BaL 11.06.22 - Debussy: La Mer

[Barbirollians]

…and with Boult and Barbirolli around at the same time our luck was fourfold!

Who one might think as a rather better pair of conductors than B and S. Barbirolli despised Beecham considering him poisonous .

As for FXR - his Symphonie Fantastique I found disappointing - lovely sounds but ordinary performance.

[Barbirollians]

He chose Halle/Elder!

Which is very good indeed.

[mikealdren]

Quite a series of achievements for someone who died 61 years ago!

Though never HIPP, quite the opposite, though as you said Held, he did however add greatly the popularity of many works by Handel, Haydn and Mozart,

Not HIPP but many of his recordings do still stand up well unlike some of his contemporaries (and indeed successors) with his lightness of touch and sprightly rhythms.

[cloughie]

Not HIPP but many of his recordings do still stand up well unlike some of his contemporaries (and indeed successors) with his lightness of touch and sprightly rhythms.

Schubert 5, Haydn 101/102 and Beethoven 7 spring to mind immediately and his arrangements of Handel opera pieces for ballet ‘Love in Bath’ and ‘Gods go a begging’.
…and has there ever been a better ‘Leminkainen’s Return’?

[Retune]

Is it now unfashionable to like Beecham's terrific Scheherazade? Or as Amazon puts it 'Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade [Explicit]'.

[gradus]

Schubert 5, Haydn 101/102 and Beethoven 7 spring to mind immediately and his arrangements of Handel opera pieces for ballet ‘Love in Bath’ and ‘Gods go a begging’.
…and has there ever been a better ‘Leminkainen’s Return’?

No, never.

[HighlandDougie]

Schubert 5, Haydn 101/102 and Beethoven 7 spring to mind immediately and his arrangements of Handel opera pieces for ballet ‘Love in Bath’ and ‘Gods go a begging’.
…and has there ever been a better ‘Leminkainen’s Return’?

Mea culpa for even mentioning Malcolm Sargent - and what's happened to poor old 'La Mer' - this whole exchange of prejudices about Beecham et al strikes me as being fairly pointless. I could, for instance, point to numerous performances of, "Lemminkainen's Return", which in my view - and in the context of the four movements of the Suite - leave Beecham at the starting gate, But, as I said, pointless - so I won't.

[cloughie]

Mea culpa for even mentioning Malcolm Sargent - and what's happened to poor old 'La Mer' - this whole exchange of prejudices about Beecham et al strikes me as being fairly pointless. I could, for instance, point to numerous performances of, "Lemminkainen's Return", which in my view - and in the context of the four movements of the Suite - leave Beecham at the starting gate, But, as I said, pointless - so I won't.

I put my hands up HD - I was goaded and went for it - however I agree that it has nothing to do with La Mer, particularly as to my knowledge Sir Thomas never recorded Claude’s masterpiece!
However whilst I agree with you that there are many excellent recordings of the Leminkainen Suite - a work I love - the thrill of hearing Beecham’s ‘Return’ some 55 or so years ago will never be eclipsed.
Back to La Mer - a masterpiece for sure - not tried either of FX’ recordings yet - can they better any of the recordings I have - I’ll check it out and see!

[gradus]

Mea culpa for even mentioning Malcolm Sargent - and what's happened to poor old 'La Mer' - this whole exchange of prejudices about Beecham et al strikes me as being fairly pointless. I could, for instance, point to numerous performances of, "Lemminkainen's Return", which in my view - and in the context of the four movements of the Suite - leave Beecham at the starting gate, But, as I said, pointless - so I won't.

Pointless ok, but Beecham was never left at any starting gate imv and I don't think, but may be wrong, that he recorded a complete Suite at the time of his peerless Leminkainen's Return however around that time he recorded some lovely excerpts from Peleas and Melisande in New York - was Melisande ever pictured more poignantly, even more so than in his later recording.

[Barbirollians]

I listened to Roth’s Les Siecles La Mer this afternoon and found it exciting in the storm but lacking in atmosphere and I could scarcely hear the harps .

[Pulcinella]

My score has arrived (Eulenberg, not the critical Durand that Bryn mentions).
I find the time signature use in the first 30 bars of the first movement very strange, and wonder why Debussy chose to write in what to me is an overly complicated way.

The first 5 bars are in 6/4, crotchet = 116.
At bar 6, we change to 4/4, but with crotchet = crotchet given. Some instruments have triplets covering two of the four beats.
At bar 23, brass and woodwind switch to 6/4, the rest staying as 4/4, but (apart from the bar lines) with no indication that the 6 beats for those parts are equivalent to the 4 of the others: why not carry on using the triplet symbol?
[Bar 31 changes to 6/8 for everybody, with a new tempo indication of quaver = 116.]

That aside, I need to settle down and start following the score while listening to some of the recordings I have (or can stream), but that might be a rainy day activity.

[Wolfram]

Mea culpa for even mentioning Malcolm Sargent - and what's happened to poor old 'La Mer' - this whole exchange of prejudices about Beecham et al strikes me as being fairly pointless. I could, for instance, point to numerous performances of, "Lemminkainen's Return", which in my view - and in the context of the four movements of the Suite - leave Beecham at the starting gate, But, as I said, pointless - so I won't.

Sorry for the blatant deviation from the topic, but Klaus Makela and the Oslo Philharmonic played Lemminkainen's Return as an encore at their recent Barbican concert, and it was special. I look forward to a possible recording from them as a follow up to the symphonies.

[Master Jacques]

I listened to Roth’s Les Siecles La Mer this afternoon and found it exciting in the storm but lacking in atmosphere and I could scarcely hear the harps .

I do rather agree with you about the surface excitements of the Les Siecles/Roth performance and lack of deep atmosphere - in maritime terms, it seems to me to ruffle the surface without plumbing the depths. But don't you feel that the recording balance (with the harps just audible, rather than spotlit by the engineers) has the virtue of being pretty close to what we'd expect in the concert hall?

I suppose this is always one of the central questions of recording philosophy: are we looking for something to be heard to advantage in large, expansive acoustics (for which the Roth recording is very suited) or for more usual, small-to-medium listening rooms (where some artistry in the studio pays big dividends).

For me, the Cleveland/Boulez account on DG perhaps comes close to squaring the circle, in what must be one of the sternest orchestral tests of the engineer's art. I also find Boulez's power and focus in this disc as compelling now, as when I first heard it. That would be my own (narrow) selection I think, as a benchmark library choice, though there are about 20 others (including old Malcolm's, and indeed Barbirolli's Hallé account for Pye) that I would miss very much.

[RichardB]

don't you feel that the recording balance (with the harps just audible, rather than spotlit by the engineers) has the virtue of being pretty close to what we'd expect in the concert hall?

I think so. I don't have any problem hearing the harps in this recording.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I listened to Roth’s Les Siecles La Mer this afternoon and found it exciting in the storm but lacking in atmosphere and I could scarcely hear the harps .

Which just goes to show how different people interpret the same sounds. For me in De L’Aube the Roth (Siecle and LSO live) were the most atmospheric with Abbado Lucerne Festival a good second.Reiner CSO and Karajan were both excellent performances but the engineers hadn’t really captured anything of the atmosphere.
The harps in the Roth were exactly the level I would expect in the concert hall . They are not loud instruments - particularly when playing plucked octaves as in the ppp opening. In the Reiner they were clearly spot miked and absurdly loud. Mind you some of the CSO woodwind players were out of this world ..l