BaL 12.10.19 - Mozart: Serenade no. 10 in B flat “Gran Partita” K361

[MickyD]

Yes, she mentioned Zefiro on the shortlist - all to the good. And yes, it was a good survey all-round. But only one excerpt from any HIPPs version was played (Zefiro), and the other 3 versions mentioned were too summarily dismissed, with phrases like "squeaks and squawks" and "still wrestling with their instruments" sounding somewhat unhelpfully clichéd, generalised and unfair.

Here's Stanley Sadie in Gramophone, 4/89, in his review/comparison of Hogwood and Bruggen:
"Two new versions of one of the most taxing pieces in the wind repertoire, both played with total professionalism, and technically with nothing to fear from comparison with modern instruments..."

It's also worth noting that the Zefiro performance is not that new, some 22 years old now, originally released on the Astrée label. I am happy with Hogwood, but also have a fondness for the HIP recording by Octophoros on Accent, featuring some splendid wind players from the continent.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I can't quite see what the fuss is about, actually.

Simple justice, really - there are many excellent HIPP recordings of the work, and any suggestion that the recordings led by, for example, Hogwood, Herreweghe, Bruggens (and Halstead) feature "squeaks & squawks" or players "wrestling with their instruments" is simply incorrect and unjust, leaving listeners who don't know these recordings with a completely false idea of the very great merits of what they actually sound like. Silves is correct - I, for one, haven't listened to the programme (I stopped, after 45 years as an avid listener, when it became the Andrew McGregor Show), and I am responding to the reported comments of Ms Devenald - as, I hope, I had already made clear. Nobody who did listen has suggested that these were inaccurately reported.

Herreweghe's recording is YouTubable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUACDnehZFU

... so plenty of opportunity for any imperfections of playing can easily be given chapter & verse (or, rather, precise timings). If they can be found.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I, for one, haven't listened to the programme

Which means that I don't know which recording "won" - references here to a "Berlin" recording narrows the field, but ...

[Pulcinella]

Which means that I don't know which recording "won" - references here to a "Berlin" recording narrows the field, but ...

Ah: red in Alpie's list, with runner up in orange (must admit not looking that great a colour contrast even to my unoperated on eyes!).

[MickyD]

Simple justice, really - there are many excellent HIPP recordings of the work, and any suggestion that the recordings led by, for example, Hogwood, Herreweghe, Bruggens (and Halstead) feature "squeaks & squawks" or players "wrestling with their instruments" is simply incorrect and unjust, leaving listeners who don't know these recordings with a completely false idea of the very great merits of what they actually sound like. Silves is correct - I, for one, haven't listened to the programme (I stopped, after 45 years as an avid listener, when it became the Andrew McGregor Show), and I am responding to the reported comments of Ms Devenald - as, I hope, I had already made clear. Nobody who did listen has suggested that these were inaccurately reported.

Herreweghe's recording is YouTubable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUACDnehZFU

... so plenty of opportunity for any imperfections of playing can easily be given chapter & verse (or, rather, precise timings). If they can be found.

Thank you, ferney, I 'll give it a hearing tonight. I notice one comment on Amazon that says it is the best period instrument performance by far - I seem to recall the reviewer in yesterday's programme abruptly saying that it 'didn't work'.

[vinteuil]

Which means that I don't know which recording "won" - references here to a "Berlin" recording narrows the field, but ...

... I believe it was the Berlin Philharmonic Winds, the 2005 recording, with Albrecht Mayer?

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ah: red in Alpie's list, with runner up in orange (must admit not looking that great a colour contrast even to my unoperated on eyes!).

That doesn't show on my computer (might be the limited vision) - and finding the List now that it's no longer an "OP" (it's post #28 for anyone else having difficulty) isn't easy now.

Perhaps just easier if somebody just told me/us what the winner was ... ?

[vinteuil]

Perhaps just easier if somebody just told me/us what the winner was ... ?

,,, for ferney :

... I believe it was the Berlin Philharmonic Winds, the 2005 recording, with Albrecht Mayer?

.

[ardcarp]

Also for Ferney...I'm listening to the Herrewegher on period instruments (at A440) and thoroughly enjoying it. I've also read one of those Amazon reviewer's comments, which seems well-informed and intelligent:

Recorded on original instruments as long ago as 1995, this coupling has already had at least three issues but now appears yet again elegantly repackaged in the "hm gold" series with trilingual notes in a cardboard, black and gold slipcase rather than the usual plastic casing. The sound was always excellent: rich and full with a slight halo of reverberation around the instruments, enhancing yet also softening the blare and bluster of the natural valveless horns so expertly played here by members of the "Harmonie de l'Orchestre des Champs-Èlysées".

I have never yet heard anything conducted by Philippe Herreweghe that I don't like and he has long been for me the "go-to" conductor to hear HIP with heart, soul and taste, especially in Bach. The performance is pitched at 440 Hz; otherwise we are clearly hearing a period style account with none of the disadvantages sometimes attendant on more zealous period versions.

It seems to me that Herreweghe catches perfectly throughout the playful and mercurial admixture of the jolly and the melancholy moods which alternate in this miraculous work. The opening "Largo" starts with a plaintive tune for the clarinet accompanied by almost comical "oompahs", then the "Molto allegro", perhaps not altogether surprisingly, echoes Haydn's Symphony No.31 "Hornsignal". The tubbier timbre of the original instruments lends a certain earthy, agrarian earnestness to the "Menuetto" where ideally we want more urbanity; Marriner with the ASMF plays here with more wit and abandon.

The crucial "Adagio" opens with what is surely one of the most heavenly yet unlikely melodies Mozart ever penned, as the oboe floats in over the squeeze-box ostinato. Here, the music is played with classical restraint, whereas Marriner is slightly freer and subtler, allowing the oboe to creep in more delicately. There is no lack of liveliness, however, in the semiquaver passages for bassoon in the "Allegretto" of the fifth movement or the finale and the gorgeous sixth variation of the "Andante", with the clarinet again singing above the watery, bubbling lower voices has all the gnomic, numinous quality one could wish.



My highlights in bold. (Wish Marriner had been given some time yesterday.) Not a squeak to be heard.

Afterthought: I wonder if Herrewegher's somewhat mechanical Adagio mov't would have had quite the same effect as soundtrack to 'Amadeus'?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

,,, for ferney :

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And thanks to ardy, too - on matters of taste, I would disagree with the characterisation of Herreweghe's Adagio as "mechanical", but such preferences are the stuff of endless argument (it seems that I gave an ASMF recording more favourable comments in my #57 than was offered on the BaL? Not sure if that is the Marriner recording you refer to - he isn't mentioned on the big box cardboard sleeve) . The point that got me so cross is the incorrect assertion that the players on the Herreweghe recording (and, by implication, Bruggens, Hogwood, Halstead, and others) were somehow lacking in technique. Objectively, this is a demonstrably false assertion.

I'll shut up now.

[Petrushka]

In Ferney's defence can I just say that I too had trouble locating the 'winner'. There are three (I think) BPO Winds recordings (on EMI/Warner, DG and Orfeo) and when I put in the catalogue number from the Record Review website Amazon didn't recognise it. However, Presto did but it turns out to be download only anyway so I'll stick with Marriner and Halstead.

[vinteuil]

In Ferney's defence can I just say that I too had trouble locating the 'winner'. There are three (I think) BPO Winds recordings (on EMI/Warner, DG and Orfeo) and when I put in the catalogue number from the Record Review website Amazon didn't recognise it. However, Presto did but it turns out to be download only anyway so I'll stick with Marriner and Halstead.

... is it this one?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Serenades-Ensemble-K-361-Partita/dp/B00G2JAAUI

.

[Pulcinella]

In Ferney's defence can I just say that I too had trouble locating the 'winner'. There are three (I think) BPO Winds recordings (on EMI/Warner, DG and Orfeo) and when I put in the catalogue number from the Record Review website Amazon didn't recognise it. However, Presto did but it turns out to be download only anyway so I'll stick with Marriner and Halstead.

Ah! That might explain something.
I streamed the DG one (just from an ensemble/artist search in Deezer) and was somewhat underwhelmed; hadn't realised that a different recording had been chosen.

[Petrushka]

... is it this one?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Serenades-Ensemble-K-361-Partita/dp/B00G2JAAUI

.

Yes, that's the one ok. It matches with the catalogue number on the RR site.

Incidentally, surprised that the Vienna Wind Soloists haven't recorded this work and there appears to be just the Furtwangler recording featuring members of the VPO.