Breathlessly in time for Debussy live from City Halls Glasgow, very accomplished conductor (NHK, Lyon. etc) rare complete live Images...
Give it a go...
Give it a go...
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A very worthwhile listen, even Stephen Johnson during the interval.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
Highspot for me was the Messiaen. In my view, this type of music does not get played nearly enough. But audiences have not changed their tastes for 100 years, so it is a bit much to expect a sea change in tastes any time soon. In the meantime, if BBC is to believed , classical music continues its apparent inexorable slide beneath the waves.Last edited by Quarky; 11-10-13, 13:51. -
The Debussy was very well played - elegantly phrased, detailed and transparent, if not with much evocative impressionism. But with the dry close balance (so often a feature of City Halls broadcasts), the woodwind were often far too prominent and crescendos/sforzandos bordering on the brutal to give a rather harsh, overloud feel to anything above forte... Not ideal. But booby prize must go to the Presenter who afterward, in a rather stumbling, poorly-delivered acclaim for the performance, pronounced "Keel Row" to rhyme with "shout" rather than "boat"...
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Just 'listened again' to this concert. I can't agree at all about the balance. The acoustic was not dry but had plenty of space round the sound, and the orchestra wasn't unusually closely balanced in 'Images'. There was a fine sense of depth in the sound, I thought. Excellent, richly coloured performances - Markl is really very good. And Jamie MacDougall quite clearly pronounced 'Row' as 'roe' in his introduction. True, he pronounced it to rhyme with 'shout' at the end, but that's the way it's often pronounced in Scotland, and how we pronounced it as kids at school. I'm not generally a great fan of J McD's presentation, but it seems a bit unnecessary to carp about something like that.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostThe Debussy was very well played - elegantly phrased, detailed and transparent, if not with much evocative impressionism. But with the dry close balance (so often a feature of City Halls broadcasts), the woodwind were often far too prominent and crescendos/sforzandos bordering on the brutal to give a rather harsh, overloud feel to anything above forte... Not ideal. But booby prize must go to the Presenter who afterward, in a rather stumbling, poorly-delivered acclaim for the performance, pronounced "Keel Row" to rhyme with "shout" rather than "boat"...Comment
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What, so "bough" rhymes with Scots "row" the boat...? You get in a boat and "row
"?! Gosh. Thanks for that one! Sorry to Jamie. (These regionals, really... Bring back standard BBC! etc.
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But his delivery was VERY poor postconcert. It's not too much to expect decent syntax and clear enunciation. Too much enthusiasm for a given performance runs an obvious risk too... (mainly sarcasm in a less impressed listener).
As for balance... City Halls is a relatively small hall (but a very beautiful one & a classic shoebox), and if this concert sounded "spacious" on your system what on earth does the RAH sound like? Lost in Space?
But the system here does tend to be a bit ruthless in its monitoring accuracy, I built it that way for a reason. IIRC, you found the Scottish Chamber Orchestra a bit lightweight for their Proms rep, whereas I loved it. System differences really, that's all. I've always sought to create systems where acoustically large venues needn't overwhelm a smaller performing group - by having a big, precise soundstage and lots of power. then you can use level adjustment like a zoom lens when you need to. But this can of course show up the problems of smaller spaces or closer miking more clearly. And I remain suspicious (to say the least) about sonic differences between the live relay and Listen Again playback. To these ears it frequently sounds different, often poorer from an audio POV.
But my specific point was not that depth or pp was lacking per se, but that the louder passages and climaxes didn't have enough room to breathe, given the relative closeness of the orchestra. AS BROADCAST LIVE, there was a palpable lack of reverb, natural or not. But you'd have to have been there to know if Markl was playing it a bit too loud, etc. I admire his recordings a lot, especially his Lyon Mahler 3 on Altus and his Naxos Ravel set. There's a lovely Mendelssohn 3/4 with the NHK on Altus too.Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 12-10-13, 02:46.Comment
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This was indeed a very fine concert, and a rare treat indeed to hear the Messiaen song cycle, with Gweneth-Ann Jeffers in splendid form. It was also interesting that Jun Markl programmed the Debussy Images pour orchestre in the order that Debussy sanctioned, rather than switching out to end with Iberia, i.e. the relatively crowd-pleasing ending.Originally posted by Oddball View Post
PS: BTW, about classical music sliding beneath the waves, from this side of the pond, Greg Sandow (kind of an American Lebrecht, and just about as narcissistic) goes on about that on his blog, under a series of posts titled "Timeline of the crisis":
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Will have to give this matter some serious consideration. But off the cuff view is that Classical Music viewed as a minority interest might be no bad thing, just so long as it encourages excellence in performance, across the board.Originally posted by bluestateprommer View PostComment
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