BaL 24.02.24 - Ravel: Mother Goose [complete ballet]

[richardfinegold]

Glad you liked LSO/Monteux, Richard -- IMHO the most magically atmospheric of the recordings I've heard. CSO/Martinon has many admirable qualities, but isn't it just the suite, as is the unavailable Detroit SO/Paray ?

Yes, the Paray and Martinon, are just the Suite, but they are my comparators due to long familiarity

[vibratoforever]

I agree HD - he should be treasured not slated. The forum seems to have love-ins for some and the opposite for others. JW probably put the same dedications into studying the scores of Daphnis and Mother Goose as he did in his reconstruction of Hollywood’s lost scores - the Previn of the 21st Century?

I was given the Wilson SACD as a present, adding to previous acquisitions - Cluytens, Monteux and Martinon. The Monteux is special I think, and he was well-served by the recording engineers. I know little about Wilson as a musician but I found no special insights. There are some aspects of the sound which are unsatisfactory - the balance being unnatural in places and likewise the sound levels. The Munch/BSO is my favourite version of the suite and the final section is incandescent. Here Wilson is merely bland.

[Retune]

Let's not forget there are well over a hundred other musicians collaborating on each recording. Should we check before purchase that their private lives are all whiter than white?

Well, there's 'not whiter than white' and then there's 'accused of a very serious crime as part of an alleged pattern of predatory behaviour over many years'. This isn't in quite the same league as suggesting one of the viola players might not have returned a library book. Some will say, of course, that we should always separate the art from the artist, even if they are a solo artist, but that may be easier said than done. For one thing, a new purchase is presumably making some small contribution to their bank account. For another, will knowledge of the accusations (or for one conductor I might mention, knowledge of proven crimes that led to convictions and a jail sentence) taint the experience of listening to the music?

We can argue that it shouldn't, especially when what we are actually hearing is the sound made by many musicians working together, albeit shaped by the conductor. And this might be a very special sound (a Dutoit Ravel compilation that includes Ma Mere l'Oye was one of the Penguin Guide's 'Rosette' recordings). It seems very unfair on the other musicians that their considerable achievement could be erased by allegations about something that had nothing to do with them. And yet. As it happens, I placed an order for a secondhand copy of the 4 CD Dutoit/Montreal Ravel collection on Friday night before I read that article. The cover artwork is a smiling photo of Dutoit. Would I have made that purchase then had I read the article first? And will I be able to listen to the music now in quite the same way? Probably not.

I see, incidentally, that Dutoit has not been completely cancelled. He is due to appear this summer with the Verbier Festival Orchestra (for 'exceptional young orchestra musicians aged 18 to 28'), of which he was once Music Director (succeeding James Levine).

[Barbirollians]

Well I, for one, am tired of the John-Wilson-bashing on this forum so I'm going to stick up for him. I thought that that Walton 1st was very fine - just as good as Previn or Karabits. I also don't understand what people mean when they say things like, "just skates impressively over the surface". That was also said of Sir Malcolm Sargent, might have been said of Sir Thomas Beecham and possibly of Karajan, the implication being that they are somehow just a bit superficial. John Wilson's recent D & C doesn't strike me - and an awful lot of others - as some kind of glib run-through. To my way of thinking, he's a serious and thoughtful musician. I can only assume that it's snobbery about the fact that he comes from oop north and likes show tunes.

As I have lived up north for 40 years and like show tunes that ad hominem attack doesn’t apply to me.

It’s a personal response - I admire the playing of the S of L and their virtuosity but so far I have largely been unmoved by their recordings . I found the record of French orchestral pieces a particular example of this. I understand why they appeal to some but the skating over the surface is how I respond to the records of theirs I have heard and agree about that Walton 1.

[Barbirollians]

As I recall our former member Bryn had a similar response.

[Maclintick]

I was given the Wilson SACD as a present, adding to previous acquisitions - Cluytens, Monteux and Martinon. The Monteux is special I think, and he was well-served by the recording engineers. I know little about Wilson as a musician but I found no special insights. There are some aspects of the sound which are unsatisfactory - the balance being unnatural in places and likewise the sound levels. The Munch/BSO is my favourite version of the suite and the final section is incandescent. Here Wilson is merely bland.

You've accurately summed up my position on JW's Ravel discs, including Daphnis et Chloé, which also suffers from oddities in the balance commented on by forumistas in relation to Ma Mère L'Oye. Incidentally, I find ridiculous the accusation that disliking a JW recording or performance amounts to some kind of ad hominem attack, or that FoR3 members look down their noses at him because he's from "Oop North". A quick country-wide roundup of eminent conductors past-&-present, all knights of the realm, includes JW's fellow-Geordie Mark Elder, two Lancastrian baton-wielders in the very different shapes of Thomas Beecham and Simon Rattle, Chester's own Adrian Boult, Lincolnshire's Malcolm Sargent, Birmingham's Edward Downes -- yes, I know Brum won't count as sufficiently Northern for some. Perceptive classical music aficionados don't look down on any of this distinguished company because they weren't born Down South, as were, for instance, the Cockney Barbirolli and Surrey-born Colin Davis.

BTW, I have unreservedly enjoyed JW's Appalachian Spring recording with the BBC Philharmonic. Excellent performance and splendidly-balanced sound, with none of the quibbles I've alluded to in this thread.

[HighlandDougie]

Not an accusation but an assumption on my part. While I may be wholly misguided, little I have read in posts which have arrived post-my post has done much to change my no doubt erroneous views. I would stress, though, that no 'ad hominem' remarks were intended and my apologies if they have been taken as that.

[richardfinegold]

This thread has been teaching me a lot about U.K. Speech regionalisms. Y’all sound alike to we colonials. Now those Aussies…

[Maclintick]

Not an accusation but an assumption on my part. While I may be wholly misguided, little I have read in posts which have arrived post-my post has done much to change my no doubt erroneous views. I would stress, though, that no 'ad hominem' remarks were intended and my apologies if they have been taken as that.

I didn't mean to imply that you're guilty of an ad hominem attack on any other board members, HD. What I was attempting to challenge in post #81, probably imperfectly phrased & therefore open to misinterpretation, for which apologies, is the notion that admitting to disliking a JW performance or recording amounts to JW-bashing, or because he's from "Oop North" -- which would clearly be an unacceptably "ad hominem" attack on JW himself. I admire some of JW's recordings with the BBC Philharmonic. I don't admire the Ravel discs. Obviously selective judgments of this kind are the essence of BAL, regularly applied to recordings made by any or all of the eminent maestros in my list and others (#81). One may love Lenny's Mahler and hate his Brahms, for instance -- oh, unless you're Ed Seckerson of course...

[Ein Heldenleben]

At the very least matched last week by Alexandre Kantarow playing it as an encore on the relay (recorded!) of a Berlin concert. After Liszt PC.

Yep heard it . I think Alexander played a different section - the finale. Tremendous playing but possibly less technically demanding than the section AB played.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well I listened to the Wilson/SofL recording when it came out and (as far as I recall) thought everything was there except the indefinable extra ‘something’ that makes me want to listen to this music. I’m not tempted to return to it. (It reminded me of Hamelin’s recording of Albeniz’s Ibéria - all the notes glitteringly there but… something essential missing )

It was the Martinon/OdeP that I wanted to seek out after this BaL … which taught me a lot about what’s going on in the ballet, after having simply basked in the music for 30+ years.

I did attend a live performance (of the Suite perhaps, can’t remember) conducted by Rattle, and the conclusion was dazzling - so perhaps I should try his “BBC Phil” recording too

Re Iberia compare Hamelin with that recent historic Alicia De Larrocha historic recital . He has all the notes but she lives and breathes the music . Absolutely staggering playing - beyond virtuosity. Hamelin is a tremendous player but like Pollini not a single bar he’s played has ever moved me.

[Barbirollians]

Re Iberia compare Hamelin with that recent historic Alicia De Larrocha historic recital . He has all the notes but she lives and breathes the music . Absolutely staggering playing - beyond virtuosity. Hamelin is a tremendous player but like Pollini not a single bar he’s played has ever moved me.

Try Pollini’s Chopin Etudes on Testament recorded when he was very young and only much later agreed to their release and of course the Pollini/Kletzki Chopin PC No 1 but agree with you about most of his DG output.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Try Pollini’s Chopin Etudes on Testament recorded when he was very young and only much later agreed to their release and of course the Pollini/Kletzki Chopin PC No 1 but agree with you about most of his DG output.

Never really found the perfect Chopin Etudes - though Perahia’s is very good. I’ve come to the conclusion they don’t work as a complete set . Very, very few pianists can play both sets in one concert and I’m not sure it should even be attempted - it’s too wearing on fingers and listeners’ ears. It is a shame that Rubinstein never thought himself up to doing them as his playing has precisely the qualities that I think Pollini sometimes lacks. The penguin guide lauds the latter’s playing in the etudes (DG Set) as cool and precise and for me that’s the problem.

In the recent excellent Pianoforte documentary about the Warsaw Chopin competition we saw very good pianists playing a selection of the same etudes in the opening round . After 10 minutes of it I’d had enough - it was literally like show -jumping waiting for the hurdles to fall . The jury must have been going mad by the end of it all.

[Barbirollians]

Never really found the perfect Chopin Etudes - though Perahia’s is very good. I’ve come to the conclusion they don’t work as a complete set . Very, very few pianists can play both sets in one concert and I’m not sure it should even be attempted - it’s too wearing on fingers and listeners’ ears. It is a shame that Rubinstein never thought himself up to doing them as his playing has precisely the qualities that I think Pollini sometimes lacks. The penguin guide lauds the latter’s playing in the etudes (DG Set) as cool and precise and for me that’s the problem.

In the recent excellent Pianoforte documentary about the Warsaw Chopin competition we saw very good pianists playing a selection of the same etudes in the opening round . After 10 minutes of it I’d had enough - it was literally like show -jumping waiting for the hurdles to fall . The jury must have been going mad by the end of it all.

Sorry that was my point after the DG set the abandon and emotion of the Testament set was quite a shock to me.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Sorry that was my point after the DG set the abandon and emotion of the Testament set was quite a shock to me.

Must have a listen . Can’t believe MP would do that - abandonment I mean . In his book The Piano Jeremy Siepmann advances the theory that Pollini has never played a wrong note. The only other pianist he extends that honour to is …Mozart.