BaL 24.02.24 - Ravel: Mother Goose [complete ballet]

[Maclintick]

I enjoyed it too and thought the Martinon very characterful. To my ears there's something about the recorded sound of the Wilson that didn't feel right until the final excerpt but altogether an excellent and informative short review.

Having just streamed Orch de Paris/Martinon I found I enjoyed it as much or possibly more than any version I've yet heard, for the characterful winds, the conductor's spot-on tempi, & what I can only feel as a "rightness" in the balance of orchestral parts, the sense of all the players instinctively knowing how their contributions dovetail into the overall ensemble ( apart from the bestial contra who rather over-eggs it in Les Entretiens ). Martinon recorded the suite with the CSO, and although the greater virtuosity of the Chicagoans tells, particularly in Laideronnette, the Paris recording sounds more idiomatic.

[MickyD]

Presumably Dutoit is still in disgrace. We never seem to hear those wonderful Montreal recordings on R3 these days.

Indeed not and what a marvellous catalogue it is. I've recently been listening to his Suppe and Offenbach discs, just fabulous.

[richardfinegold]

I enjoyed it too and thought the Martinon very characterful. To my ears there's something about the recorded sound of the Wilson that didn't feel right until the final excerpt but altogether an excellent and informative short review.

I have the Martinon/CSO disc. It is true demonstration character HiFi. I ordered the French set a few weeks back but not arrived yet.
I was finally able to locate Monteux/LSO on Apple and am listening with headphones now (I just purchased one of this Apple adapters so I can use wired headphones with my iPhone).

[Barbirollians]

Just listened to Monteux /LSO again . There is just an essential rightness and understanding of the music - a musical sensitivity that means he gets right to the heart of the music where Wilson just skates impressively over the surface .

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just listened to Monteux /LSO again . There is just an essential rightness and understanding of the music - a musical sensitivity that means he gets right to the heart of the music where Wilson just skates impressively over the surface .

It’s funny but completely coincidentally I watched the Wilson Walton First symphony from the Proms ‘23 a couple of weeks ago and I think you’re right about that surface effect. It was an extremely virtuosic performance but left me pretty unmoved. Wilson is however very good at getting a polished string sound that works so well in film music.There’s an obvious parallel with Previn who could both write for and conduct strings to get that luxurious sound . Thing is he could also conduct one of the best Walton first symphonies around.
That BBC four recording also features one the best Rach C Minor Piano concerto performances I’ve ever heard and a Firebird encore from Alim Beisembayev of such blistering virtuosity that if it wasn’t on tape before me I wouldn’t have believed a single pair of hands can do that .

[HighlandDougie]

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.

[Ein Heldenleben]

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.

Don’t get me wrong . Wilson is peerless in film music . Been to half a dozen of his concerts. His band once played Dancing In the Dark in I think an MGM arrangement with the emotional intensity of a Bruckner Adagio. It’s just that sometimes I don’t think his performances are that engaged. I get the same feeling sometimes listening to , amongst others Maurizio Pollini , Ella Fitzgerald and , since you mentioned him , Herbert Von Karajan. I never got that feeling with Beecham - his La Boheme will never be bettered for precisely that reason (along with Bjorling and De Los Angeles).

[silvestrione]

That BBC four recording also features one the best Rach C Minor Piano concerto performances I’ve ever heard and a Firebird encore from Alim Beisembayev of such blistering virtuosity that if it wasn’t on tape before me I wouldn’t have believed a single pair of hands can do that .

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.

[silvestrione]

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.

Absolutely. I couldn't quite believe the negative comments. And adventurous too: Bliss, Berkeley, Pound and other composers I hadn't heard of.
I love the Bliss Music for Strings especially.

(But then, if you don't respond to Pollini or Karajan, you're attuned perhaps to something more obviously interpretatively individual, moment by moment. Nevertheless, the opening example yesterday of the Prelude was wonderfully evocative)

[richardfinegold]

I liked the Monteux, which is a very different kind of performance than the roughly contemporaneous Paray and Martinon/CSO. The Chinoisserie movement in particular isn’t played for brilliance but more for atmosphere and was particularly effective

[cloughie]

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.

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?

[Roger Webb]

Having had a surfeit of 'Goose' (of the Mother sort) over a couple of days I've put on Florent Schmitt's charming 'oriental' ballet Le Petit Elfe Ferme-l'Oeil, - try the final movt.'Le parapluie chinois'......see where that came from?

Luckily the cassoulet I'm preparing for tonight has the alternative of canard to the oie, often an alternative main constituent of this delicious dish.

[Maclintick]

I liked the Monteux, which is a very different kind of performance than the roughly contemporaneous Paray and Martinon/CSO. The Chinoisserie movement in particular isn’t played for brilliance but more for atmosphere and was particularly effective

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 ?

[Retune]

Presumably Dutoit is still in disgrace. We never seem to hear those wonderful Montreal recordings on R3 these days.

This prompted me to look up what he has been accused of, which turns out to be absolutely appalling, with serious allegations (one extremely serious) from multiple independent witnesses. Unless further information comes to light, I imagine that disgrace will be permanent.

[Sir Velo]

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?