Critics choice

[Alison]

The Academic Festival Overture doesn't deserve derision either. 'Kind of' poor form, Smithy.

[HighlandDougie]

derision

Derision: "contemptuous ridicule or mockery" - OK, so HS doesn't think much of the Academic Festival Overture (and she wouldn't be the first) but I hardly think what she said constituted ridicule or mockery. I'm not quite sure why she provokes such an over-reaction: as in people whom I otherwise think of as wise and sensible coming out with some frankly over-the-top comments. And, while I fully accept that relatively small excerpts (as in what we hear on CD Review) are often all that have to go on, I would urge Barbirollians (and others) to listen to a complete symphony in the Chailly cycle: I think that you'll find it rewarding. I must have at least a dozen Brahms cycles, including all those cited above (plus Weingartner, the earlier Jochum and Toscanini) and Chailly is as worth listening to as any of them. Mr Grumpy is now departing for bed.

[Barbirollians]

Derision: "contemptuous ridicule or mockery" - OK, so HS doesn't think much of the Academic Festival Overture (and she wouldn't be the first) but I hardly think what she said constituted ridicule or mockery. I'm not quite sure why she provokes such an over-reaction: as in people whom I otherwise think of as wise and sensible coming out with some frankly over-the-top comments. And, while I fully accept that relatively small excerpts (as in what we hear on CD Review) are often all that have to go on, I would urge Barbirollians (and others) to listen to a complete symphony in the Chailly cycle: I think that you'll find it rewarding. I must have at least a dozen Brahms cycles, including all those cited above (plus Weingartner, the earlier Jochum and Toscanini) and Chailly is as worth listening to as any of them. Mr Grumpy is now departing for bed.

She says she cordially loathed it . That strikes me as derision. Indeed, much of her response struck me as typical of lazy music student thinking .

[Sir Velo]

I have to say I'm inclined to agree with you over the St John Passion - I may well be shot down in flames for saying so, but personally I have found previous Dunedin Consort recordings to be very much overrated by all and sundry.

I take it you don't agree with those who tweeted in to say how much they rated this performance? Not sure why McGregor gives so much credence to the Twitterati; he has fewer than 1,000 followers (of whom only a tiny minority responded) which, by my reckoning, is about one percent of the total listeners to the programme - hardly representative IWHT.

[french frank]

he has fewer than 1,000 followers (of whom only a tiny minority responded) which, by my reckoning, is about one percent of the total listeners to the programme

1% would be 2,500-3,000. Twitterers? Why, they're even less representative than posters here!

[Alison]

You wimped out on this one Mr Caliban.

[BeethovensQuill]

I agree with her on the academic festival overture, for me its as irratating as Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and that Capriccio Italian. I have every piece of music Brahms wrote on CD but its the one piece i never go back to.

[Roehre]

I agree with her on the academic festival overture, for me its as irratating as Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and that Capriccio Italian. I have every piece of music Brahms wrote on CD but its the one piece i never go back to.

I do, but only as they played it for especially for me at the presentation of my doctorate - and with the gaudeamus igitur sung ( it was supposed to be in tune ).
And Brahms composed or at least sketched extensively a second Academic Overture (like a 2nd violin concerto and a 5th symphony) as both a counterpart to this and the Tragic overture. None of it eventually survived his extreme self-judgment of his works.

Btw, your avatar is Caspar David Friedrich?

[jayne lee wilson]

Roehre - it's Friedrich's Winter Landscape with Church (ca.1811), of which two versions exist. See:

https://nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/winter-landscape

I'm afraid it looks like BeethovensQuill has chosen the inferior duplicate...

[Nick Armstrong]

You wimped out on this one Mr Caliban.

Au contraire, Ms Alison...

The programme is recorded in three chunks on the DAB radio SD card, and I've only so far had time to listen to the last one, which was the final 30 minutes or so of the discussion, dealing with the Handel opera and Schubert chamber works.

I found the discussion distinctly unenlightening, but was going to reserve judgment - but since you ask... And like Don and Silvestrione above, I couldn't get past HS's ludicrous "Kind-of" tic - sometimes twice or three times in the same sentence

I shall listen to the earlier parts though, esp. to hear this Levit chap playing Beethoven


PS Welcome back jayne...

... and BeethovensQuill, for me hardly anything's as annoying as March Slave (one of my ultimate bêtes noires) - certainly not the Academic Festival overture, however overexposed it is

[BBMmk2]

Same here, Cali! Especially after the school orchestra played Marche Slave!!

[Petrushka]

The Academic Festival Overture doesn't deserve derision either. 'Kind of' poor form, Smithy.

Did Karajan ever record it? I've got his 1960s and 1970s Brahms cycles and it isn't included. Perhaps HvK didn't care for it either. I can't find a Karl Böhm recording either.

[Roehre]

Roehre - it's Friedrich's Winter Landscape with Church (ca.1811), of which two versions exist. See:

https://nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/winter-landscape

I'm afraid it looks like BeethovensQuill has chosen the inferior duplicate...

[Nick Armstrong]

Au contraire, Ms Alison...
...like Don and Silvestrione above, I couldn't get past HS's ludicrous "Kind-of" tic - sometimes twice or three times in the same sentence

I've now listened to the first 55 mms of the programme (Chailly Brahms, Coote Winterreise, Kopa Prok2/Stravinsky, Osborne Stravinsky).

I found only Stephen Johnson's contributions of real interest - even though I disagreed with him about one of the two recordings that sounded to me like revelations: Kopatchinskaja's and Jurowski's way with the Prokofiev 2 slow movement I found that utterly riveting, and I think it's cost me money (although I was for some reason bored by the Stravinsky - it sounded mannered and pointless, but I slightly feel that about the piece )

Also, the movement from the Stravinsky Capriccio for piano and orchestra was a complete discovery for me - stunning and delightful - as Stephen J pointed out.

I did find the contributions of the two ladies pretty superfluous, ditto AMcG. And I do find it mind-boggling that one is expected to place reliance on the views on Brahms's Piano Concerto No 1 (recent BAL) of someone who admits to cloth ears about the symphonies .... OK everyone has blind spots, etc etc ... but I think the choice of that person to pronounce to the nation was bizarre.

I have, I'm afraid, lost all faith in Ms Smith - and she surpassed herself in talking about the Stravinsky piano and orchestra disc: two of her sentences contained "kind-of" 4 times.... EACH !!

[HighlandDougie]

I have, I'm afraid, lost all faith in Ms Smith - and she surpassed herself in talking about the Stravinsky piano and orchestra disc: two of her sentences contained "kind-of" 4 times.... EACH !!

My absolute last word on Harriet Smith which is to agree with Cali (and others) that her overuse of "kind of" earns her the right to be cast into the outer darkness.

On her choice as reviewer for that the contentious BaL, I can only imagine that the programme's producer or AMcG or whoever makes such decisions thought, "Hmmm - who does piano whom we haven't used for a little while? Ah, Harriet Smith ...", and, not wanting to pass up on the fee, she was unlikely to say, "Well, I have kind-of issues with Johannes's symphonies". I still think that it was no worse than a number of other BaLs which I have endured and that her choice is a fine performance. Her choice of Arcadi Volodos's Mompou also showed that she isn't entirely lacking in taste and discernment but I think that she has some way to go on her presentational skills. At least she didn't call AMcG, "mate" .....