BaL 23.11.19 - Haydn: Symphony no. 102

[jayne lee wilson]

Maybe it’s just me, but everything Harnoncourt touches seems to turn to sludge.

I'm afraid, how can I break it to you gently.....it really is just you.......

So enter thee into religious retreat
Take only the Harnoncourt Sony, Intégrale
And Complete

For forty days and forty nights your soul
Will be filled
With instruction

In Musical and Spiritual Delights

[HighlandDougie]

The omission of any mention of Fey, though, was something of a surprise.

I've just retrieved it from the metaphorical back of the cupboard and, in view of SW's comments about the tempo of the minuet and the trio not needing to be wildly different, I guess that Fey's dramatic (and, in my view, mannered) rallentando in moving from minuet to trio may well have scuppered his chances of being included. And, at the risk of being teased again by Bryn for complaining about recording quality, the admittedly clear but dry and boxy recording does the performance few favours (although the spirited final movement almost redeems it). So back in the cupboard it goes.

[jayne lee wilson]

That does surprise me HD - off the current Qobuz Studio stream, the 16/44.1 Fey 102 sounds warm, immediate but not too close, with a pleasingly natural, not especially curtailed decay.

I'd love someone to define "mannered"....in musical reviewing terms.... does it mean much more than "tempo/phrase shifts/changes I dislike"?
What and where is the touchstone?

I guess I'm just sad no-one else seems to hear Fey for what it is - to my ears and heartbeat wonderfully inventive and playful! Joy all over!
Its playing now, sounds as good as ever....alive in every bar...I love those trio ornaments (never heard anyone else attempt this in any other reading this week...yet...but if you let 102/iv run on into the 104 intro - suddenly we have majestic grandeur and power! Some contrast! These guys really know what they're doing...)

I said elsewhere recently that some recordings offer a pleasurable paradox, in sounding as if they might play it differently the next day...
That's part of my attraction to Fey and his stunning band - a sense of creativity, fluidity, shape-changing moment-to-moment......the more recordings we have around us to stream or buy, the more this makes perfect sense to my ears.....Fey and his band always seem to make it new...

Anyway, kick-off approaching.... run the rule over Goodman later....

[Pianorak]

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDH55127

Seems you can also order the CD from here for £6.50 as well...

Just ordered, £8.25 incl. p&p. Thanks Jayne.

[teamsaint]

I always enjoy listening to Sarah Walker.

Is the repertoire a speciality for her? I suspect she would be (even) better on , say C20 piano music.

[edashtav]

Just ordered, £8.25 incl. p&p. Thanks Jayne.

Ditto: I hope you're on a good percentage, Jayne.
My copy has Windsor Castle thrown in : perhaps the Royal Family are having a clear out.

[Lordgeous]

I wonder if there's any benefit to the listener with these things being broadcast live? The cock-up with the second Goodman extract could easily have been edited out and replaced if this had been recorded.

I've often wondered if BAL WAS live or recorded. Now we know. On another note(!), does it not seem a trifle strange that AmcG and presenter always seem to agree on everything?!

[Master Jacques]

I've just retrieved it from the metaphorical back of the cupboard and, in view of SW's comments about the tempo of the minuet and the trio not needing to be wildly different, I guess that Fey's dramatic (and, in my view, mannered) rallentando in moving from minuet to trio may well have scuppered his chances of being included. And, at the risk of being teased again by Bryn for complaining about recording quality, the admittedly clear but dry and boxy recording does the performance few favours (although the spirited final movement almost redeems it). So back in the cupboard it goes.

Yes... having listened to Fey's 102nd on Prime this afternoon, I'm sorry to say that from about two minutes in, the loudest voice in my head was that well-known critic of Classical Music, Kenneth Williams. And what was he saying? "Stop muckin' about!!"

This mannered, fussy and interventionalist reading is certainly very far from my idea of how to play Haydn. I found it both old-fashioned and pedantic. And as for the sugar-box recording and some oddly approximate playing (first flute a particular culprit) ... well, you get the picture. Not for me, I'm afraid.

[Master Jacques]

I always enjoy listening to Sarah Walker.

Is the repertoire a speciality for her? I suspect she would be (even) better on , say C20 piano music.

As she chose a "Joyce Hatto" recording of some solo piano work or other as her BaL choice, just before the storm broke (I can't recall now which piano work) I guess she's been warned off that particular turf!

[doversoul1]

I always enjoy listening to Sarah Walker.

Is the repertoire a speciality for her? I suspect she would be (even) better on , say C20 piano music.

Walker studied music at Royal Holloway, University of London and Reading University, and in 1995 gained a doctorate in English experimental music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Walker_(music_broadcaster)

[Bryn]

I always enjoy listening to Sarah Walker.

Is the repertoire a speciality for her? I suspect she would be (even) better on , say C20 piano music.

As with many whose prime interest is experimental music, she has a decidedly catholic approach to music. She most likely took to Haydn during a fairly early stage of her music education. To me, with Haydn, it's a case once bitten . . . As you may see from her online profile, she is also a piano teacher and author/composer of a series of introductory music book for children, concentrating on electronic keyboards, rather than mechanical pianos, recognising the great likelihood of access to such instruments. Haydn's keyboard music is bound to feature in her teaching. Would I be right in thinking you have read her Leonaro piece on the Engish Experimental Piano tradition, or her PhD thesis online? Oh, and she also plays keyboard in a local semi-pro jazz band, something which gets reflected in the Sunday Morning programme. It is only fair that I mention that she interviewed me for a Radio experimental online 'postcard' feature back in 2001 (long taken down, thank goodness, though I see that Tony Harris refers to it, with a long-defunct URL, in his Cardew book).

[Bryn]

As she chose a "Joyce Hatto" recording of some solo piano work or other as her BaL choice, just before the storm broke (I can't recall now which piano work) I guess she's been warned off that particular turf!

I think you will find she has done at least one futher Messiaen BaL since then. Are you not aware that the recording she chose has since been identified as a slightly modified clone of the recording by Paul Kim, whose Messiaen piano survey on the slightly esoteric Centaur label has since been highly acclaimed by many? If one is presented with a CD to review, one is obliged to take its accreditation at face value. Bryce Morrison, in The Gramophone also praised the recording to the skies, similarly accepting the attribution to the, as we now know, dying Hatto. Under its due attribution to Paul Kim, it is one of my favourite recordings of Vingt Regards, though the more opportunities I get to here the work performed, the better. Here's hoping Ian Pace makes a decent pair of fists of it at City University next month.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes... having listened to Fey's 102nd on Prime this afternoon, I'm sorry to say that from about two minutes in, the loudest voice in my head was that well-known critic of Classical Music, Kenneth Williams. And what was he saying? "Stop muckin' about!!"

This mannered, fussy and interventionalist reading is certainly very far from my idea of how to play Haydn. I found it both old-fashioned and pedantic. And as for the sugar-box recording and some oddly approximate playing (first flute a particular culprit) ... well, you get the picture. Not for me, I'm afraid.

If this is Amazon Prime the lossy bitrate (max 256 kbps, which I can't enjoy at all) won't give an accurate critical picture of the SQ (which is fine here, as I said, and I've heard this recording several times now on the usual rig, in isolation and comparatively with the 8 or 9 others I've concentrated on this week.. ) or even the playing itself .... or are you listening on the lossless "Amazon Music HD" platform?

How exactly is it "old-fashioned"? With reference to what definition of "modern"...?
Where does the flautist slip up?

Still surprised at the criticisms this 102 is getting, though..... more listening opinions (off lossless or CD) very much welcomed...!

***

other views....http://www.musicweb-international.co...on_HC16001.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Apr/Haydn_London_HC16001_DC.htm

Gramophone 5/19 (DT).

[antongould]

Quite enjoyed the BAL ..... liked the Abbado I heard and delighted to find I had it in the Abbado Box Set - as Bobby Ball would say “That will do for me T ......”

[Goon525]

Well I’ve just listened to the Fey, somewhat prompted by comments above. (I should say I’d probably only listen to this symphony (great through it is) once or twice a decade - there are, after all, 103 others, not to mention A+B!) But I’m too mean to buy the winner as it’s not available for streaming as it’s on Hyperion. I have at least Tate, Beecham and A Fischer in my collection, but last listened to the Minkowski, which I enjoyed more than JLW did. So to Fey - a delight for those who know the symphony quite well, oozing with life, energy, electricity, all that good stuff. A bit eccentric at times, some of the tempi very quick indeed, some phrasing a little quirky. But - and this important to me - if I hear a middle of the road performance of something I know quite well, my listening can go into a sort of auto-pilot, which I know isn’t healthy. There was never any danger of that here. The sound, incidentally, is somewhat reverberant, a little reminiscent of the Fischer, series, but better than that. A very wide but not terribly deep stereo spread, with full value given to the divided violins. There’s a sense of listening to a very good orchestra, perhaps not in the first class, but with oodles of character. I’m delighted to have heard it, but I can see why it might not be a ‘safe’ library choice.