Prokofiev symphonies

[mahlerei]

I wore my LP out through playing it so much! (And I'm not a great Gershwin fan.) And the opening clarinet solo in Rhapsody in Blue with Gervase de Peyer - fabulous!

Agree with you and Beefy on this. A genuine classic.

[Barbirollians]

I wore my LP out through playing it so much! (And I'm not a great Gershwin fan.) And the opening clarinet solo in Rhapsody in Blue with Gervase de Peyer - fabulous!

I had the Pittsburgh versions which are good but those LSO records are indeed superb and I prefer them now .

[jayne lee wilson]

Hiya Jayne,

I note another little snipe. On this board I am a contributor like everyone else; no different. I have personal favourites conductors and they include Previn, Abbado, Haitink and Chailly and experience has shown me their recordings are especially worthy of attention.

Oh, I'm sorry Stan, if I upset you - the winkeye was supposed to make it mischievious, rather than a snipe.... but Classical Musical Culture does make me impatient of its own complacencies, and I think one product of that is to assume quality in the recordings of an older, LP-era-deified, conducting generation, to hear them through a filter of positive expectation. Which is something Old Gramophonians like RL, RO etc. always tried not to do.
I wish all listeners could be wide open to all approaches, but especially to new music and newer, younger performers. There is always a tendency to go back to that Karajan/Haitink/Previn etc generation, re-re-issues of vast bargain boxsets, to rely on them a little too much. So I do think Karabits and his Bournemouth band can get misjudged partly because of who they are (despite good reviews - and single albums, all at full price, it won't do will it?), when there should be huge excitement at their Prokofiev, flawed or not, in all its freshness and originality of approach (but with strikingly Russian accents here and there! And swift timings, closest to Rozhdestvensky..no monumentalising in the 6th, for which relief...) just as there was when Berglund began his work there, with Nielsen, Sibelius, DSCH etc....

So Thomas Fey in Heidelberg, Krivine in Luxembourg or with his Chambre Phil.... point is, a musical culture has to create or recreate, to keep renewing itself, or it dies, or just exists as a museum. But the sheer number of recordings, new and reissued, in all their different SQs and formats, is no help either, is it? So we search for still, peaceful points in a bewildering, turning world...

[ahinton]

Changing the subject momentarily, what is it about sixth symphonies? Beethoven, Mahler, Nielsen, Sibelius, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Pettersson, Matthews?...

[jayne lee wilson]

Changing the subject momentarily, what is it about sixth symphonies? Beethoven, Mahler, Nielsen, Sibelius, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Pettersson, Matthews?...

I think you need a research grant for that one. "Numerical Culture in The Classical Model of The Symphony: Expectations, Encumbrances and Fatalisms".

[ahinton]

I think you need a research grant for that one. "Numerical Culture in The Classical Model of The Symphony: Expectations, Encumbrances and Fatalisms".

Oh, mon Dieu! - and with the traditional acedemic COLON, too (without which no dissertatory tome can eve hope to pass muster)! Go on, then; YOU write it! I might give it the different and academically unacceptable title "The Only Sixth, Despite The Pastoral", but that's just me.

Love it, though!

[Barbirollians]

JLW makes a fair point - that it is easy to seek refuge in the great records of the past . Then again that can be because they do still contain better performances - the Previn Walton 1 does still have a terrific charge I have not experienced in any other .

Also it is important to remember that the not so old may still trump the new - For all its qualities the Krivine Beethoven set seemed to my ears much less ear opening and different from many traditional performances than the first Bruggen set on Philips .

[jayne lee wilson]

JLW makes a fair point - that it is easy to seek refuge in the great records of the past . Then again that can be because they do still contain better performances - the Previn Walton 1 does still have a terrific charge I have not experienced in any other .

Also it is important to remember that the not so old may still trump the new - For all its qualities the Krivine Beethoven set seemed to my ears much less ear opening and different from many traditional performances than the first Bruggen set on Philips .

...trailing off among the tangents here but given your positive response to the Bruggen LvB, I'd love to see how you react to that Krivine Mendelssohn 5....(the CD is even cheaper than the lossless download, btw. Review in G: EG, 4/2007).

[Barbirollians]

...trailing off among the tangents here but given your positive response to the Bruggen LvB, I'd love to see how you react to that Krivine Mendelssohn 5....(the CD is even cheaper than the lossless download, btw. Review in G: EG, 4/2007).

For a fiver - I shall try it .

[EdgeleyRob]

Changing the subject momentarily, what is it about sixth symphonies? Beethoven, Mahler, Nielsen, Sibelius, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Pettersson, Matthews?...

AH,you missed Rubbra (THAT Canto),Arnold (THAT Mahlerian funeral march),Weinberg (THAT cataclysmic slow movement) and RVW (THAT everything)

[ahinton]

AH,you missed Rubbra (THAT Canto),Arnold (THAT Mahlerian funeral march),Weinberg (THAT cataclysmic slow movement) and RVW (THAT everything)

I never intended the "list" to be comprehensive but I do agree with all of those that you mention, especially the last!

[Maclintick]

AH,you missed Rubbra (THAT Canto),Arnold (THAT Mahlerian funeral march),Weinberg (THAT cataclysmic slow movement) and RVW (THAT everything)

& not forgetting Bruckner's magnificent 6th in A, of course -- one of his unfathomably-underplayed & greatest works, wherein the cliche of AB being unable to initiate a symphony without resorting to string tremolandi is convincingly repudiated. OK understood, & instilled that vital rhythmic articulation in his players. As remarked, it's not often played, but the striking similarity between the first movement's main theme & that of John Williams' "Star Wars" tune has often been commented upon -- unintentional echoes, perhaps ??

[Stanfordian]

Oh, I'm sorry Stan, if I upset you - the winkeye was supposed to make it mischievious, rather than a snipe.... but Classical Musical Culture does make me impatient of its own complacencies, and I think one product of that is to assume quality in the recordings of an older, LP-era-deified, conducting generation, to hear them through a filter of positive expectation. Which is something Old Gramophonians like RL, RO etc. always tried not to do.
I wish all listeners could be wide open to all approaches, but especially to new music and newer, younger performers. There is always a tendency to go back to that Karajan/Haitink/Previn etc generation, re-re-issues of vast bargain boxsets, to rely on them a little too much. So I do think Karabits and his Bournemouth band can get misjudged partly because of who they are (despite good reviews - and single albums, all at full price, it won't do will it?), when there should be huge excitement at their Prokofiev, flawed or not, in all its freshness and originality of approach (but with strikingly Russian accents here and there! And swift timings, closest to Rozhdestvensky..no monumentalising in the 6th, for which relief...) just as there was when Berglund began his work there, with Nielsen, Sibelius, DSCH etc....

So Thomas Fey in Heidelberg, Krivine in Luxembourg or with his Chambre Phil.... point is, a musical culture has to create or recreate, to keep renewing itself, or it dies, or just exists as a museum. But the sheer number of recordings, new and reissued, in all their different SQs and formats, is no help either, is it? So we search for still, peaceful points in a bewildering, turning world...

Hiya Jayne,

Ok, I understand the winkeye. I have actually reviewed all the BSO/Karabits Prokofiev symphonies and thoroughly enjoyed them. I think the Karabits cycle is as is as good as any around but sadly no one has actually nailed the set of Prokofiev symphonies. I truly hope that both Kiril and Vasily Petrenko have a go at recording them and maybe Andris Nelsons.

[Alison]

Hiya Jayne,

Ok, I understand the winkeye. I have actually reviewed all the BSO/Karabits Prokofiev symphonies and thoroughly enjoyed them. I think the Karabits cycle is as is as good as any around but sadly no one has actually nailed the set of Prokofiev symphonies. I truly hope that both Kiril and Vasily Petrenko have a go at recording them and maybe Andris Nelsons.

I hope that in time Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic could deliver some devastatingly good Prokofiev symphonies.

[verismissimo]

... mischievious...

Liverpool vernacular eh, Jayne?