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

[cloughie]

I gave it a good word in an earlier post. I still think Sir Neville and the ASMF is the perfect Mozart orchestra. Committed and musical throughout - always respectful and thoughtful, and never trying to prove a point. A very fine cycle, with an excellent Prague.

I agree with you and one of the first Mozart recordings that drew me to Marriner was his Argo recording of 25 and 29 which has stood the test of time very well! In addition to the Philips set, the last four were also recorded again for EMI.

[subcontrabass]

Also, take a look at the instruments illustrated here.

Those all look like modern instruments.

[kea]

Since this is my favourite Mozart symphony I was surprised to find out that I only have one recording of it (Mackerras & SCO). I'll definitely look into anything profiled in this episode.

[kea]

I'm not too fussed over the question of repeats, but those who give the full clutch of them do add significantly to the grandeur and majesty of this wonderful symphony. However, that is not quite the full story because I strongly suspect that in his SCO recording Mackerras is actually having the same 'take' repeated.

Exposition - 2:57
Exposition repeat - 2:53
2nd half - 4:20
2nd half repeat - 4:22 [without resonance]

So, no. He does treat the repeats fairly literally but this is also a feature in his live recordings (eg the Schubert D944 with the Philharmonia).

[MickyD]

A good time to fess-up.

For years I've skipped the minuet in Mozart symphonies and quartets (and sometimes Haydn, too).

Part of the reason is that as a schoolboy and avid radio listener, I would listen to the radio for more than an hour before I went to school. In October 1974, The Wombles released 'Minuetto Allegretto'. In due course it drove me mad and furnished me, from then on, with a hatred of minuets. That song single was even worse than 'Remember You're A Womble'

Ha ha, what a coincidence - for some bizarre reason I found myself singing 'Minuetto Allegretto' in the shower the other day after some 40 years!! God knows what that says about what is stored in my brain!

[Bryn]

A good time to fess-up.

For years I've skipped the minuet in Mozart symphonies and quartets (and sometimes Haydn, too).

Part of the reason is that as a schoolboy and avid radio listener, I would listen to the radio for more than an hour before I went to school. In October 1974, The Wombles released 'Minuetto Allegretto'. In due course it drove me mad and furnished me, from then on, with a hatred of minuets. That song single was even worse than 'Remember You're A Womble'

Ypu were very foolish in avoiding the Minuetto Allegretto. You were risking an early death. Remember, "If you Minuetto Allegretto you will live to be old".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Ypu were very foolish in avoiding the Minuetto Allegretto. You were risking an early death. Remember, "If you Minuetto Allegretto you will live to be old".

I don't recall ever having heard it, so should I anticipate imminent death?

Good for the Wombles for producing something that's not in 4/4 time. Almost everything in the world of popular music is in common time.

[Bryn]

I don't recall ever having heard it, so should I anticipate imminent death?

Good for the Wombles for producing something that's not in 4/4 time. Almost everything in the world of popular music is in common time.

Love the bottom comment from FootballGaffesGalore re. the repeat issue.

[teamsaint]

I don't recall ever having heard it, so should I anticipate imminent death?

Good for the Wombles for producing something that's not in 4/4 time. Almost everything in the world of popular music is in common time.

A lot is in Common Time granted.

Here are some punk rockers doing something interestingish, though.

[french frank]

Love the bottom comment from FootballGaffesGalore re. the repeat issue.

Bryn, After that I think you have to go on my Ignore List

I've been autodidacting on S 38 and absorbing to satiety more versions than I've kept track of. At the moment Mackerras (SCO rather than PCO) has it. Definitely no (not sure TS thinks the same ), Jacobs and Freiburgers. I only possess Pinnock.

[Karafan]

Would it be perversity writ large for me to opt for Harnoncourt with the Concertgebouw...splendidly spirited playing and conducting. He had plenty of 'snap in his celery' that day!
K

[Stanfordian]

Would it be perversity writ large for me to opt for Harnoncourt with the Concertgebouw...splendidly spirited playing and conducting. He had plenty of 'snap in his celery' that day!
K

Hiya Karafan,

I too greatly enjoy playing Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This is the Warner Mozart '250th Anniversary Edition' a set that includes Harnoncourt conducting Symphonies No's 25, 26, 28-36, 38-41.

[jayne lee wilson]

Orchestra Mozart/Abbado...
Freiburg Baroque/Jacobs...
O18thC/Bruggen.....

...all sampled extensively via Qobuz HiFi, all include the 2nd-half repeats in the outer movements (which it turns out a surprising number of recordings do).

... suffice to say, I quickly tracked down 2ndhand original issue CDs of the Abbado and Bruggen (Edinburgh Classical and MusicMaggies), delighted to find the 1990 issue of the latter as those earlier Philips discs always seem to sound great. Spacious, spring-water clear and coolly beautiful, perfectly set in its acoustic, the Bruggen struck me within a few minutes as truly exceptional in sound and substance, probably the one for me.... it's a sound and interpretative approach we've come to know and love well from their Beethoven, Haydn and Rameau recordings.

Somewhat puzzled by the Jacobs.... immediately drawn to the sonorities and virtuosity of the stunning Freiburgers (a band whose recordings of Mozart or CPE Bach I almost always enjoy) the lively, compelling way Jacobs has with dynamics, phrase and tempi, the whole effect in the first movement was oddly...episodic.
I don't mind the brisk and crisp adagio, but the finale came to seem, for all the pace and power, a shade mechanical. It's certainly got go, but where does its go go to...? As Gudrun Brangwen almost said.
Perhaps a shame Petra Müllejans wasn't on the podium, or at least directing from, for this one.
(I've not heard the Jacobs Jupiter (c/w the 38) though I note that it reviews rather better....)

[Richard Barrett]

With all the fuss here about this symphony, which isn't one of my Mozart favourites by any means, I thought I'd better have a listen too, and the one I found most immediately attractive on the Qobuz list was Brüggen. I wasn't disappointed; the performance, as usual with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, is luminous and well-shaped in every way. I still find the first movement somewhat lacking in a centre, if that makes sense, and I found myself wishing that Harnoncourt hadn't got around to it in his late CMW recordings, given that the one of nos. 39-41 is so wonderful. I do have Pinnock on CD too, but from tomorrow I'm away from home for a week so that will have to await my return.

[cloughie]

A lot is in Common Time granted.

Here are some punk rockers doing something interestingish, though.

But the Stranglers weren't Punk Rockers, don't kid yourself! They can't be - I like them!