With Classical Recording Dead...

[karlhenning]

The real thing and the imitation . . .

Piffle!  To suggest that Shostakovich is "imitation" Stravinsky is to fail to understand either composer.

In fairness, I don't expect you to. Viz.:

If you listen to Shosty's first just after listening to early Stravinsky, and Shosty's fourth, just after listening to Mahler, maybe, just maybe, will you get the point.

Like the resident Pelléas fanatic, you believe that your prejudices are The Truth.  Personally, I think that Shostakovich improves on Mahler;  to take only the broadest sense, I find all of Shostakovich's symphonies convincing 'statements', which is something I cannot say for all of even those Mahler symphonies to which I've listened.  Specifically, I think more highly of the Shostakovich Fourth than any Mahler symphony.  That is only opinion, to be sure;  but it does mean that I don't take at all seriously any contention that Mahler is somehow "the real thing," but Dmitri Dmitriyevich an "imitation."

As for Shostakovich's First and early Stravinsky, the comparison you suggest is false on many levels.  But probably the most nearly fair comparison to be made, is one you did not have in mind.  Shostakovich's First Symphony (which has elements of homage to Petrushka) is an astonishingly sure-footed and accomplished symphony for an 18-year-old; it is a piece which merits its place in the standard repertory regardless of considerations of the composer's youth;  and in it, you find elements of the composer's musical profile which continue to flourish over the course of a long and distinguished career.  In comparison, Stravinsky's Symphony in E-flat is a labored student-work, of interest almost only as an early curiosity in Stravinsky's output, and not at all indicative of either the character or creative quality of the composer's full-fledged work.

Stravinsky's recordings of himself are indeed, the reference recordings.

And yet, many of them are well improved upon.

[karlhenning]

To deny that shostakovich imitates Stravinsky and Mahler, fails to understand the distinction between fakery and the real thing
Like all second rates, you believe badmouthing and smear are legitimate means to polemical ends...

Thank you for failing entirely to answer my points.

Thank you, too, for the amusing tail-chasing irony of "Like all second rates, you believe badmouthing and smear are legitimate means . . ."

[Kullervo]

 I'll tell you whatever I want [expletive deleted]

Like all second rates, you believe badmouthing and smear are legitimate means to polemical ends...

Ha.

[karlhenning]

Ha.

He is a cartoon, isn't he?

[Todd]

Toscanini, Horowitz, Furtwangler et alii attracted a large public - and lucrative recording contracts - through sheer force of personality... Who has that today?

Implicit in this statement is the belief that classical music used to make up a substantial portion of overall record sales.  Can anyone produce any stats regarding just how prominent recorded classical music sales were 40, 50, 60, or 70 years ago when compared to today?  (Probably not.)  Classical music used to be relatively more "popular" than it is now, but even in decades long past other acts were the primary sellers.  Bing Crosby sold a whole lot more records that all of the artists listed above combined, and you could throw in a couple dozen other names with them.  Things haven't changed that much in this regard.

Recorded classical music, if not enjoying its peak, is enjoying a pretty nice time overall.  A lot of artists get to record a wide variety of repertoire that was often neglected in the glorious past.  Are conductors today as good as Toscanini or Furtwangler?  Well, in some cases, one could say yes, and in others one could say absolutely they are much better  How many Furtwangler or Toscanini recordings of works by Schoenberg or Bartok (very limited for Furtwangler, sure), or Berg are there?  I prefer the broader variety of music and the broader array of interpretations available today, and this takes into account the fact that mediocre acts of the past have (rightly) faded away from memory, helping foster the illusion that past was filled with powerful musical giants only.

Also, when one discusses the lucrative contracts, I must inquire: lucrative for whom?  The maestros?  The orchestra members?  The labels?  I'd like to see some evidence that people other than the Big Stars got notable amounts of money.

[karlhenning]

From one who puts the imitator above Stravinsky, such moronic comments have little effect...

By your continual badmouthing, we shall all understand you to be no better than second-rate, of course.

Thank you though for being so easy to rebut.

You haven't done any such thing.  "Putting the imitator above Stravinsky" is either a strawman, or failure to read.

[karlhenning]

Recorded classical music, if not enjoying its peak, is enjoying a pretty nice time overall.

In the variety of music and recordings now available, I think it must be a peak (to date, at any rate).

[Todd]

Not at all. Just the explicit belief great musicians attracted the public, through sheer force of personality.

It's a belief?  One can only assume that it's not based on any empirical evidence then, like many beliefs.  Do you actually have any evidence that the artists you mention attracted a "large" public, and large compared to what?  Beliefs are not evidence.  Nor are whatever anecdotes or memories you may rely on.

It is only fair that the best musicians would make most money...

What about the people who help the "best musicians" make music?  Surely the orchestras the great conductors used deserved healthy compensation.  Beyond that, your supposition is based on some faulty assumptions.  One could argue that Horowitz was a great showman but not an especially great musician, especially when compared to other pianists of his generation.  Rudolf Serkin and Claudio Arrau, to mention two extact contemporaries, were arguably much better musicians, but they never attracted the "large" audiences like Horowitz.  One can see something similar today with someone like Lang Lang probably getting paid very large sums while much better pianists get paid less.  Horowitz was better than Lang Lang is, but one can see the same forces in action.  

Popularity does not necessarily equate with quality.

[Dundonnell]

    Two  Tone's  lament  about   the  supposed  lack  of  great  musicians  today  with"force  of  personality"  is  simply  ludicrous.
   No  really  great  musicians  today ?  Come  on.
We  have  Barenboim,  Levine,  Abbado, Rattle, Gergiev, Muti, Nagano, Harnoncourt, Maazel, Previn, Thomas,Slatkin, Colin Davis, Askenazy, Boulez,Blomstedt, Chailly, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi,  Mackerras,
Masur, Thielemann, Salonen, among conductors,  Argerich, Thibaudet, Perlman,
Kremer, Yo Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Aimard,  and  so  many  other  great  instrumentalists  etc,  magnificent  orchestras  in  Berlin, Vienna, London,Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia,  New York, Munich, Dresden,Leipzig, Prague, St.Petersburg ,Amsterdam  and  elsewhere  which  DON"T  SOUND  ALIKE  AT  ALL,  and  so  many  great  singers. And  this  is  just  the  tip  of  the  iceberg,  not  to  mention  the  many  phenomenally  gifted  youngsters  emerging  today.  Like  their  interpretations  or  not,  today's  leading  musicians  are  anything  but  carbon-copies  of  each  other.
   Don't  tell  me  that   the  classical  music  world  is  slipping  into mediocrity,  and that  it's not  worth  going  to  performances  any  more.
  I'm  fed  up  with  people  who  idealize  the  past  of  classical  music  so  much  that  they  can't  appreciate  today's many  great  musicians.
   And  whatever  the  problems  of  the  classical  recording  industry,  there  is  greater  diversity  of  repertoire  than  ever  before  in the  history  of  recorded  sound.  We're  not  limited  to  the  same  old  warhorses  by  Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc.  We  can  hear  music by  interesting  composers  such  as  Balakirev,  Berwald, Brian, Bliss,  Bax, Chavez, Dohnanyi, Enescu, Fibich, Glazunov,  Janacek, Kallinikov, Koechlin,  Kancheli,  Leifs, Myaskovsky, Medtner, Nielsen, Pfitzner,  Roussel,  Szymanowski,Stenhammar, Schmidt,Screker,Schulhoff,Martinu, Taneyev,  Zemlinsky,  and  so  many  others.  Many  of  us  classical  music  fans  just  don't  realize  how  lucky  we  are.


   

I agree with most of what you say and with the general thrust of your argument

Where I would take issue with you is with regard to conductors. I don't happen to think that there are the same number of truly 'great' conductors around today....for all sorts of reasons.

If you take 1954 as a benchmark year, for example, the conductors active at that time whom I would consider to be great would have been:

Ernest Ansermet, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham, Eduard van Beinum, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Bohm, Sir Adrian Boult, Guido Cantelli, Sergui Celibidache, Antal Dorati, Ferenc Fricsay, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Carlo Maria Giulini, Jascha Horenstein, Eugen Jochum, Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Hans Knappertsbusch, Kyril Kondrashin, Rafael Kubelik, Erich Leinsdorf, Igor Markevitch, Jean Martinon, Dmitri Mirtopoulos,
Pierre Monteux, Evgeni Mravinsky, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner, Victor de Sabata, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. Carl Schuricht, Georg Solti, William Steinberg, Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Gunther Wand.

Now, we could argue about whether a few of these were 'great', I suppose, and I would concede that not all of them would necessarily have been considered 'great' in 1954....but it IS a pretty impressive list These are conductors who gave us classic recordings of the great works in the repertoire.

Today? Yes, I will give you Abbado, Barenboim, Blomstedt, Boulez, Chailly, Colin Davis, Jansons, Maazel, Mackerras, Muti, maybe Gergiev, Harnoncourt, Tilson Thomas but I am beginning to struggle after that. How many of the conductors of today have given us interpretations which will stand with those of their predecessors?

Now let me be absolutely clear...I hope that I am proved wrong!! I sincerely hope that today's conductors can match, let alone outshine, those of the past There ARE young conductors out there who have time to prove their greatness. It may take decades but the hope must be there

Reading Todd's post about conductors' repertoire as I write........that is a totally fair point! Conductors today have a much broader repertoire than in the past, no doubt about it!

[karlhenning]

What does one need, in order to believe that the best-paid musicians are necessarily the best musicians?  A lobotomy?

[Todd]

If you take 1954 as a benchmark year, for example, the conductors active at that time whom I would consider to be great would have been

Regarding the first point, one must be careful when viewing a list of conductors active half a century ago and then today and talking about the relative dearth of "great" conductors today.  Not all of the conductors you mention were viewed favorably then, or now, in all repertoire, if at all.  Time tends to clear out lesser artists, and fifty years hence the list of "great" (or merely "very good" or whatever) conductors from today will possibly look quite a bit different than the list you write.  It's hard to come up with a list as long as one can thinking about decades past, but over the years I've determined that even the generally acknowledged "great" conductors of the past had some shortcomings even in standard repertoire, and some applied the same basic approach to most music, at least the recordings from them I've heard.  Rarely are the greats as great as they are remembered.

What does one need, in order to believe that the best-paid musicians are necessarily the best musicians?  A lobotomy?

A sound question in a year where Bon Jovi raked in over $200 million touring.

[Todd]

One who places the greatest pianist of the XXth century, Vladimir Horowitz that is

Since when is Horowitz the greatest pianist of the 20th Century?

[Todd]

As a matter of fact, all the conductors named by Dundonnell were well-known, well-established and well-respected in their times

This statement is very doubtful with respect to Horenstein or Wand, to pick just two.

The many recordings of great XXth Century musicians prove that statement wrong...

Incorrect.  I never stated that there aren't many great recordings from the 20th Century.  I merely stated that many greats aren't as great as they are remembered.

And now you are using Bon Jovi as a means of further denigrating Horowitz?!!!  Where does GMG find these nuts!!!!! Don't they like music?

No, you need to go back an reread the post a little more carefully.

Since the 1940's, when he reached his maturity.

According to you and to Horowitz fans, maybe.  There are in fact better pianists than Horowitz.


Your posts in this thread indicate one of two things: 

1.) You're a hopeless musical reactionary, slavishly devoted to the Greatest Artists of Yesteryear, as determined by ticket sales and record sales and publicity and what everyone knows, or

2.) You're wonderfully ironic.

If the latter, then congratulations are in order; if the former, a yawn. 

(No doubt you'll have some rejoinder about how you're neither, and how you have the only sensible taste, or informed taste, or something similar.  That would deserve another yawn.)

[karlhenning]

According to you and to Horowitz fans, maybe.  There are in fact better pianists than Horowitz.

(P.S. Doesn't Two-Tone see the vanity, the sheer ridicule, of his making authority - authority!!! - of his self-serving opinions?)

[Bulldog]

Two-Tone is similar to many other past members who join the board, utter outrageous opinions mainly to get attention, and then soon leave the board when they've finally tired of saying the same things dozens of times.

[Todd]

Hey, outrageous opinions can be fun.  Unfortunately, they can also be tiresome.

[Superhorn]

   Maybe I put some words into Two Tones mouth, but he has certainly put some into mine.
 I'm not trying to silence your freespeech,Two Tone, nor am I out to abolish the first amendment. When I said "Don't tell me", it was just a figure of speech.
  You can say anything you like here or elsewhere, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with you.
 Your apparent assumtion that I am unfamiliar with old recordings by famous musicians from the past, and therefore lack discernment in judging performances is dead wrong. In fact, I am intimitely familiar with them, and certainly admire SOME of them greatly. But I'm no uncritical worshipper of old recordings, and frankly, some of them aren't all they're cracked up to be.
 I happen to admire Rattle greatly, and consider him a conductor of genuine stature. He built the once minor league Birmingham orchestra into a world-class group, and recorded evidence proves this. And I hear absolutely no evidence that the Berlin POs playing has declined in the least bit whether you like his conducting or not. Do you think that the members of the orchestra, who choose their music directors would have appointed him if he were the mediocrity and non-entity you so falsely paint him to be? They're the BPO, for crying out loud. I saw and heard the recent PBS telecast from Carnegie hall with them of the Mahler 9th, and orchestral playing just doesn't get better than that.
 I'mtoo young to have heard Toscanini live, but frankly, his NBC recordings have always struck me as coarse,choppy,hectic,punchy,nervous, rushed,metronomic, mechanical,joyless and stiffly regimented, although his earlier recordings are somewhat better. But I can't think of a single conductor today who has ever given the kind of awful late performances Toscanini gave.
 Szell's Cleveland  recordings are incredibly polished, but also the most fussy and wooden I have ever heard. And I can think of plenty old recordings that are no better than these.
  And the "provincial" US orchestras you sneer at playing in Carnegie hall include such world-class groups as LA,San Francisco, Pittsburgh,Minnesota,
Cincinnati, Baltimore, and others.

[bhodges]

Nor can one take seriously the judgment of one who ranks Simon Rattle -- Simon Rattle, for crying out loud!!! -- among the great ones.
Does this erratic bore even qualify as a good musician?  By Birmingham standards maybe and it is a telling commentary on our time that a once-great orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic that is, would fall to the small town level of music playing.

(As one who has the misfortune of living in a rather unsophisticated province of the United States, Berlin now reminds me of what I get when I travel to New York City and look at the week's programming in Carnegie Hall & the Lincoln Center: mostly provincial orchestras from the rest of the US, and therefore more of the dreary same...)

Kremer is a good violonist who has tarnished his reputation somewhat with his frantic promotion of composers such as Arvo part and Valentin Silvestrov - composers that is who write for a public that does not clearly distinguish between Classical Music and easy listening...

...just thirty years ago there still was an embarrassement of riches, while today provincial orchestras get invited to New York (when New York should be travelling to the provinces), the band leader from the municipal fanfare of Brimingham gets invited to Berlin, pop stars from China are placed on feet of equality with Vladimir Horowitz and Musical Comedians from Venezuela are promoted by recording componies that once boasted Karajan as their chief attraction.

Just a few points:

I believe Simon Rattle *is* a great conductor, and fully deserves his post with the Berlin Philharmonic.  He has reshaped that ensemble into one that now plays more contemporary music than ever before, and further, plays today's composers differently (if called for) than performances of Brahms or Mahler--which they still do, brilliantly, having heard them in the last few years at Carnegie Hall.  Many of the musicians are younger than ever before, and better trained, able to play many different types of music in different styles; Mahler sounds different from Debussy, Bruckner sounds different from Thomas Adès.  The orchestra is *still* a great orchestra, albeit with a much different sound than the one Karajan favored, but to my ears this is a plus.  Now, does Rattle pull out greatness every single time?  No.  But did Karajan?  My answer is "no" here, too.

This year I heard what some might call a "provincial orchestra," the Saint Louis Symphony, do a world-class concert with David Robertson of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie.  Whatever factors converged (i.e., the piece itself, Robertson's advocacy), they managed to create some extraordinary music.  I am convinced that many orchestras, while they may not pull off world-class performances every night of the week (does Berlin do that, either?), can do so with the right piece and conductor.

Gidon Kremer is not a good violinist; he is an excellent violinist.  His Kremerata Baltica is one of the finest chamber music groups I've heard in recent years--again, with a plethora of young, extremely talented and well-trained players.  Musicians are getting better, not worse.

Gustavo Dudamel (to whom I assume the "Musical Comedian" comment refers) is no con job, nor is he some "flavor of the month" for Deutsche Grammophon.  I have now heard him four times live, and there is little doubt that he is a superb young conductor, and one who may--repeat, "may"--become one of the greats.  I think it is too early to predict what course his career will take, since he is still developing as an artist.  But he is definitely no fluke.  He clearly knows his way around an orchestra, studies scores carefully, and generates a lot of musical excitement.  And from the reactions of the musicians who play for him, he earns a great deal of their respect.  Following his appearances with both the Israel Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic orchestras (two very different groups), members of both were applauding him along with the audience.  (Contrast this with today's very public airing of the New York Philharmonic's complaints about Gilbert Kaplan, who did Mahler's Resurrection Symphony a little over a week ago.)

--Bruce

[Dundonnell]

I knew that it was dangerous to enter this minefield (So much safer talking about obscure composers no one has ever heard of )
I don't understand why one cannot have a sane, sensible, rational discussion without ........oh never mind

At the risk of being accused of making further "concessions to the resident...", I can see the force of the arguments made by so many members who have posted recently. I did say that one could argue about whether some of the conductors active in 1954 were or were not 'great conductors' (and I didn't even include Joseph Keilberth, Hermann Scherchen or Hans Rosbaud-the two last of whom certainly did conduct Schoenberg, Berg and other modern composers ) and I also admitted that some of these conductors would not be recognised as 'great' until later in their careers.

As I said, I WANT to be proved wrong!! I want to acknowledge Simon Rattle as a great conductor. I am not sure that I can yet. I am not sure that the brilliant young conductor of the Mahler 2nd and 10th all those years ago has developed as far or as much as was predicted. But I am more than happy to acknowledge the immense work he did in transforming the City of Birmingham Orchestra; the same achievement as Mark Elder and the Halle today. I WANT to acclaim Gustavo Dudamel as one of the stars of the future. I DO NOT WANT to be thought of as a 'hopeless musical reactionary' looking back through rose-tinted spectacles to a 'Golden Age' that was perhaps not as golden as it is sometimes portrayed.

When I hear a performance of Brahms or Bruckner or Mahler by a conductor like Haitink or Abbado or Jansons I hear music performed with a degree of musical sensitivity and indeed sprituality which ranks every bit as high as any conductor of the past could produce.
Whether there are as many conductors of that stature today compared with 50 years ago I am not so sure about but we could debate that to the end of time!

Anyway...that's quite enough from me

[karlhenning]

Far more moderate and thoughtful than, for instance: Nor can one take seriously the judgment of one who ranks Simon Rattle -- Simon Rattle, for crying out loud!!! -- among the great ones.

That is sleaze, indeed.