BaL 30.12.17 - Mozart: Symphony no. 38 in D, K.504 "Prague"

[cloughie]

.

... I picked up the six vols of the Norrington Stuttgart in ones and twos over the last months at reasonable prices from amazon - they seem to crop up pretty often.

This one with the Prague -

http://amzn.eu/1JURPFm

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Stuttgart Norrington recordings seem overpriced in a competitive market. The six CDs of Mozart symphonies if available at under £20 I might might just open my wallet but for now I'll settle for what I've got inc The 38th LSO Maag and LCP Norrington.

[jayne lee wilson]

HaHa, wish I'd taken 72 hours!

Which box set did you buy from Qobuz? I don't see one.

I could only see the separate issues on Qobuz, mostly without the (indispensable) booklets, so I got this instead.... price wise it isn't much more.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001IT75PK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I played No.34 tonight off Qobuz.... glorious, uplifting performance; the SWR/RN partnership became almost instinctive, and so intuitive. Very special.
Like the equally remarkable - and individual in their musical and tonal character - Orchestra Mozart/Abbado cycle, the orchestral response is lightning fast, yet never seems rushed or undisciplined.

[Barbirollians]

I find the apparent omission ( unless it happened when the postman had a parcel for me to sign for ) of any consideration of the early Philharmonia/Klemperer rather odd .

[Bryn]

I could only see the separate issues on Qobuz, mostly without the (indispensable) booklets, so I got this instead.... price wise it isn't much more.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001IT75PK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I played No.34 tonight off Qobuz.... glorious, uplifting performance; the SWR/RN partnership became almost instinctive, and so intuitive. Very special.
Like the equally remarkable - and individual in their musical and tonal character - Orchestra Mozart/Abbado cycle, the orchestral response is lightning fast, yet never seems rushed or undisciplined.

It will surprise no one here that I got the six individual discs as they were released (at discount prices which equate closely to the current price of the boxed set). The booklet notes are indeed pretty much indispensable, with contributions from both RN and Volker Scherliess.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Scoundrel!

The word 'cosseting' struck me as apt for the beginning. There was a softness about it. I prefer the sense of urgency, those razor sharp chattering SCO strings and, above all, the operatic drama of it. Pinnock too.

I prefer the Marriner in somehow achieving the best of all worlds, but Karajan's warm, luscious approach was most welcome in a different way. Bohm, on the other hand, seems downright dull.

[Cockney Sparrow]

It will surprise no one here that I got the six individual discs as they were released (at discount prices which equate closely to the current price of the boxed set). The booklet notes are indeed pretty much indispensable, with contributions from both RN and Volker Scherliess.

The PDF booklet notes are available on Naxos Music Library for the disc with no 38 on it (but to listen at apparently - stated - low bit rate streaming). ANd the 6 volumes/discs are available there (for those with access - label is SWR Classic, initial 'M' ; generally NML at http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...-library/page2 ) (Apologies for those who cannot/don't want to get free access via the Barbican Library, or if offered, via their local library service).

[french frank]

Karajan's warm, luscious approach was most welcome in a different way. Bohm, on the other hand, seems downright dull.

Mmmm, never thought of Mozart as 'warm and luscious'. Usually something dark and dramatic lurking, isn't there? 'Downright dull' a bit harsh on Böhm? I think I preferred him to HvK on this one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mmmm, never thought of Mozart as 'warm and luscious'. Usually something dark and dramatic lurking, isn't there? 'Downright dull' a bit harsh on Böhm? I think I preferred him to HvK on this one.

Surely any music is what the interpreter makes of it. Dots on a page are just that.

[cloughie]

Mmmm, never thought of Mozart as 'warm and luscious'. Usually something dark and dramatic lurking, isn't there? 'Downright dull' a bit harsh on Böhm? I think I preferred him to HvK on this one.

A lot of Mozart was warm and luscious before hipp!

[jayne lee wilson]

Reviewing Philippe Jordan's Beethoven 1 and 3 with the Vienna Symphony in this month's Gramophone, Richard Osborne has this to say about performance practice:

"In the notes....Jordan pays lip service to the preoccupations of our age: slimmed-down orchestras, fast metronomes, controlled vibrato, pointed articulation. In reality, such criteria date back not to the 1970s, but to the Beethoven-conducting of Toscanini and Erich Kleiber in the 1920s. And it is to this larger, less doctrinaire tradition that Jordan himself clearly belongs."

Absolutely. It's worth adding that HIPP-conductors are often very different from one another, and vary the re-creativity of their approach: to wit, those wide-ranging orchestral complements I noted in the SWR/Norrington Mozart series, from 15 strings in No.22, to - wait for it - 44 in the Prague Symphony itself. Not to mention often moderate and flexible tempi, and the remarkable warmth, affection and spontaneity of the playing. Certainly nothing doctrinaire about that cycle.

[french frank]

Surely any music is what the interpreter makes of it. Dots on a page are just that.

Of course, who can forget Anne Dudley's New Year Club Classical on Radio 3 a few years back? I'm quite sure there were people who thought it a much better way to play classical music (that's not a dig at anyone: it should be taken at face value, as what I mean)

A lot of Mozart was warm and luscious before hipp!

And a lot of people prefer it that way now (see above ⬆︎ ).

I missed out the personal pronoun: i.e. "I never thought of Mozart as 'warm and luscious'." I like it when there's a hint of danger …

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely any music is what the interpreter makes of it. Dots on a page are just that.

No, they're not - you and I have both seen decades of GCSE and "A"-Level students' "dots on pages" - no amount of "interpretation" could ever make them the equivalent of what Mozart's dots contain.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No, they're not - you and I have both seen decades of GCSE and "A"-Level students' "dots on pages" - no amount of "interpretation" could ever make them the equivalent of what Mozart's dots contain.

No indeed. There was one notable exception, when a GCSE student composed a set of variations for violin and orchestra, recording it with himself as violin soloist, accompanied by the local area youth orchestra. He did go on to Oxford and did rather well afterwards, though not as a composer.

[jayne lee wilson]

No, they're not - you and I have both seen decades of GCSE and "A"-Level students' "dots on pages" - no amount of "interpretation" could ever make them the equivalent of what Mozart's dots contain.

But without their performers, the dots are silent....

Does music exist without the vibration of air?

[cloughie]

But without their performers, the dots are silent....

Does music exist without the vibration of air?

Do you never read a piece of music and hear it in your head?...or think of a new tune in your head to be whistled, played or written down later?