Is Gergiev as good as his reputation suggests?

[moeranbiogman]

Just seen Tilson Thomas on Sky Arts conducting Tchaik. 4 in a performance that simply put Gergiev's (last week) way into the shade! And we could actually BREATHE between movements!

[Mandryka]

The Kirov's Verdi season in 2000 was roundly panned by all the critics: the general impression was that Gergiev made Verdi sound like Tchaikovsky.

His Kirov Ring wasn't much loved, either.

I think you're on safe ground if you hear him in Russian music, or the bits of the French repertoire that Russian conductors tend to have an affinity with.

[Mr Pee]

Just seen Tilson Thomas on Sky Arts conducting Tchaik. 4 in a performance that simply put Gergiev's (last week) way into the shade! And we could actually BREATHE between movements!

Agreed!

[Ventilhorn]

Just seen Tilson Thomas on Sky Arts conducting Tchaik. 4 in a performance that simply put Gergiev's (last week) way into the shade! And we could actually BREATHE between movements!

Yes, I watched that last night. An electrifying performance by Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

What a contrast between that and Gergiev's pathetic "Pathetique" performance of the previous evening!

Sorry to disagree with those who speak in Gergiev's defence, but "one swallow doth not a summer make"

There is what I call "A Degree of Competence"; a benchmark which no professional musician - Conductor, Soloist or Orchestral Player should ever fall below. There is no excuse for a bad performance. The audience have paid their money and are entitled to expect a satisfactory outcome.

In the days when conductors tended to stick with their orchestras (Gibson, Pritchard, Barbirolli, Rignold, Groves, Sargent, Boult, Bernstein, Ansermet, van Benum, Schmidt Isserstedt) they had to conduct the works of standard repertoire, from Eric Coates to Michael Tippet and beyond with equal competence.
We don't have Permanent conductors these days, we only have "Chief Guest Conductors"
Well, if they are of the ability of Sinaisky (also Russian), that's fine, but Gergiev, with his limited repertoire of mostly Russian music and his inconsistent standard of performance (where ever he has just flown in from!**) cannot be ranked as a good conductor. Would you risk your hard-earned cash to attend a concert where there is no guarantee of the result you have paid for?

** In 1965, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra made a tour of West and Eastern Europe - Amsterdam, West Germany, East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Thirteen concerts in fourteen days in five countries travelling by coach from Amsterdam across Europe to Prague.
Silvestri conducted the first four (Manfred symphony and Brahms 4) and Rudolf Schwarz (Schubert 9 or Schumann 4th) for the remainder
At each location the audience came to hear a visiting orchestra of international standard; and we and soloist Peter Katin (Rachmaninoff 3rd p/c or Pagannini vars) gave them exactly that.

No excuses. If you're too tired to do the job, you shouldn't take it on.


VH

[Suffolkcoastal]

Welcome to the anti-Mahler club Osborn, from a long standing member I watched some of the Gergiev Tchaikovsky 6 yesterday on sky arts two, it was a little scrappy in places and the 2nd subject of the 1st movement was played far too slowly and almost ground to a halt. Gergiev is one of those hit or miss conductors for me, I have heard some riveting performances and at the same time some that are quite poor, with some poor ensemble from the orchestra.

[Ferretfancy]

Suffolkcoastal,

If I sometimes quite like the first four symphonies, but can't stand the other 5 ( 10? ) can I still join the club?

[Ventilhorn]

Suffolkcoastal,

If I sometimes quite like the first four symphonies, but can't stand the other 5 ( 10? ) can I still join the club?

Hi there Ferret,
Surely you must rejoice in that stirring finale in Nº 5?

Yes, Nº 6 was the beginning of a phase in the composer's life when he stopped writing folk tunes and turned to his own feelings and frustrations.
A sense of anger in 6 and, in Nº 7, a sense of despair. Things had gone very wrong for Mahler by then and I would recommend you to listen to Nº7 - not to enjoy but to understand the torment that he was going through at that time.

vh

[Roehre]

Hi there Ferret,
Surely you must rejoice in that stirring finale in Nº 5?

in Nº 7, a sense of despair. Things had gone very wrong for Mahler by then and I would recommend you to listen to Nº7 - not to enjoy but to understand the torment that he was going through at that time.
vh

I don't think a boat trip on the Wörthersee, a nightwatch in either the surrounding mountains or in Amsterdam, a serenade and a buoyant Wagnerian-Meistersinger-finale have got much to do with a sense of despair. The only "black" movement -if you like- is the scherzo, but that is in similar vein as the one in Symphony 2.

From no.6 at least the middle movements give an air of nostalgia, whereas the finale (agreed) is angry music indeed.

[barber olly]

I often wonder what would happen if he programmed something like the Vaughn Williams 5th with the LSO, whether he would even have any patience for something subtle and non-showy like that.

[/url]

I always think it is the duty of international conductors taking charge of British orchestras to embrace the local repertoire, maybe he should have a go at Elgar 1, RVW Tallis Fant and Gergiev does Delius has a certain ring to it.

[Ferretfancy]

Hello Ventilhorn

I really appreciate your Mahler recommendations. Let me say that I do have versions of all the symphonies, but I'm not often drawn to play them. However I have just found the Kletzki version of No. 4 with the Philharmonia, which was my introduction to the composer, it's coupled with the D F-D / Murray Dickie Das Lied, and I'll certainly be listening to that. I do enjoy the other song cycles, so all is not lost, but as I've said in earlier threads it's the neurosis and breast beating that I find hard to stomach, coupled with the extraordinary cult which surrounds the music.
Ferret

[Roehre]

but as I've said in earlier threads it's the neurosis and breast beating that I find hard to stomach, coupled with the extraordinary cult which surrounds the music

Ferret, though I don't hear the "breat Beating" you mention, I do appreciate the high level of neurosis in all Mahler's music.

I don't know whether you have ever seen the 1973 documentary film about Klemperer, but one particular fragment I do recall very sharply. Klemperer says: "I am afraid Mahler is now a fashion". I am afraid I cannot agree more with him, and consequently with your remark re "the extraordinary cult which surrounds the music".

In that respect Mahler has taken over from Beethoven, whose symphonies were a fashion approximately 100 years ago in the same way as Mahler's are now: then no orchestra of any fame could afford not to have an annual Beethoven-cycle......

[Sydney Grew]

. . . His schedule makes it impossible -- impossible I say! -- to get a proper amount of rehearsal time with any orchestra. . . .

Is that a question of money? One of the problems of Capitalism we wonder?

[prokkyshosty]

Is that a question of money? One of the problems of Capitalism we wonder?

Yes: His US tours in the 90s were vital to keeping the Mariinsky alive, back in the Kirov days when there was no money to be had in Russia. But I'd look at their packed concert schedules and think to myself: good god, I know they're not flying, so they must be taking buses and SLEEPING in the buses. That can't be good for music!

No: I think most of us would agree that he has a limited repertory and surely that's due to the fact that he just doesn't have time to sit down with an orchestra and rehearse. How much new music has he done with the LSO? I don't know, but I'm thinking the answer is not much.

Maybe: If he manages to bring a production of Prokofiev's "The Story of a Real Man" to either London or New York, I will retract my entire argument and fall in sycophantic line!

You get a couple of bonus answers to your short question.

[Ventilhorn]

I always think it is the duty of international conductors taking charge of British orchestras to embrace the local repertoire, maybe he should have a go at Elgar 1, RVW Tallis Fant and Gergiev does Delius has a certain ring to it.

When Silvestri was appointed as conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 1962, he was interviewed by Southern Television, who asked him if he would be conducting any British music.

His reply (in Broken English, and obviously reading from a script or autocue) was "I shall conducting Elgar, Walton and, er, Vorgan Williams in my first season"

Well I have a notable recording of his Elgar 1st symphony (sadly only in mono at that time) His recordings include"Alassio" which has since been heralded as the definitive performance; 'Vorgan' Williams Tallis Fantasia and Walton's Portsmouth Point and Capriccio and Malcolm Arnold's "Bacchus the Dandiprat" overture. He found nothing to interest him in Elgar's 2nd symphony ("this goes downwards from the first symphony" he said) and, to the best of my knowledge, never performed it. He flirted with Tippet's better-known compositions, but I don't believe that there is anything recorded.*

In the true spirit of the message boards, we have now consigned Valery Gergiev's conducting to the first two pages of this thread.

Good morning, everyone

vh

* BBC Legends has published a lot of Silvestri's recordings.
Worth taking a look.

[Freddie Campbell]

...I've also seen the Tsch series on Sky with Gergiev & was distinctly unimpressed! However I guess Russian Orchestras easily
boar of Tsch's Repertoire as it is likely overplayed there- a bit like the effect continuous Elgar over here might be! That said
I would have expected better from him- the Orchestra can sound tired(like the end of a long Opera Tour abroad!)