RVW Symphony Cycle - Andrew Manze

[Pabmusic]

Do we really need another RVW cycle at this point?...

Maybe, or maybe not. Why should any artists be stifled by not being allowed to record their performances?

I understand your POV (and there are many things I'd like to hear recorded) but Manze has built towards this cycle very well. Do we prevent conductors starting such cycles at all in public, just in case they want to record them subsequently? Maybe we should insist on clauses in contracts to prevent later recordings.

[BBMmk2]

Can't wait for this. I am surprised that Hyperion hasn't done this with AM!

[Suffolkcoastal]

The otherwise enthusiastic response here suggests that indeed there is a market for such a set, not leqst among those who saw/heard Manze's Proms performances of symphonies 4, 5 & 6 with BBCSSO in one evening a few Summers ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2BmRfQ5txM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9YoEETzYsE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1suBbnp5Go

I hope he can manage to recreate his interpretations in the recording studio. I was at that memorable prom, and the performance of the 5th, my favourite piece in all music, was the finest I have ever heard.

[Beef Oven!]

Maybe, or maybe not. Why should any artists be stifled by not being allowed to record their performances?

I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just wondering why it has to be that, when I first started to listen seriously to classical music 25-30 years ago, and collecting recordings, bugger all has changed. Same ol' same ol'. Why do they perform and record the same stuff all the time?

[Beef Oven!]

I hope he can manage to recreate his interpretations in the recording studio. I was at that memorable prom, and the performance of the 5th, my favourite piece in all music, was the finest I have ever heard.

He can't, can he? The concert has been and gone. And you have your memory of it.

[Pabmusic]

...Why do they perform and record the same stuff all the time?

Now that's a very good question (except that, 25-30 years ago, an RVW cycle would have been welcomed, Boult (x 2), Previn and ??? being the only ones available.

[Beef Oven!]

Now that's a very good question (except that, 25-30 years ago, an RVW cycle would have been welcomed, Boult (x 2), Previn and ??? being the only ones available.

That's my point. I bought the Handley EMI editions as they came, out at the time. Here we go again!

Btw, the Naxos cycle is over 20 years ago, Bryden Thomson and others - lots of RVW symphony recordings were around.

[DublinJimbo]

The otherwise enthusiastic response here suggests that indeed there is a market for such a set, not le[a]st among those who saw/heard Manze's Proms performances of symphonies 4, 5 & 6 with BBCSSO in one evening a few Summers ago

Oh yes indeed. I recorded those from BBC iPlayer and return to them regularly. Put me down in the looking-forward-to-the-new-set camp. I wonder over what period they'll be released?

[Demetrius]

While Vaughan Williams is not really underrepresented, the number of cycles is not quite as infinite as those for Beethoven, Mahler etc. I do see your point, but Manze is the first conductor of a much younger generation to try this - why stiffle that, if the results are likely satisfactory? Manze has recorded a fair share of out of the way music: Wicklund, Lars-Eric Larsson, Johann Helmich Roman, Stenhammar, Johan Argrell, Ferdinand Zellbell, Hinrich Johnson etc. Not the type of composers that a recorded regularly. Why pounce on him if he records music that is at the edge of core repertoire (sad as it is, you won't find a tremendous amount of Vaughan Williams played in continental concert halls).

[Beef Oven!]

While Vaughan Williams is not really underrepresented, the number of cycles is not quite as infinite as those for Beethoven, Mahler etc. I do see your point, but Manze is the first conductor of a much younger generation to try this - why stiffle that, if the results are likely satisfactory? Manze has recorded a fair share of out of the way music: Wicklund, Lars-Eric Larsson, Johann Helmich Roman, Stenhammar, Johan Argrell, Ferdinand Zellbell, Hinrich Johnson etc. Not the type of composers that a recorded regularly. Why pounce on him if he records music that is at the edge of core repertoire (sad as it is, you won't find a tremendous amount of Vaughan Williams played in continental concert halls).

Well, I don't think that what I'm saying seeks to stifle him, nor have I pounced on him. Given that Manze, as you say, is a conductor of 'a much younger generation', it seems even more of a shame that he's not giving his time to that huge body of great music that is ignored. But anyway, this release will sell a couple of thousand units (I'm not up on the numbers) and less well known music might only shift 500. It's what the customers want at the end of the day that counts, and we want more of the same.

[Demetrius]

as a conductor born in the 60s, rather than the 40s (Hickox, Slatkin), or around 1930 (most other conductors of VW cycles), Manze is likely approaching things differently. He might well give the VW tradition something new. If a competent composer gets treated to a cycle every 10 years, I see no problem with that. He is giving time to ignored music - just not all his time. Several well-established orchestras and conductors play the core repertoire to death - the season of the Leipzig Gewandhaus for example is spectacularly dull in that aspect. I just think that your criticism (with which I agree in general) would have been better placed towards those performers or whoever is going to record the next Ring, Beethoven cycle etc., especially if they have less out of the way recordings to offer than Manze.

The word pounce was perhaps a bit much, I'd like to draw my sorry, second language card for that one

[Beef Oven!]

as a conductor born in the 60s, rather than the 40s (Hickox, Slatkin), or around 1930 (most other conductors of VW cycles), Manze is likely approaching things differently. He might well give the VW tradition something new. If a competent composer gets treated to a cycle every 10 years, I see no problem with that. He is giving time to ignored music - just not all his time. Several well-established orchestras and conductors play the core repertoire to death - the season of the Leipzig Gewandhaus for example is spectacularly dull in that aspect. I just think that your criticism (with which I agree in general) would have been better placed towards those performers or whoever is going to record the next Ring, Beethoven cycle etc., especially if they have less out of the way recordings to offer than Manze.

The word pounce was perhaps a bit much, I'd like to draw my sorry, second language card for that one

I hope I'm not putting too many words in your mouth by paraphrasing you to 'agree with the criticism, and believe that it applies to the Gewandhaus, for example, more severely than it does to Manze'.

I'm not sure that I understand what a 'competent' composer is, in this context; and I think that the law of diminishing returns bite hard when a musician gives his time over to well-worn repertoire.

Perhaps it's all Greek to me.

[Demetrius]

I agree that there is a lot of music that should be played more often, and certainly be recorded at least once, so that people have the chance to approach it. But I don't see why any one conductor should choose to refrain from conducting and recording core repertoire completely.

I believe Vaughan Williams to be an excellent composer. I think that a broad agreement can be reached that he at least warrants the label competent. That doesn't mean that others aren't.
For example, everything I just said can be applied to Cipriani Potter. Do I want more performers to focus on Potter? Absolutely. And Manze might just do it, one of these days. I don't know Wiklund's works, and am not too impressed with what I heard of Stenhammar (yet). Nonetheless, I think it laudable that Manze has recorded them. Still, if he puts some of his efforts into Vaughan Williams, that doesn't seem to be at all bad to me. It's not as if there has been a torrent of Vaughan Williams recordings:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?10404-BaL-8-02-14-Vaughan-Williams-Symphony-no-9

lists 12 available versions, of which some are stand-alone recordings. That's less than there were for Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea or Corelli's Concerti grossi Op. 6 and on par with William Byrd Mass for four voices. I simply can't bring myself to regard VW as well-worn repertoire; I remember a discussion on this board a while ago when he was lamented as neglected.

Why record something that already has recordings? The same way, one might ask why go to a performance of a symphony that already has a place on a cd on ones shelf. Conductors interpret classical music very differently, you can learn something knew and different even if it has been performed and recorded before. A new version might even key one into a work that before has been all greek. (Still waiting for that regarding Wagner, but Brahms 1st Symphony i get now after listening to it 3 weeks ago - perhaps I didn't get it before because the performances I heard before were not quite the thing I needed.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I sort of sympathize with BeefO's point - but, having heard Manze's live performances of these magnificent (give-or-take a couple) works, I ewould think t a very cruel world that had recorded cycles by Slatkin and Davis but not by Manze. (Or Barbirolli, come to that.)

[Beef Oven!]

I agree that there is a lot of music that should be played more often, and certainly be recorded at least once, so that people have the chance to approach it. But I don't see why any one conductor should choose to refrain from conducting and recording core repertoire completely.

I believe Vaughan Williams to be an excellent composer. I think that a broad agreement can be reached that he at least warrants the label competent. That doesn't mean that others aren't.
For example, everything I just said can be applied to Cipriani Potter. Do I want more performers to focus on Potter? Absolutely. And Manze might just do it, one of these days. I don't know Wiklund's works, and am not too impressed with what I heard of Stenhammar (yet). Nonetheless, I think it laudable that Manze has recorded them. Still, if he puts some of his efforts into Vaughan Williams, that doesn't seem to be at all bad to me. It's not as if there has been a torrent of Vaughan Williams recordings:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?10404-BaL-8-02-14-Vaughan-Williams-Symphony-no-9

lists 12 available versions, of which some are stand-alone recordings. That's less than there were for Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea or Corelli's Concerti grossi Op. 6 and on par with William Byrd Mass for four voices. I simply can't bring myself to regard VW as well-worn repertoire; I remember a discussion on this board a while ago when he was lamented as neglected.

Why record something that already has recordings? The same way, one might ask why go to a performance of a symphony that already has a place on a cd on ones shelf. Conductors interpret classical music very differently, you can learn something knew and different even if it has been performed and recorded before. A new version might even key one into a work that before has been all greek. (Still waiting for that regarding Wagner, but Brahms 1st Symphony i get now after listening to it 3 weeks ago - perhaps I didn't get it before because the performances I heard before were not quite the thing I needed.)

Indeed, this issue is not clear-cut. I must say that I have 'got into' a work following hearing a different version. Borodin's second symphony springs to mind. I bought the Naxos version and was so-so about the piece. One Saturday in the early 90s, I tuned into R3's Bal and heard a recording that blew me away! Really liked the work after that.