BaL 29.11.14 - Schumann: Symphony no. 2

[Alison]

Surely it's to be Abbado unless Richard Wigmore is of the don't select the obvious persuasion.

[cloughie]

Surely it's to be Abbado unless Richard Wigmore is of the don't select the obvious persuasion.

OK Alison but if Abbado was such a good Schumann conductor why did it take him so long to get round to recording him - and even then only No2 - OK the rest may have been scheduled - but he did Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mahler and Bruckner, not all but some of them more than once. I've not heard it and maybe I should but is it THE one?

[Barbirollians]

OK Alison but if Abbado was such a good Schumann conductor why did it take him so long to get round to recording him - and even then only No2 - OK the rest may have been scheduled - but he did Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mahler and Bruckner, not all but some of them more than once. I've not heard it and maybe I should but is it THE one?

It is superb !

[Alison]

OK Alison but if Abbado was such a good Schumann conductor why did it take him so long to get round to recording him - and even then only No2 - OK the rest may have been scheduled - but he did Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mahler and Bruckner, not all but some of them more than once. I've not heard it and maybe I should but is it THE one?

And yet perhaps if Abbado had been conducting the symphony all his life it just wouldn't have been as good as this!

[Petrushka]

OK Alison but if Abbado was such a good Schumann conductor why did it take him so long to get round to recording him - and even then only No2 - OK the rest may have been scheduled - but he did Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mahler and Bruckner, not all but some of them more than once. I've not heard it and maybe I should but is it THE one?

Yes, it IS the one! Once you hear it you will see why. If RW doesn't choose the Abbado then there is no justice in the world.

[rauschwerk]

My money's already on Gardiner. Wasn't the opening Klemperer excerpt truly dreadful? No wonder critics used to slag off this symphony!

[amateur51]

Yes, it IS the one! Once you hear it you will see why. If RW doesn't choose the Abbado then there is no justice in the world.

Isn't BaL about a reasoned/emotional opinion rather than something as serious as justice, a guiding hand to the neophyte as much as a discreet nudge to the seasoned listener?

[slarty]

Shades of Highlander here, "There can be only one" no! I have my own three best - none of which includes Abbado.
and as for Gardiner with his insipid vibratoless string sound - I'll pass!

[visualnickmos]

My money's already on Gardiner. Wasn't the opening Klemperer excerpt truly dreadful? No wonder critics used to slag off this symphony!

Indeed, it was! However, OK's 'Rhenisch' from the same set is a different matter. In my view, at least - others may well disagree.

PS - I did like the extracts from the selected winner.

[Beef Oven!]

Karajan and Haitink were the first sets I got, later I got the Gardiner.

Four's my favourite anyway, and It's Furtwangler and Karajan, for me.

Interesting Bal, but increasingly it shows that you can almost divide it into two self-contained programmes, one on well-upholstered 'traditional' performances and the other on HIPP/later renditions.

[Petrushka]

Isn't BaL about a reasoned/emotional opinion rather than something as serious as justice, a guiding hand to the neophyte as much as a discreet nudge to the seasoned listener?

Of course it is. Sometimes, though, a recording/performance so bowls you over, particularly of a work hitherto not much on the personal radar, that it's like meeting the perfect soul-mate. So it is with the Abbado recording of the Schumann 2.

[verismissimo]

I thought he was very persuasive on the "smoothed over" nature of Karajan's Berliners in this symphony.

[slarty]

I must say that I agree with Beefy, the traditional and the Hippers will never come together. One need two different recommendations.
I can sympathise with Pet, in that not having known the work well until relatively recently, he has gone completely to the Abbado.
I first heard the symphony back in the early sixties and have loved it ever since. I had the Szell performance for many a decade and I was really disappointed to hear it dismissed so quickly in passing, so to speak.

Karajan also damned with faint praise.
Ah well, I think that I shall give up with BaL in the future, if they are just going to push the great recordings of the past into the corner.

[verismissimo]

I must say that I agree with Beefy, the traditional and the Hippers will never come together. One need two different recommendations.

It seemed to me that a major theme of this BAL was the emergence of several 'middle-ground' recordings - Nezhet, Ticciati, Zinman etc - using slimmed down forces with traditionally-set-up instruments, but with learnings from HIPP in terms of speeds, vibrato etc. I was surprised in the end that he didn't pick one of them, instead going for the only fully HIPP performance. (Though doubtless JEG would deny that.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought he was very persuasive on the "smoothed over" nature of Karajan's Berliners in this symphony.

And yet - in the late '70s, Bernard Keefe eventually settled on the Karajan precisely because of the intensity of that very movement. Yer pays yer money, yer takes yer choice - Keefe's choices then (Karajan and Kubelik [BPO]) remain my own preferences for "old school"/"big band" Schumann 2.