Giuseppe Sinopoli

[Guest]

Norman Lebrecht's execrable The Maestro Myth reserves some of its harshest words for Signor Sinopoli's musicianship, but fails to answer the important questions:

IF G.S. was as incompetent as his detractors maintained, how did he get a DG contract, the top job with the Philharmonia, and then the top job at the Deutche Oper? Not everything can be explained by good networking.

For my own part, I saw Sinopoli conduct twice - Mahler's Lied von der Erde and 8th Symphony, both at the RAH. Both times, I was impressed.

I listened to his recording of Schubert 8/9 with the Dresden Staatskapelle at the weekend and was less impressed - I think I understand why some people objected to his 'colourless phrasing'.

[kernelbogey]

Giuseppe Sinopoli....

[Mandryka]

Giuseppe Sinopoli....

Afraid I can't edit the title to correct the typo.

[Auferstehen2]

Hi Mandryka.

I try not to be too negative on these boards, as I fully understand that Sinopoli may have his fans, and after all, one man's meat and all that. Having said that...

I have that very recording of the Schubert 8/9 with the Dresden band, and like you was unimpressed. Your phrase re "colourless phrasing" fits perfectly.

We don't have much of a choice out here, so on my next visit to the UK I shall try to hunt down Guilini's recording. I read somewhere that in fact, there should NOT be a stringendo or accelerando leading into the main theme of the first movement at all! The result as Guilini plays it and (presumably) as Schubert intended it, is, I understand electrifying.

As for the closing bars of that first movement, in my humble opinion, Karajan reigns supreme. Not for him the banal and tiresome ritardando of Sinopoli, playing those final timpani taps at almost adagio.

Best wishes,

Mario

[perfect wagnerite]

Back in the 1980's, Sinopoli-bashing was a familliar bloodsport among London critics. I think his recorded legacy shows that they were very much mistaken - yes, there are performances that don't come off (the descent of the finale of Mahler 6 into a sort of noise-fest) but there are wonderful things. Sinopoli's Verdi recordings, for example, seem to me to expunge a sort of endemic laziness in Verdi conducting. Sinopoli takes Verdi seriously and exposes subtlety in his orchestral writing that others miss. Listen, for example, to the way he balances the orchestra at the start of the second scene of Rigoletto, before the protagonist sings of the curse that has been laid on him. In most performances these chords are more or less thrown away; Sinopoli voices each one separately, each with slightly different orchestral colour. It's a small point, but it indicates a composer's care for the music that one rarely finds in Verdi performances. And for me it works, setting the scene perfectly for what is to follow.

Perhaps he just wasn't suited to London orchestral life - a milieu in which sight-reading skills appear to have been valued more than musicianship, and in which a conductor who wanted to spend rehearsal time exploring the music would be regarded as an expensive nuisance. His recorded achievement was uneven - which I suppose is what happens if a conductor experiments - but it's interesting that much of the best of it (the Verdi, the Schumann symphonies, the Strauss operas) was made away from London.

[Richard Tarleton]

At his best as an opera conductor? So says the obit I preserved in the programme of a Dresden SK concert I had a ticket to see him conduct....sadly I never saw him. I love his Tannhauser recording.

[Petrushka]

I also saw Sinopoli twice, in Mahler 9 at the RFH and Mahler 6 at a 1987 Prom. He certainly had his detractors who rubbished virtually everything he did but his recordings are anything but routine. There is a very fine Bruckner 8 with the Dresden Staatskapelle (coupled with a no less fine Strauss Metamorphosen) plus a superb Bruckner 5 also with the Dresden band. In my opinion, his Philharmonia Mahler 8 is up there with the very best and is hugely under-rated.

A Mahler 9 issued on the Profil label a year or two ago was so roundly dismissed by the Gramophone reviewer I just had to get it. Wilful it certainly is but worth buying all the same. Think I'll play it tomorrow!

[Alison]

With regard to his Philharmonia appointment, I think Sinopli suffered from the same condition as FWM at the LPO. He had to succeed an absolutely outstanding
Music Director in Riccardo Muti.

I like his Mendelssohn Italian Symphony and Elgar In the South. He didn' t seem to have much of a track record in Beethoven which never helps.

[Mandryka]

With regard to his Philharmonia appointment, I think Sinopli suffered from the same condition as FWM at the LPO. He had to succeed an absolutely outstanding
Music Director in Riccardo Muti.

I like his Mendelssohn Italian Symphony and Elgar In the South. He didn' t seem to have much of a track record in Beethoven which never helps.

Apparently, Muti severed his connection with the Philharmonia when Sinopoli was appointed.

I still can't find a satisfactory explanation for G.S.'s incredible upward trajectory during the 80s/90s, when critics had nothing good to say about him and musicians and fellow conductors rubbished him. Presumably, his background as a clincial psychiatrist who took up conducting after taking up composing counted against him in some sinister way?

I've heard that some orchestras objected to, or weren't comfortable with, Sinopoli's approach to rehearsals, which frequently involved him taking a 'psychological' approach to a composer's intentions.

I'm still puzzled how a conductor nobody in the business seemed to rate got so far.

By coincidence, I picked up his Mahler 1 in a charity shop today and am currently listening to it: on the basis of a first listen, I'd say this is an original and refreshing, but not eccentric, interpretation, which makes me want to explore his recorded Mahler cycle further.

[Petrushka]

With regard to his Philharmonia appointment, I think Sinopli suffered from the same condition as FWM at the LPO. He had to succeed an absolutely outstanding Music Director in Riccardo Muti.

Yes, I think this is very true. Alison, I recommend you search out GS's Mahler 8 and the two Bruckner CD's I mention if you haven't heard them. They are all as fine as any you will hear and a good deal better than other highly touted versions I could name.

Additional edit: Recommended for you too, Mandryka if you like that Mahler 1

[Alison]

I recall there was a CD of Beethoven 9 which is doubtless in Mr Petrushka's archive.

This looks like an entire performance on Youtube: the conducting style isn't terribly impressive visually (?)
yet the perfromance ain't so bad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETPfIw0Xmw

[Petrushka]

I recall there was a CD of Beethoven 9 which is doubtless in Mr Petrushka's archive.

This looks like an entire performance on Youtube: the conducting style isn't terribly impressive visually (?)
yet the perfromance ain't so bad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETPfIw0Xmw

Sadly not, Alison. But I can take the audio from this as indeed I can with the LSO/Josef Krips also there. Thanks!

How do they get an entire performance on YouTube? Thought you only got 4 or 5 minute segments.

[Alison]

Sampling a bit more of the LvB 9 that 'colourless phrasing' comment does ring true

[formbyman]

I seem to remember a quote from the 1980s that he,Sinopoli,would only conduct new opera productions,not revivals. At the time this provoked a number of critical comments from some quarters.
Thank you Perfect Wagnerite for reminding me of his recording of Rigoletto,i must take it down from the shelf ,its some time since i last played it.

[kernelbogey]

Afraid I can't edit the title to correct the typo.

So I wonder who did and how? (Others have commented on the difficulty of correcting thread titles.)