Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #61)

This must be one of the great performances of the Shostakovich 8th, and with demonstrative sound quality. Get it if you can find (or sample on spotify)

 

Listening to these this evening...



Yes, listening to, not viewing: I gad to rip the audio away from the devede 'cause I don't much like the music videos/devedes/younameit. (First time I had to do so with the Bach at the Castle Cöthen dvd by the Freiburger Barockorchester.) Had to fix also the cover pic closer to the LP/CD proportions... Sorry for the size, the idea was to make it more net friendly.

Good combination that Kammerphilharmonie & Paavo Järvi.

 

What's wrong with people today that everybody plays the Schumann symphonies with chamber orchestras now?? This is at least the fourth or the fifth release of a Schumann symphony cycle played by a chamber or chamber sized orchestra, within only a year or two!

 

Nothing wrong!

List them!

PS. The Bremen DVD's/box are from 2011.

 

Perhaps because chamber orchestras make the orchestrations of Schumann's symphonies more transparent and some (many?) people prefer that to denser, more romantic performances nowadays?

 

Nezet-Seguin/Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Robin Ticciati/Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Rattle/BPO (he uses very reduced band)

And then the CD release P. Jarvi's cycle on RCA and Zinman sounded like reduced forces to me. (though they are older)

I guess there are a couple more that I forgot.

 

Can't say that Zinman's Tonhalle Orchestra is a Chamber Orchestra, can say that his lithe and transparent readings put most of the competition to shame.

 

You're right, it isn't, but I was trying to make a general point, and "smaller-sized orchestras" would be a better term than "chamber orchestras" in my view.

 

Conductors like Szell and Bernstein could make the orchestration sound transparent without reducing their orchestra to chamber size. But yes, I like big fat sound on my romantic repertoire...

 

Szell was a master in making the structure of a piece stand out, Bernstein not so much in my view. Szell was an architect, like Klemperer.

 

And yet Bernstein in his second Schumann cycle with the WPO gets a very detailed and well balanced sound without missing the grandeur of the music.

 

Sorry, as I said before I'm not discussing Bernstein any further. I'm not a fan.

 

Yes, those three have been on my list, too. Unfortunately, I didn't noticed in the Berliner Philh. textbook, what they had reduced - except the power of the brass:

I haven't heard yet the Ticciati & Scottish Chamber Orchestra recording. In the UK they love it, though. The French probably love Nezet-Seguin's interpretation and the Germans the one by Rattle.

Some critic wrote that for Nezet-Seguin Schumann was very very deeply a romantic (and - therefore? - a madman, of course ), and so is - therefore! - also his interpretation, full of romantic madness and lack of discipline; Rattle on the other hand was willing to study Schumann's classicist motives and that is listenable as slightly lifeless, formal presentation. I wouldn't wonder if Ticciati's work tuns out to be more pleasant suprise, unless it's just another boring Hi-Fi Recording (by Linn) for suckers like me. Unfortunately I can't remember anymore who & where wrote: in the Grammophone? in the Guardian? in the BBC Music Mag.?

However, I'm quite pleased with this Bremen set now, when it's on the computer without distracting moving pictures.

 

I prefer the term "sinfonietta sized" (sinfonietta-sized?): when there's around 40 players or so, it's clearly bigger ensemble than chamber orchestra. I think once it was a rule of thumb that with 70 or so players you already have genuine symphony orchestra.

Oops - the Tonhalle orch. is clearly bigger than sinfonietta: there's over 70 player.

 

Maybe I was wrong, I didn't hear that recording. It was my impression from the YT clips that I saw of concerts on the BPO's channel, and I think I've read it on some reviews, but maybe he did actually used normal sized orchestra for the final recordings.

And I missed Dausgaard with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

I haven't heard these recordings either, but they received some lukewarm reviews on classicstoday, Amazon and other places. And generally I didn't liked Jarvi's cycle for RCA (or most of his other stuff for that matter), as some reviewer said "it's like a sawing machine".

 

My point is that it doesn't take much to get the sound more transparent: while recording the millennium cycle of Beethoven symphonies, with the Berlin Philh., Abbado just left couple of basses away.

Touché!

I haven't heard the Järvi & Kammerphilharmonie studio set, so I can't comment.

 

Yes, this is also what I meant when I mentioned Szell and Bernstein. Achieving a balanced sound and attention to inner voices is something which all the great conductors could do with large size orchestras, and so it doesn't make sense to reduce the string section to the size of a string quartet in the name of "transparency" (and then one should wonder how the blaring brass that one usually hears on HIP or HIP inspired performances contributes to transparency of sound...)

Here someone actually says that Rattle's orchestra is "thick sounding", so I probably was wrong about the size of his orchestra.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/20...-review-rattle-berlin-philharmonic-disappoint

 

This new disc of recently authenticated Corelli Sonatas is wonderful. Exemplary sound, too.

 

Now that the overwhelming response has died down , I just want to say I like Pogorelich a million times more than the actual winner of the competition. SO much more intensity, variance of touch, greater dynamics, imaginative phrasing and tons more excitement. He really conveys the "storm" aspect of the work.

To me, this highlights the difference between the modern way of playing piano and the older, romantic approach that I am always referring to.

 

Max Reger
Piano Concerto in F minor
Richard Strauss
Burleske in D minor
Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
Ilan Volkov, conductor
Hyperion, 2010

I searched but couldn't find that the Reger Piano Concerto had been discussed. I think it will be worth listening to more than once.

 

I haven't heard it. I'll keep an eye in the bins. On another note, every time I see Reger's name, I think of this guy:

 

Sorry, George--by the time you posted that and I saw it, I couldn't listen before leaving for work, where I can't access such things. But I'm not surprised by your reaction. (Perhaps not least because we've all heard of Pogorelich over and over again, but who has ever heard of the winner since the competition?) Again to quote your friend Grigory Sokolov's interview at the link you posted a little earlier in thread:

"...I still feel very uneasy regarding the competition scene. It is not a good way to achieve recognition. There is too great an element of Russian roulette, too many jury members chosen for political rather than musical expediency. Gilels was chairman of the jury when I played, another matter altogether, but... [an expressive shrug]. Today, few musical institutions are more debased. Now it is fashionable to have a non-competition success, never to enter them or, if you do, to come in fourth, fifth, sixth, or a semi-finalist."

 

I am interested to hear yours, when you have the time. And thanks for the quote!

 

Well, I'd like to say that the winner scored a knockout--I'd like to, but I just can't be that untruthful. I agree with you 100% about their relative merits. The winner sounds like what I think of when I think of "competition winner": clean, note perfect, nothing to offend anyone (except, perhaps, those of us who still nurture a fondness for the piano as singer rather than the piano as machine gun). And nothing terribly interesting, either. Pogorelich, by contrast, gives a real, mature performance. Now, that said, I did a quick tour through the versions that I have on my server (all from CDs; haven't transferred any 78s or LPs of this one yet, but needing to get to bed I went for convenience). Of the three others that I had, I think overall I'd give the nod to Nikita Magaloff from his complete Chopin cycle, which I have in a Newton reissue (recorded in the Concertgebouw in January 1975), and that goes over Pogorelich as well. Garrick Ohlsson also impressed me, especially by his relentless left hand articulation. Of course, you'll never get me to say anything against Shura Cherkassky (Philips), but his didn't make as much of an impression--probably because I'm in a hurry and should go back to listen again when I have more time, and over speakers instead of headphones.

All of which leads to one other matter: do you have the Pogorelich in better sound than the YouTube clip? I do; it was included in a set on the LaserLight cheapie label publishing performances from various years' Chopin competitions. I rather miss that label; I know it gets little respect in certain quarters around here, but for a budget CD line it really did manage to come out with some surprisingly good productions.

 

Cherkassky has a better (live) performance of the preludes on an Orfeo 2CD set. Magaloff I have never heard any of his Chopin.

I don't. But I do have an all Chopin Vanguard Classics CD by Pogorelich, catalog number VIVACE E-545, that has that and 4 other preludes, along with a Nocturne, a Ballade, three etudes, a Polonaise, a Scherzo and 3 Mazurkas. The performances are from a 1980 all Chopin recital held just a few weeks after the competition. I haven't listened to this CD is quite awhile, but I plan to revisit it again soon.