Beethoven Pastoral Symphony - Gramophone Collection

[silvestrione]

Much as I love the chosen Bohm recording, my favourite is the Zinman (Tonhalle) recording which was not considered.

Yes, considered and dismissed for tampering with the score! (Was he thinking of the added woodwind ornaments that Zinman liked to encourage?)

[Barbirollians]

Good point about no mention of the Savall . He does give palms to some HIPP versions- Krivine in particular and the LCP/Norrington .

I was surprised that apart from joining the critical consensus about the 1962 HVK he does not mention his other versions such as the lovely Philharmonia account . I think RO has a general dislike for the Zinman cycle for pretending it is authentic but then the score is tampered with . Good to see the Cluytens stereo account approved of.

[Pulcinella]

No mention either of the CFP Mackerras version with the RLPO, about which the 2009 Penguin Guide says:

Crisp, light articulation allows for superb definition from the strings, and Mackerras's subtle rubato ensures that the opening of the Pastoral avoids any feeling of rigidity. With hard sticks used by the tympanist, the Storm has rarely sounded so thrilling, resolving on an ecstatic, glowing finale.

[Bryn]

No mention either of the CFP Mackerras version with the RLPO, about which the 2009 Penguin Guide says:

Crisp, light articulation allows for superb definition from the strings, and Mackerras's subtle rubato ensures that the opening of the Pastoral avoids any feeling of rigidity. With hard sticks used by the tympanist, the Storm has rarely sounded so thrilling, resolving on an ecstatic, glowing finale.

I have not accessed the item. Did his later SCO recording get a look-in?

[makropulos]

I've never understood why the LPO was billed as the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra in America in the 1950s. I don't think it was because they were under exclusive conract to anyone else as was the case with the RPO at that time . Maybe 'London' was felt to be unattractive to Americans in an age of Anglophobia.

The LPO did have a firm contract with Decca in the 1950s and I'm sure that's why the 'Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra' was used by Westminster/Nixa/Pye – not just in the USA but also in the UK.

[makropulos]

I have not accessed the item. Did his later SCO recording get a look-in?

I've just read it. Neither of the Mackerras recordings gets a mention. Nor does Bruno Walter's pre-war VPO recording (but Pfitzner is highly praised). Boult's stereo version is described as 'as wholesome as a Sunday afternoon walk in the Malvern Hills' which sounds to me like a rather glib and lazy bit of damning with faint praise.

[Master Jacques]

... In the Historical choices, Pfitzner-are you kidding me? He sounds like a Hitler Youth drill master leading his charges on a forced 50 km hike through the Vienn woods, an impression that is reinforced by the boxy sound. If it turned out not to be Pfitzner, who after all is an important if odious historical figure, but some anonymous kapellmeister of years past I doubt that RO would have given it a mention ...

"Odious?" Considering the complexity and ambiguity of the elderly Pfitzner's rocky relations with Hitler and other Nazi leaders, and his even more tangled attitude to Judaism - about which full-length books have been written - is it perhaps a little too easy to dismiss him with one, bald adjective? For myself, I feel that we should be wary of allowing our own prejudices against the composer to cloud our appreciation of his remarkable conducting of Beethoven's Pastoral.

(More to the point, your impression of the performance, which for me is rich in chamber-sensitivity and subtleties of rubato, is not what I hear. Quite the reverse.)

[makropulos]

"Odious?" Considering the complexity and ambiguity of the elderly Pfitzner's rocky relations with Hitler and other Nazi leaders, and his even more tangled attitude to Judaism - about which full-length books have been written - is it perhaps a little too easy to dismiss him with one, bald adjective? For myself, I feel that we should be wary of allowing our own prejudices against the composer to cloud our appreciation of his remarkable conducting of Beethoven's Pastoral.

(More to the point, your impression of the performance, which for me is rich in chamber-sensitivity and subtleties of rubato, is not what I hear. Quite the reverse.)

With Pfitzner, I'm always conscious of the enormous affection (and admiration) he was held in by Bruno Walter who remained on friendly terms with Pfitzner after the war and, if I remember rightly, sent aid/gift parcels to support the elderly composer. So yes, certainly complexity and ambiguity, as you put it. Walter clearly didn't want to lump him in with the more obvious villains.

[smittims]

Thanks, Makropoulos, And yet the LPO did record for EMI at the same time under their own name. Maybe the ban applied only to the USA for some legal reason.

Orchestra; pseudonyms have long fascinated me. It's interesting to see the Sinfonia of London reappear!

[cloughie]

Thanks, Makropoulos, And yet the LPO did record for EMI at the same time under their own name. Maybe the ban applied only to the USA for some legal reason.

Orchestra; pseudonyms have long fascinated me. It's interesting to see the Sinfonia of London reappear!

…but bearing no relation to the orchestra in the 60s which WRC used with Anthony Collins, Alexander Faris, Colin Davis and others - not forgetting that long-term best seller with Barbirolli in Elgar and RVW String music ALP1970/ASD521.

[HighlandDougie]

Going back to the London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of London dual identity, I can only surmise that it may have been Westminster Records attempting to create a distinction for marketing purposes between the "Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London" (the RPO - which was in an exclusive contract with EMI and which Westminster used, inter alia, for various Artur Rodzinski and Erich Leinsdorf recordings) and the LPO, hence "Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of London". Vanguard Records used the "PPO of L" moniker in the early 1960s, as did Fontana, but for reissues of material already released with the orchestra using that name rather than the LPO. All rather confusing, really.

[richardfinegold]

With Pfitzner, I'm always conscious of the enormous affection (and admiration) he was held in by Bruno Walter who remained on friendly terms with Pfitzner after the war and, if I remember rightly, sent aid/gift parcels to support the elderly composer. So yes, certainly complexity and ambiguity, as you put it. Walter clearly didn't want to lump him in with the more obvious villains.

It’s been a while since I read about Pfitzner, but the the jist of it that I recall was that he considered Judaism as a type of negative forcethat infected the German Volk and their Kultur, but that he made an exception for individuals of Jewish descent (as long as they renounced their Jewish background, such as Bruno Schlesinger). By the standards of the Third Reich, this almost makes him seem like a Humanist, but that is not the yardstick that I wish to use. And I listened to V of his Pastoral yesterday and I still opt for Toscanini

[Barbirollians]

I've just read it. Neither of the Mackerras recordings gets a mention. Nor does Bruno Walter's pre-war VPO recording (but Pfitzner is highly praised). Boult's stereo version is described as 'as wholesome as a Sunday afternoon walk in the Malvern Hills' which sounds to me like a rather glib and lazy bit of damning with faint praise.

I doubt that was intended M . In the very next sentence he describes it as a “ most satisfying affair” and in his round up at the end he refers to a number of accounts by master musicians of which Boult is one.

RO reviewed it when it came out in April 1978 in which he described it as magnificent if finding the scene by the Brook a bit affected by “ undue formality “ . He described the storm as “superbly articulated “ and made it one of his Critic’s choice for the year .

Later when he reviewed a live BBC Radio Classics account he was less keen on he described the non-availability of the Studio account as almost as serious an omission from the catalogue as Giulini’s Chicago Brahms 4

[Alison]

Neither Mackerras mentioned and Haitink/LSO implied as being anaemic so was a bit grumpy reading this article. The Tennstedt account needs a revisit.

[makropulos]

I doubt that was intended M . In the very next sentence he describes it as a “ most satisfying affair” and in his round up at the end he refers to a number of accounts by master musicians of which Boult is one.

RO reviewed it when it came out in April 1978 in which he described it as magnificent if finding the scene by the Brook a bit affected by “ undue formality “ . He described the storm as “superbly articulated “ and made it one of his Critic’s choice for the year .

Later when he reviewed a live BBC Radio Classics account he was less keen on he described the non-availability of the Studio account as almost as serious an omission from the catalogue as Giulini’s Chicago Brahms 4

Thanks - you read it more carefully than I did and I’m sure you’re right that it wasn’t a deliberate slight. Incidentally, I remember a late Prom performance of ACB doing the Pastoral where the other half was Mackerras doing the Glagolitic Mass - talking to him later, CM was extremely impressed with ACB’s Pastoral - particularly doing the slow movement much more quickly than the (then) norm.