an "onslaught" just because I didn't change my mind.

Not that I remember any of this. I had to go back and look to find out what you were talking about. But see, I'm a great believer in primary sources.

Oh, and I have indeed unsubscribed from this thread. But I decided to glance at it for first time in a couple of days, and I find that it's now not just a thread for dissing Hurwitz, it's a thread for dissing me. I feel vaguely honoured. It'll pass.

ADDITIONAL EDIT: If you want to read the "onslaught", it's on this page: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,23076.40.html  You will see that I, the person committing the "onslaught", actually say a lot less than the person I am supposedly onslaughting.

Again, I remembered none of this until now.

[71 dB]

This thread truly never changes... People who've decided "Dave good" or "Dave bad" repeat their positions as if they will ever convince each other (or as if we forgot where everyone stands)... At least this time I learned about Spontini and got some possible tips on where to start listening to Boulez?

At least we can all agree David Hurwitz is a controversial person. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

At least we can all agree David Hurwitz is a controversial person. 

I'm sure in his own mind he's not. 

[71 dB]

I'm sure in his own mind he's not. 

You are mistaken my friend. He enjoys his status as the King of controversiality!

[(poco) Sforzando]

You are mistaken my friend. He enjoys his status as the King of controversiality!

But he has an infallible belief in his own infallibility.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Today's talk, taking 15 minutes to humiliate some poor guy who attacked him via email, is entitled: "Music Chat: I Am A Pompous A-Hole, Evidently."

To which my friend wrote me to say, "He's being too hard on himself."

[71 dB]

No, this is not a response to this thread: 

[foxandpeng]

Ahem. I have quite clearly stated things about Hurwitz' videos that I don't like.

But thank you for continuing the spirit of sweeping basic generalisation that this thread is so committed to.

I'll be unsubscribing next time I'm on a computer rather than phone. I've honestly had enough.

That would be a shame.

[Karl Henning]

You are mistaken my friend. He enjoys his status as the King of controversiality!

Mister Click-Bait!

[Mookalafalas]

I don't want to fight or argue with anyone, but I'm curious about how he's controversial.
   For GMG folk, he's certainly polarizing, but from the (admittedly few) videos of his I've seen, he's mostly conservative in his tastes. In general, he reveres the canonical composers and conductors, and has reservations about the HIP movement and modernism (i.e. Boulez, serialism), but so does a wide swathe of classical fans.  When I disagree with his opinions, I still know where he's coming from.
 Of course, he states his opinions as though they are incontrovertible (sometimes he calls them "facts"), but the opinions themselves seem pretty standard. By that I mean he doesn't claim that Beethoven has always been overrated or all contemporary pianists are bad, or extreme positions like that which would strike me as "controversial"  Karl, and many others I think, consider him an obnoxious jerk. I can see that too. It's an excellent reason not to like him, but that's not controversial. Either he rubs you the wrong way, or you find his weird, outspoken, crusty flakiness rather refreshing.
  What I like about him is that he's never a complete fanboy. For example, he likes Karajan, but rips into his Bach and pre-classical music like crazy. In fact, he says it's so slow and stodgy that "it made the HIP movement necessary." Similarly, he raves about the new Klemperer box, but then criticises a surprising number of the disks--especially the later ones--and usually gives specific reasons. He complains about the HIP movement, but then raves about Bruggen's Haydn interpretations.  And he really does know a hell of a lot, about the music, trends, and the history of the labels. I learn a lot, but then have to skip forward when it's just old man ramblings and ravings.
  Anyway, I hope someone can respond...coolly.

[Brian]

To me that is a perfect summary!