I have posted the Bernstein performance on this thread previously and thought it was as good as it could be until I heard this. The ending is simply unbelievable.Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
http://youtu.be/RONBzkthUjM
I have posted the Bernstein performance on this thread previously and thought it was as good as it could be until I heard this. The ending is simply unbelievable.
http://youtu.be/RONBzkthUjM
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
The Cello Suites by J.S. Bach are among my absolute favorite works... ever since I first came upon them in performance by Yo Yo Ma a few short years after high-school.
Beside this first recording of the suites by Ma, I have recordings of the suites by Pierre Fournier...
Janos Starker...
and Paul Tortelier...
(Yes... I am a Bach fanatic... to the point that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 discs by old Johann Sebastian.)
Beyond these recordings of the cello suites, I have heard the historic recordings by Pablo Casals and Rostropovich famous recording from late in his career. For whatever reason... part of it, I think is due to the tonality of the venue or perhaps the engineering of the actual recording which I just don't like... I have (until now) never been keen on getting Rostropovich' version of the suites.
But then I watched this documentary on Rostropovich recently...:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt4tfg5Ed5U
... I found myself wanting to give Rostropovich another listen. Browsing through Amazon... I stumbled upon this live recording made at the Prague Spring music festival...
Rostropovich had as much of a special relationship with Prague as he did with Bach. Bach's suites were the unquestionable peak of the known cello repertoire... and certainly the ultimate measure of any cellist. Prague was the first city outside of the Soviet Union that Rostropovich had visited. It was in Prague that he met the brilliant Russian singer, Galina Vishnevskaya, and married her 3 days later... without even having heard her sing a single note!
Rostropovich appeared at the Prague Spring festival 7 times, but refused to perform there again following the Soviet crackdown in 1968 as a result of the period of liberalization known (ironically) as The Prague Spring. He did not return until 1991 after the final member of the Soviet occupational force had left Czechoslovakia.
This recording was made in 1955...
at his third appearance at the Prague Spring festival. The recording barely shows its age and the fact that the performance was live... The cello sounds rich and closely miked... and yet there is also a sense of the space of the hall... and the performance is stunning... all the more-so considering the cellist was but 27 years old.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
I have posted the Bernstein performance on this thread previously and thought it was as good as it could be until I heard this. The ending is simply unbelievable.
http://youtu.be/RONBzkthUjM
Dudamel's performances have been criticized for some of the same "sloppiness" that was attributed to Bernstein. I'm somewhat intrigued, Emil, considering your background and personality, that you are attracted to these broader, looser, messier... "sloppier" interpretations of a lot of the music you love. I've come to love some of these interpretations: the classic recordings of Munch, Furtwangler, Stokowsky, Jean Martinon... and certainly Bernstein, but I have always been drawn to those soloists and conductors who were real "Nazi's"... carving the music from stone: Karajan, Bohm, Klemperer, Szell, Solti... and now Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. Nevertheless, my favorite recordings of Mahler's 2nd (perhaps my favorite among his symphonies) remain those of the "screaming skull"... George Solti:
the famous Zubin Mehta recording:
Bruno Walter, perhaps the greatest conductor of Mahler... a close friend of the composer who first performed his masterpiece, Das Lied von der Erde, also recorded a stunning recording of the 2nd with Maureen Forrester:
... and then there's the classic recording by the young Simon Rattle... considered by many critics to still be the best:
I must admit that seeing the actual performance of Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony who approach this music in an openly, visually, intensely emotional manner makes for a truly powerful experience.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Well Stlukes, it is the powerful experience that I look for in music and judging by the massive reception that the 6000 people attending that promenade concert performance gave to Dudamel and his orchestra, so do many concertgoers. To my mind music is not to be played with mechanical precision but must have room to breathe and Mahler cannot be performed as though the orchestra were playing a Boccherini minuet. As long as the dramatic potential of the work comes through I'm not too bothered about the niceties of the performance; in pursuit of which conductors often put the music into a straight jacket.I have posted the Bernstein performance on this thread previously and thought it was as good as it could be until I heard this. The ending is simply unbelievable.
http://youtu.be/RONBzkthUjM
Dudamel's performances have been criticized for some of the same "sloppiness" that was attributed to Bernstein. I'm somewhat intrigued, Emil, considering your background and personality, that you are attracted to these broader, looser, messier... "sloppier" interpretations of a lot of the music you love. I've come to love some of these interpretations: the classic recordings of Munch, Furtwangler, Stokowsky, Jean Martinon... and certainly Bernstein, but I have always been drawn to those soloists and conductors who were real "Nazi's"... carving the music from stone: Karajan, Bohm, Klemperer, Szell, Solti... and now Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan. Nevertheless, my favorite recordings of Mahler's 2nd (perhaps my favorite among his symphonies) remain those of the "screaming skull"... George Solti:
the famous Zubin Mehta recording:
Bruno Walter, perhaps the greatest conductor of Mahler... a close friend of the composer who first performed his masterpiece, Das Lied von der Erde, also recorded a stunning recording of the 2nd with Maureen Forrester:
... and then there's the classic recording by the young Simon Rattle... considered by many critics to still be the best:
I must admit that seeing the actual performance of Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony who approach this music in an openly, visually, intensely emotional manner makes for a truly powerful experience.
As Sir Thomas Beecham once famously told his players: "Do what you like but don't be boring."
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I straddle the line when it comes to performances. In other words, I'm not a purist. I love Bohm and Karajan's overly grand and Romantic interpretations of Haydn's Die Schöpfung... but I also like Gardiner's historically informed performance (HIP). Jordi Savall's historically informed... yet free interpretations of Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks music rehabilitated these oft overplayed works, his Boccherini recordings are simply unrivaled, and his performances of Bach's Art of the Fugue, Brandenburg Concertos, and Musical Offering are among the finest ever recorded... and yet I also love the icy precision and perfection of Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan.
With composers like Mahler, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, I find that the music is already broad, sprawling, and Romantic enough as it is. A conductor like Karajan, Szell, Solti, etc... is able to bring to this music something of a German sense of precision and clarity that allows the music to avoid sinking under its own weight into bathos and sentimental mush. And yet I still appreciate the Romantic approach of Bernstein or Gergiev as well.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
I will nail my colours to the mast of romanticism although, of course, one cannot forget that its basis is in the classicism of Bach, his German antecedents and those of the Italian renaissance.
Do I listen to Bach, Mozart etc.? Well of course I do, but it must be clear that instrumental development throughout the 19th century enabled a quantum leap in musical expression. Inevitably, the small tightly controlled Court orchestra of Haydn's time became a thing of the past, even though Haydn's music would henceforth determine the development of the symphony and continue to be greatly performed. Much as we may love Mozart's music, by the time that Richard Strauss wrote his Alpine symphony (1915), the orchestra had reached a peak of perfection that, whatever the aesthetic content of the 'classicists', they couldn't match the sheer magnificence of modern orchestral sound until they ran into the dead-end of German musical expressionism. This leaves Richard Strauss as the last great German musical genius in a line going back to J S Bach and Telemann .
Last edited by Emil Miller; 04-24-2012 at 07:35 AM.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Recently I've been fleshing out my collection of Mahler. I've long had every symphony by him, but in many cases I had but a single recording of these. As Mahler's grown in my esteem I've found myself wanting to explore alternative recordings... especially of my favorite symphonies.
In this instance the recording is of a live performance by Bruno Walter with the Vienna Phiharmonic performing in Vienna in 1938. This particular recording has great historical worth. It was Bruno Walter who gave this symphony its first performance a year after Mahler's death. This performance was the swansong of the Vienna Philharmonic under their great conductor, Walter. A few weeks after this recording, Walter showed up as a bewildered refugee in Paris. A few weeks after that the Germans annexed Austria and there was no chance of hearing Mahler performed by the Vienna Philharmonic until the end of the war.
The sound on this recording is surprisingly good considering both the date of the recording and the fact that it was recorded live. Of course Dutton was famous for the quality of its recordings. While the sound can be a bit "sharp" at times, there is a real sense of depth to the orchestra... something quite rare in orchestral recordings prior to the 1950s. The performance itself is edgy, tense, and laden with emotion.
I would not choose this recording as my sole recording of the 9th... but it is a fabulous musical document.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
I was listening recently to a performance of this work on the radio and it was an enjoyable experience. Then someone on Youtube mentioned this video and I have to ask myself why the hell couldn't I have been there when this was being played? Another truly astounding finale to a Mahler symphony.
http://youtu.be/JyJYeB4oJT0
Last edited by Emil Miller; 04-26-2012 at 03:31 PM.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Yes, Bychkov is a real up-and-coming figure. Perhaps just behind Valery Gegiev among Russian conductors. His recent recording of Wagner's Lohengrin garnered a wealth of praise in the classical press both in the US and the UK. Beside Wagner, he seems quite admired for his performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Strauss' Alpine Symphony (although it would have to be absolutely spectacular to surpass Karajan's iconic recording), and symphonies of Mahler and Shostakovitch.
Speaking of Gergiev... he is an absolutely mercurial and explosive conductor. His turbo-charged Nutcracker absolutely revitalized that work for me, and he has worked wonders with a great wealth of Russian composers and especially Russian ballet and opera. I can't think of any single figure who has done more for Russian music in my life time. Hell... he even "discovered" Anna Netrebko!!
Like all great conductors, Gergiev looks like a real character. Quite often he appears like a homeless man stuffed into a suit... with a week or two worth of facial stubble:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Uz3qGsu5Q
I'll always love this work... yet the best version I have ever heard was that of the Cleveland Orchestra playing at a white-hot fevered pitch under Christoph von Dohnanyi... live from the first row. My hair was absolutely standing upon end.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Some time ago, I posted the Bychkov performance of the Alpine. I know it seems impossible, but it IS better than Karajan's with the BPO: the same orchestra conducted by Bychkov. If anyone had told me that it superseded Karajan's performance I would have told them to get lost. Unfortunately, for contractual reasons the BPO are unable to issue it on a DVD, despite the impassioned pleas of Youtube watchers who have given an overwhelming response to the short excerpt the BPO management have put out on Youtube; they are worth reading. However, it is possible to hire the whole performance from the Berlin management by paying so many Euros but as usual with these things, it means jumping through hoops. Anyway, here it is and to my mind it is the greatest performance of any orchestral piece committed to Youtube. I have watched it many times and will continue to do so.
http://youtu.be/xK7z2NhUrsQ
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
One version that you didn't mention (that is excellent) is Paolo Beschi's period instrument recording. Highly recommended.
Been listening to a lot of J.C Bach lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyYvMNv82mQ
I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...
Hmmm... from what I've been able to listen to of Paolo Beschi's performance of Bach's cello suites, I'm quite intrigued. Now can I justify yet another recording?
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
You can always justify another Bach recording!Hmmm... from what I've been able to listen to of Paolo Beschi's performance of Bach's cello suites, I'm quite intrigued. Now can I justify yet another recording?
Except that have almost 300 of them now.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
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