Re-post Complete Beethoven sets. Poll

[marvinbrown]

My vote was for Karajan (1960s) which is the only complete set that I have.

  Yes the 1963 complete cycle with the BPO is my choice as well.

[Bulldog]

I selected Gardiner, Bohm, Szell, Harnoncourt and Karajan.

[rubio]

It's a bit strange that one of the most famous Beethoven sets (and a favourite of mine) is not included - the Klemperer/Philharmonia. Other excellent sets to my ears are Wand, Kempe, Szell and Karajan'62. Norrington is a nice alternative approach. I need to hear Boehm and Kubelik, I guess, and I haven't listened to my Toscanini/Music&Arts set.

[Harry]

It's a bit strange that one of the most famous Beethoven sets (and a favourite of mine) is not included - the Klemperer/Philharmonia. Other excellent sets to my ears are Wand, Kempe, Szell and Karajan'62. Norrington is a nice alternative approach. I need to hear Boehm and Kubelik, I guess, and I haven't listened to my Toscanini/Music&Arts set.

There is nothing strange about it my friend. It is as I said earlier virtual impossible to list all recordings.

[Jay F]

Bernstein (CBS)
Bohm
Karajan on DG Galleria (1970s)
Hogwood

[mahler10th]

A bunch of completely unnecessary sets are on the list like Haitink, Sawallisch, Rattle, Abbado and Pletnev to name a few while leaving out such great sets like Szell, Wand, Boehm, Klemperer, just to name a few.

There is nothing at all unworthy of the Sawallisch set.  It is a fine interpretative set.  Klemperers Beethoven is such a total plodder, no wonder it isn't there - Beet would go nuts if he heard his symphonies by Klemperer - mighty and majestic, oh yes, but true to the tempo, not even close. 
I voted Goodman, Karajan and Norrington.

[Ric]

My vote is for Klemperer. I don't know if this set is the best, but I love it.

[Lilas Pastia]

Therein lie one of the challenges of producing a complete set: most conductors who tackled the job were either uninterested or unsympathetic to one or more of the works at hand. Expert musicians they may be, but only part-time sympathetic beethovenians. In the end, one is left to select individual performances. But that's another matter entirely, and opinions fly left and right, north and south on what constitute the 'best Eroica' or best ninth'. Some of Klemperer's versions are mighty and hugely impressive, others come out as limping and uninvolved.

Another consideration: it's my personal belief that a new cycle cannot really be compared with older ones. It needs to be lived with for a few years before its proper place can be assigned.

Just listened to the Vänskä ninth and alhtough it exhibits many qualities, I don't give it high marks. Despite being played rather swiftly, the finale plods here and there, a damning fault in this work. Choppy, unelegant phrasing and some prissy fiddling with dynamics (like a strong downbeat followed by much softer notes in what should be a single phrase).

[Holden]

In the "Anyone I forgot" section I voted for Pierre Monteux.

[hornteacher]

My three favorites:

1) Sir Charles Mackerras' Cycle with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra (not listed)

2) Abbado's DVD Cycle

3) Gardiner's period instrument cycle

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Another consideration: it's my personal belief that a new cycle cannot really be compared with older ones. It needs to be lived with for a few years before its proper place can be assigned.

Personally I like giving ample room for newcomers to do their thing. And if it just so happens they end up butting heads with repertoire "mainstays" that makes it all the sweeter.

I'm just not prepared to consign to purgatory a unique voice simply because it's new, or because it hasn't yet passed through some sort of break-in period.

To me, living, breathing performers deserve equal consideration with long dead ones. They put in just as much work.

[Brian]

I don't know nearly enough, but enough to vote for these -
Karajan (60s)
Hogwood
Norrington (SWR Orchestra, NOT London Classical Players!)
Any fans of Kletzki around?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Any fans of Kletzki around?

Yes, I'm a big fan of Kletzki, Brian. It's a set I've been trumpeting for ages.

Belongs on the list to say the least.

[Que]

Yes, I'm a big fan of Kletzki, Brian. It's a set I've been trumpeting for ages.

Belongs on the list to say the least.

Ditto!

That and Jochum/RCO are of the cycles I know, consistenly good. Bruno Walter's mono cycle also does quite well, save for the 9th (both Kletzki and Jochum have a superb 9th). Furtwängler was better outside the studio and Klemperer was better in his early mono recordings. (I need to check out that heap of LvB/Klemperer live recordings on Testament.) Immerseel is still on the shopping list!

Q

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Ditto!

Fellow Kletzki Club member.

[Lilas Pastia]

Personally I like giving ample room for newcomers to do their thing. And if it just so happens they end up butting heads with repertoire "mainstays" that makes it all the sweeter.

I'm just not prepared to consign to purgatory a unique voice simply because it's new, or because it hasn't yet passed through some sort of break-in period.

To me, living, breathing performers deserve equal consideration with long dead ones. They put in just as much work.

I agree, but I think you read quite a lot more into my remark than I intended .

Another vote for Kletzki (although I heard but 6 of the total, over a long period of time).

Two BSO efforts should also be noted: Munch and Leinsdorf's cycles display ample knowledge (both) and loads of verve (Munch) and orchestral sophisticaiton (Leinsdorf). Again, I extrapolate from partial knowledge only of their respective cycles, but the BSO's RCA sound and these conductor's personalities are well-known quantities.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I agree, but I think you read quite a lot more into my remark than I intended .

Oh, could be.

I'm sure it's all perfectly innocent, and you were of course forthright in that it's simply your opinion, but I admit to getting my cackles up a bit whenever I read of 'oldies' somehow deserving preferential treatment in relation to newcomers.

Certainly there are reasons for enjoying older recordings - obvious reasons. And no one should deny a person's right to their own private listening pleasures.

But I'm not sure how we've reached this point where oldies have somehow attained such sweeping intermediary powers that all newcomers must be paraded before them before any "true judgment" can be made as to their worth, or "place" as you put it.

I'm just not sure how the logistics would be worked out so such a filing system could be properly implemented. 

For starters, is there some sort of universal standard for oldies so we know which oldie is the "right" oldie to be compared to? Is there a 1-100 grading scale for oldies? 1-1000? In what ways does, say, oldie #6 outperform the newcomer, or vice-verse? Or does the newcomer deserve to be pitted against the top spot? Or #34? Or ALL of them?

Also, where do we draw the line to determine oldie status? 1980? For some (not me) 1980 is ancient history (28 years). 1960? For me that would work but for others (like Iago) that might seem too contemporary.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I guess there'd have to be a sliding scale of some sorts which would encompass all known variables (human taste being prime among them) so that something resembling fairness could be established. But I know I can't be counted on to develop such a complicated system. Maybe Newton.

[Lilas Pastia]

I don't know, I guess it's all in how you view things.

I don't consider a 1980 recording 'old', because its technical standards (orchestral playing and sound) are still entirely up to today's. My hunch is that when it comes to certain works that more or less define a style, an epoch, a genre (like Beethoven's symphonies), a performance  has to offer an extraordinary level of authority to establish itself among the greats. And that doesn't necessarily come with age. Right from the moment they were first issued, Karajan's 1963 ninth, Böhm's Tristan, Fournier's Bach Cello Suites, or Gilels' Brahms piano concertos had that authority that immediately lifted them above - or on the same level as - the best there was at the time. Instant classics, so to speak.

With most others, that position is only attained after they have been around long enough to be properly gauged and compared, and not found wanting. In that sense, I think most new releases that don't make that initial splash heard 'round the world need to be with us longer to be properly assessed.

[Drasko]

Just to add second vote for Monteux.

[Ric]

How many times can I vote in this poll? I mean if I can do a second option or a third option.