Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #60)

Assuming you're referring to the Abbado. I wouldn't describe the reading as especially sunny, although the second is sunnier than any of the other Brahms symphonies. It was especially leisurely. At over 45 minutes it's the longest version in my collection, which includes Klemperer. But Abbado holds it together.

I recall a debate here several years ago on the pacing of Brahms violin concerto. I do not object to Oistrakh taking the work at a slower pace than Heifetz, just as I do not object to Abbado taking the symphony at a slower pace than Szell. Depends on my mood.

I still haven't gotten through the entire Abbado box, but so far I like his Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms (and his Eroica). The rest is a more mixed bag and does not include many works that are likely to become top choices.

 

Now playing the following CD from my early music collection on this Sunday morning ...

 

No, the Karajan. Sorry to be unclear; proof yet again that one should never post when only semi-coherent after a long, exhausting day. Be that as it may, in a concert review of November 25, 1974, reprinted in Music of Three Seasons 1974-1977 (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 1978; all articles originally published in The New Yorker), Porter had this to say:

"...Kobe bullocks, they say, are massaged daily so that their muscles, when consumed, may be of even consistency, flawless, without trace of fiber or gristle. Karajan has kneaded the sound of his players until it has a similar texture, firm yet succulent. The Berlin Philharmonic playing is, like Kobe beef, a luxury product. The metaphors customarily used of it are mechanical, not culinary...Karajan always gives the audience a smooth ride. In the two Brahms symphonies--the Fourth followed by the Second--that made up his first program, all of the bumps were ironed out. The machine started at a touch; a slight leaning on that first B from the violins and the serene, cushioned progress began--over hill, over dale; now fast, now slow; all gradients effortlessly mounted; plentiful power in reserve; never a jarring gear shift; smooth brakes; perfect road-handling. And no direct feeling, you might say, of the road traveled. That's what was wrong. ... Even in his [Brahms's] halcyon movements, there are apt to be moments of flurry. The episode in the finale of the sunlit Symphony marked 'tranquillo...sempre piu tranquillo' should surely be a disturbing passage, despite the indication, because each harmonic haven proves illusory. Between manner and matter there is a Brahmsian paradox, which Karajan resolved too comfortably, settling for manner. The Berliners' playing of the pages was, emotionally, easy-osy. Technically, their wind/string balance during the exchanges was a marvel.

...The music may have lacked force, but the playing was great. Anyone who swooned at the sound of the cellos as they began the adagio of the Second Symphony need not be thought affected; it was the kind of tone to dissolve a listener into ecstasies. The first horn, later in the movement, should be praised by name--and would be, had the program book not failed to include a personnel register."

Yeah, I find one of life's little pleasures in reading old reviews.

[edit] And oh, by the way, is anybody writing music criticism on this kind of literate level any more? Newspapers, at least, seem to have cut such coverage, and the staffs that used to provide it, to the bone.

 

Oh.

I have Karajan's 1970's Brahms cycle. (Or I think I still do.) Not a favorite. But it would be interesting to compare it with the Abbado. Same orchestra; same recording company.

 

The Karajan 60s set is one of the best Brahms symphonies sets that I have heard.

 

And worth seeking on tulip pressings for all you vinylophiles and turntabilists out there in Hoffmanland.

That question—"Are the planets aligned"—should point to the obvious, an astrological event that directly pertains to Brahms. Sun enters house of Libra, autumn begins and what could be more autumnal than Brahms? I've been going through all my copies of Brahms Second Symphony today, starting with Furtwängler and Berlin in 1952. Will have to re-start on another machine, the kitchen boom-box ejects half-way through the first movement. Next up, Sanderling/Dresden. Kind of lumpen compared to Karajan, Toscanini in the 1930's with the BBC and Furtwängler who manages to sound the most Brucknerian here, who would have guessed? Next up will probably be Walter/NYPO in the 50's, in mono. There's also the stereo Walter recording with the west coast version of "The Columbia Symphony Orchestra", Beecham, Monteux and maybe even Klemperer.

 

Please don't forget Barbirolli.

 

Really weird finding myself re-reading reviews from way back. I recall the Kobe Beef reference. For transcendently bizarre interpretive misjudgment I recommend HvK/Berlin P.O.'s "Symphonie Fantastique", including tubular bells flown in from another planet and an oboe that does a full left to right pan on your speaker's sound field to go along with all those symphonic slabs of Kobe Beef.




It think this all happened after that acid trip that convinced him he was as much of a "Golden God" as Robert Plant.

 

Haha, yeah. It's interesting that he played mostly, if not strictly mainstream pieces. I guess there was an inner need that was not being met.

 

Hey, I'm just looking at my shelf.

 

Your shelf recorded the 2nd?

 

In its sleep. Sounds kinda like Josef Krips on Romilar DM.

No you silly, the recordings, LP and CD, of Brahms Symphonies already sitting on my shelves filled with spinning platters, awaiting yet another audition later today.

 

In a High Fidelity magazine review of K.'s late-'70s cycle reprinted in the 1980 edition of Records in Review (a much more utilitarian affair than Porter's), Abram Chipman indicates that K.'s first recorded performance of a Brahms sym. available at the time was "the 1949-50 Vienna Philharmonic Second (Japanese Angel EAC 30106, imported by Capitol), which has the widest tempo fluctuations, the most exotic rubato, and the most eye-popping ritards I've heard in that score." He describes the succeeding 1964 account as "slow but steady, contentedly bucolic"; anent the then-new recording, which he characterizes as "thoroughly of the twentieth-century school," Chipman remarks, "The distance Karajan has traveled from the old Vienna account is astonishing."

 

Well, why not? Furniture can be surprisingly capable of acts you'd never expect. Why, all the time I get memos "from the desk of" this or that luminary.

That said, I'd expect a Brahms 2d Sym. by a shelf to be rather flat.

 

From what I've read, Schnabel firmly believed that a performer should compose as a necessary step toward understanding how to interpret. He wrote in what was considered the most advanced style of his day, and I think he never expected his music to gain much traction with the public.

 

Sounds like I need to hear that Vienna recording.

 

Old joke: A trumpeter dies and finds himself outside the Pearly Gates. St. Peter looks up, sees him, checks the list, and says, "OK, come on in. Did you bring your horn?" The trumpeter looks down and realizes that he's holding his trumpet; he replies, "Why, yes, I guess I did." "Great!" says St. Peter. "We have a vacancy for a last-seat trumpeter in the Celestial Orchestra. Come with me." Soon, the trumpeter finds himself in a large concert hall, facing with astonishment the largest orchestra he's ever seen. "Hey! Paganini is the concertmaster, and I see Heifetz and Szigeti and--and there's Casals leading the cellos, and Primrose leading the violas, and--and--and--." Then he notices a figure with long white beard in white robes on the podium, lurching and flailing away with a baton. "But, who's that conducting?" asks the trumpeter. "He seems totally incompetent." "Oh," replies St. Peter, "that's God. He thinks he's Herbert von Karajan."

 

I know that one from the Miles Davis rendition. Huge Ego is always timeless.

 

Didn't Erik Satie write "furniture music"? Or was that Hindemith?

 

And I know it from the Bono rendition.

 

The solo flute thread got me thinking of this, so I reached for it on the shelf :



Luciano Berio's Complete Sequenzas, on Deutsche Grammophon, by the Ensemble Intercontemporain. I was fortunate enough to see most of them performed in a fantastic roman church before they were recorded. All amazing. Sequenza V, for trombone, played by Benny Sluchin, was, as intended, the funniest concert ever. If not the funniest thing to ever happen in a church.
Let me quote from the liner notes (by Berio himself), as they're interesting :
"I've tried in my Sequenzas to provide a commentary on the relation between the virtuoso and his instrument, and I have often explored certain specific technical aspects to the point of challenging, as in Sequenza II for harp, the conventional notion of the instrument."

 

I first heard a version with Bobby Orr as the punchline.

(That was in Boston in the 70's.)

 

No it was Chairkovsky.

 

I have various versions of the Brahms Symphonies covered in the earlier discussions but am now playing the following SACD, which arrived on Friday for a first listen ...

 

As a classical guitarist, I was thrilled when such a major composer included guitar in this series (XI). I've seen Eliot Fisk, for whom it was written, perform it as well as Pablo Sainz Villegas. It's a tremendous piece and tremendously challenging to play.