Buying a record against your prejudices

[richardfinegold]

I have recently purchased the heavily praised Chandos disc of Delius concertos - with Little/Watkins and Andrew Davis .

None of these three are anywhere near my favourite musicians . Davis strikes me as rather bumptious ( possibly from his Last Night speeches ) and I have really not liked his Elgar especially his recording of the Violin Concerto with Ehnes , Watkins gave a performance of the Elgar Concerto to open the Proms the other year that struck me as bland and emotionless and my last encounter with Little in a concert hall was a Lark Ascending in which there appeared to be intonation problems ( though I enjoyed much of her earlier recorded work) .

I decided that I should buy it against my prejudices . I am rather glad I did . All three strike me as much more to my taste in Delius than in Elgar.The Double Concerto strikes me as a complete success from first note to last , in the Violin Concerto there is a sense of structure that other performances don't have and Little is in good form - I don't think it quite a match for either Pougnet or Ralph Holmes who both play much more dreamily and beautifully to my ears ( I don't know the Sammons ) . As for the Cello Concerto Watkins has restored much of what was cut when the concerto was revised in 1932 (with Delius's approval ) . I have not sat down and compared it with the standard edition as played by Du Pre to see what has changed but it is a very good performance - if not quite as glorious as her version.

Highly recommended - anyone else bought a record against their prejudices and been pleased to have had them confounded ?

I own many enjoyable recordings by artists that have failed me in the concert hall. I have heard Zuckerman live on several occasions through the years, with more than one concert being a near disaster, complete with stopping works and restarting them. On recordings, everything is faultless.
I remember reading an interview with a veteran record producer. A star Pianist who was the beneficiary of a good P.R. department and not
blessed with a faultless technique was issuing a recording of a late Beethoven Sonata, but did not posses the chops to actually perform the work. The recording consisted of dozens of takes that had to be painfully spliced together. After listening to the final version approved for the recording, the Pianist grunted in approval and as he was leaving the studio, the producer said to him "Don't you wish that you could play like that?"

[richardfinegold]

For years I allowed myself to be wary of the playing of Wilhelm Kempff, an attitude informed by one of Gramophone's critics, I think.

Then someone recommended his 1950s mono Beethoven piano sonata cycle and I bought it against my 'better' judgement & was bowled over by it. His Brahms Ballades, his Brahms piano concerto no 1 with Konwitschny, his Liszt Legends, even his Chopin I now treasure, along with his more predictably wonderful Schumann, Schubert and Mozart.

Silly me then!

Similar experience here. One of the first recordings I ever purchased was from his stereo cycle and I enjoyed it immensely. I then spent decades reading critics and listening to a couple of friends telling me that I had to be mistaken. I swore off Kempff for decades until I came across his Schumann, which I love. I just purchased the aforementioned stereo cycle of Beethoven Sonatas and I am enjoying it immensely.
I read a magazine article on Kempff a few years back. Apparently he always courted the patronage of Politicians and Aristocrats. During the Nazi years he was a frequent performer and guest for some of the bigwigs, but this was a continuation of a pattern that he established before Hitler came to power and continued for decades after the war, and he himself was essentially not political. I wonder if some of the critical prejudice against him was a resentment of being a favored artist in the Third Reich

[Dave2002]

I own many enjoyable recordings by artists that have failed me in the concert hall. I have heard Zuckerman live on several occasions through the years, with more than one concert being a near disaster, complete with stopping works and restarting them. On recordings, everything is faultless.
I remember reading an interview with a veteran record producer. A star Pianist who was the beneficiary of a good P.R. department and not
blessed with a faultless technique was issuing a recording of a late Beethoven Sonata, but did not posses the chops to actually perform the work. The recording consisted of dozens of takes that had to be painfully spliced together. After listening to the final version approved for the recording, the Pianist grunted in approval and as he was leaving the studio, the producer said to him "Don't you wish that you could play like that?"

Great pianist story.

For a long while I wouldn't buy any CDs (or LPs before they came on the market) by Karajan, but then I discovered that his Schumann symphony recordings are rather good, and almost all of his versions of Beethoven 9 are excellent. Only a few other recordings of that work get close. I bought the EMI box set of Karajan's orchestral recordings (around 80 CDs) last year. Not all of his performances are great, or maybe not even good, but some really are.

I think this is true of a lot of musicians - they can be really good in some repertoire, and pretty awful in others. What is perhaps a pain for us mere listeners is when a musician decides he/she doesn't want to play certain music, yet it's likely they'd be very good at it. Haitink is one who refuses to do works by certain composers, and Rattle for a long while wouldn't do Tchaikovsky, but by all accounts his fairly recent Tchaikovsky issue of the Nutcracker is really good.

Sinopoli has been mentioned - I really like some of his Madame Butterfly. I'm prepared to believe he might have been dreadful in Brahms. Similarly Elder - I think he is very good in some repertoire (generally English, e.g Elgar), but I wouldn't rush to hear him in Beethoven. Boult was good in a fairly wider repertoire, and excellent in some (e.g RVW, Holst etc.) but I'm really not keen on his Bach performances. Maybe the same could be said for Barbirolli, and indeed many conductors before the HIPP "revolution". Sargent was often very good in choral music, and both he and Beecham were good in Sibelius.

Not all performers can be good at everything, and we shouldn't expect that, though a few do a reasonable job. Whether that means that those who specialise in a restricted repertoire really do present greater insights I'll leave as a discussion exercise for the reader.

[Keraulophone]

Originally Posted by Barbirollians
The Bruckner 8 is pretty good Mandryka and I am not much of a Boulez fan

Will give it another listen, Barbirollians: found a bit typically 'cool' and underwhelming on my first listen.

Exactly what I thought. An interpretation in black and white just like the cover photo, despite being live at St Florian. Little wrong with the VPO's playing, however.

[Barbirollians]

Similar experience here. One of the first recordings I ever purchased was from his stereo cycle and I enjoyed it immensely. I then spent decades reading critics and listening to a couple of friends telling me that I had to be mistaken. I swore off Kempff for decades until I came across his Schumann, which I love. I just purchased the aforementioned stereo cycle of Beethoven Sonatas and I am enjoying it immensely.
I read a magazine article on Kempff a few years back. Apparently he always courted the patronage of Politicians and Aristocrats. During the Nazi years he was a frequent performer and guest for some of the bigwigs, but this was a continuation of a pattern that he established before Hitler came to power and continued for decades after the war, and he himself was essentially not political. I wonder if some of the critical prejudice against him was a resentment of being a favored artist in the Third Reich

Eloquence are just about to release two sets of his Mozart playing - I cannot wait - some of his Mozart sonata recordings and his K488 and K491 are desert island stuff.

[MickyD]

Continuing the Karajan thread, I had a listen last night to his Sibelius 4 (for DG), which I then learned is considered by many to be at the top of the list for many of this work. I must say I did enjoy it.