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

[Barbirollians]

That's actually in interesting way of looking at it.

Although I'm no fan of exposition repeats, the practice of repeating the development/recapitulation is frankly ridiculous. I know others will disagree with this, but when you reach the last bar, it's no time for
deciding to go back and replay half the act again. It's structurally nonsensical.

My favourites are that Philharmonia/Klemperer version on Testament and the SCO/ Mackerras .

[subcontrabass]

That's actually in interesting way of looking at it.

Although I'm no fan of exposition repeats, the practice of repeating the development/recapitulation is frankly ridiculous. I know others will disagree with this, but when you reach the last bar, it's no time for
deciding to go back and replay half the act again. It's structurally nonsensical.

Doesn't that depend on whether you consider sonata form to be binary or ternary?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Doesn't that depend on whether you consider sonata form to be binary or ternary?

Clearly, sonata form was derived from binary form dances, but Mozart's 38th symphony is decidedly not three dances.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, there are rather a lot of them! Both halves of both outer movements repeated and a 10 or 11 minute adagio.......... it will take a pretty sharp listener to pick out subtle variation in all those notes ..

I just played the Prague CO/Mackerras account and all I could reliably observe was a greater excitability in each repeat, especially towards the movement conclusions as you'd expect... but I wasn't always sure, given the sheer length of it all. Listen again!
Still, a terrific, physically exhilarating recording in the Hall of Artists 1987, even better than I remembered.. wonderful playing. Wonderfully motoric, engine-room effect from the strings in the 1st moment development!

I'll try the (even longer - 17"+ for the 1st movement ) SCO version later on this week, I hope....

So to confirm - the exposition/2ndhalf repeats are indeed subtly intensified in the PSO recording - greater intensity, urgency and dynamism 2nd time around. Even clearer 2nd listen around tonight...!
Very well done - good use of the double-repeat principle.... which increases the sense of ritornello in the first movement too.

Having done this in 1987 - all repeats, used to expressive effect - does anyone seriously think Mackerras - of all the people! - would have told the Linn engineers, 20 years later, to just edit in the previously-taped exposition? What, was he tired that day, or feeling his age or something? And this is LINN we're discussing here, so proud of all they do, musically and technically. Come on now.
I'll listen to the SCO one soon - not just for this reason, more because the Prague SO account is so glorious I was revelling in all the repeats.... I think you need the longer adagio to find respite after the endless recycling energies of the opening adagio-allegro. Doesn't the finale often feel rather short anyway, without the 2nd repeat?

***

I only really became aware of the 2nd-half repeat with Harnoncourt's epic, and radical, set of the Haydn Paris Symphonies with VCM in 2007. Fairly stunned at their impact there, but of course it is a superb interpretation and recording. More, more, encore!
Recently anyone following the Haydn 2032 series will have heard them regularly and - I hope - enjoyed them as much as I did. My current favourite Haydn cycle (which I've listened to endlessly in recent weeks) is Thomas Fey with the Heidelberger Sinfoniker - where, yes, he almost always does the 2nd half, outer movement repeat, often to thrilling, tension-building effect. I became so accustomed to this musical feast that, returning to my beloved Bruggen in the same works I felt short-changed without it! All is indeed relative.

But no it's not nonsense, structural or otherwise.... more metaphorical or metaphysical, of endless recycling and return, the seasons and the tides and life-cycles that are always alike-yet-different.... that the concept of conclusion, of a teleology, a sense of an ending, is merely a beautiful illusion. We feel it, because we make a narrative of our lives; we know we must die. But, everything comes around again.
I think this is what Beethoven was getting at in the finale of his 5th Symphony, when the scherzo returns in medias res of the finale. (Which is most meaningful if you play all the repeats of scherzo and finale!). You may win the battle, but never the war....

[richardfinegold]

As I remember it (some years since I heard them) Klemps's Mozart Symphonies were remarkably "forward looking" in this matter - much better than Karajan's, IMO (though Herbie's Prague - which Bernstein regarded as "the finest" - benefits from NOT having a Minuet movement. HvK just couldn't conduct a decent Minuet ). For "big band", 20th Century instruments (and how!) I relish Bernstein with the VPO on DG - zips along, and includes every repeat.

I'm keen to find another HIPP recording; one that's as zesty as the Bernstein - I have JEGgers (a bit fierce) and ter Linden (a bit light). I thought Kuijken had recorded it with La Petite Bande, but if so, I can't find it now.

It’s nice to be able to agree with you—and Barbs—on something again. The idea of Klemperer in Mozart should promote some skepticism amongst the uninitiated, but his Mozart Symphonies, despite having a few anachronisms, are very invigorating.

[cloughie]

It’s nice to be able to agree with you—and Barbs—on something again. The idea of Klemperer in Mozart should promote some skepticism amongst the uninitiated, but his Mozart Symphonies, despite having a few anachronisms, are very invigorating.

[MickyD]

I remember a classic case of a repeated take, the slow movement in Haydn's symphony no. 38 in Derek Solomon's cycle for CBS. Someone coughed very lightly during the movement and you can hear it again in the repeat. At the time I was really surprised that it got waived through.

I still love Hogwood's Mozart 38 - a bit ragged compared to other later HIP recordings, but so much excitement in those pioneering discs.

[Barbirollians]

I shall now throw in a favourite that Hippites may not approve of the Columbia SO/Walter

[richardfinegold]

I shall now throw in a favourite that Hippites may not approve of the Columbia SO/Walter

Those were made late in Walter’s life, after a severe heart attack. The contemporary criticism of Walter was that when he came to a tender moment, he melted. I haven’t heard those Mozart recordings since I was teenager and first started listening to Mozart, long before the HIPP movement got rolling, but I definitely preferred Klemperer at the time, and when I first started reading about the goals of the HIPP movement and the practices that they found offensive, Walter’s Mozart immediately came to mind.
I heard a live performance of the Jupiter on a radio show devoted to historical recordings on WFMT. I started listening after the first movement had begun and was surprised to hear that the Conductor was Walter (circa 1950). Yes, the sweet stuff was sweet, but not the aural equivalent of an overripe cantaloupe. I’ve read some Critics State the Walter became much slower, to the point of flaccidity, in his last few years

[cloughie]

I shall now throw in a favourite that Hippites may not approve of the Columbia SO/Walter

There you go Barbs stir the pot. Lively hipp is fine - it's the weary, woolly kind I dislike!

[vinteuil]

.

... looking forward to this. I have the obvious HIPP ones and some of the more-well-uphostered big-band versions, but many that other forumistas value seem to have passed me by. I suspect that this may be a more expensive BaL than some of the recent ones...



.

[Barbirollians]

Those were made late in Walter’s life, after a severe heart attack. The contemporary criticism of Walter was that when he came to a tender moment, he melted. I haven’t heard those Mozart recordings since I was teenager and first started listening to Mozart, long before the HIPP movement got rolling, but I definitely preferred Klemperer at the time, and when I first started reading about the goals of the HIPP movement and the practices that they found offensive, Walter’s Mozart immediately came to mind.
I heard a live performance of the Jupiter on a radio show devoted to historical recordings on WFMT. I started listening after the first movement had begun and was surprised to hear that the Conductor was Walter (circa 1950). Yes, the sweet stuff was sweet, but not the aural equivalent of an overripe cantaloupe. I’ve read some Critics State the Walter became much slower, to the point of flaccidity, in his last few years

The Prague is terrifically vigorous if a bit big and for some tastes . I think the idea that Walter post heart attack in 1957 produced weary , flaccid recordings is a critical cliche of extraordinary laziness. Consider the Mahler 9 from 1961 for a start , the Beethoven and Brahms cycles - the latter is a definite improvement to my ears on the rather harsh 1950s NYPO accounts .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My fave? Pinnock. Although he's slow burning throughout, it is definitely smouldering! His unexcitable approach reaps dividends the more you listen.

Turns out that I have this, too - it's in the Big Box (as is the Abbado/OM). It's very good - and another that shows the logical mastery of Mozart's score when all the repeats are observed - but ... I'd like one with some of the impudence, the vulgarity even, suggested by Bernstein: those "spots of commonness" that lift a performance into the sublime.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My own library choice in this would be Abbado/Orchestra Mozart in a performance that ticks all the boxes as well as a few more I wasn't aware of, making it at once a truly great symphony by a master of the form.

It is good, isn't it! And he does the Devlt/Recap repeat in the First Movement, too!! Wonderful. I wouldn't be at all surprised/annoyed if this gets the "modern" instrument recommendation - though my own loyalties to Lennie remain. But this is damn fine, damn fine indeed.

[Beef Oven!]

Turns out that I have this, too - it's in the Big Box (as is the Abbado/OM). It's very good - and another that shows the logical mastery of Mozart's score when all the repeats are observed - but ... I'd like one with some of the impudence, the vulgarity even, suggested by Bernstein: those "spots of commonness" that lift a performance into the sublime.

Can't argue with that, but there are many ways to skin a cat.

In relation to your earlier comments about this symphony being his best, I'M beginning to see it that way too.

I don't agree about the repeats in the first movement