BaL 11.06.22 - Debussy: La Mer

[Bryn]

I'm sure that Her Majesty's late consort couldn't bear it either.

What, Stavros of Corfu, you mean?

[Bryn]

I'm quite content to listen to the Les Siecles / Roth recording on YouTube, even if the volume level is a bit on the low side, not helped by the thin-sounding orchestra ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8JeOH9F2c

Why make do with the low audio quality of Youtube when tonight's Record Review Extra will be at a much higher resolution of 320kbps aac?

[Barbirollians]

I think she is just about the worst reviewer on BAL.

[Barbirollians]

That felt, not for the first time, like an academic really struggling with issues of performance, no meaningful overview and vague in detail.

Lots of historical facts and quotes didn’t disguise lack of real meat for us library builders!

Spot on

[Barbirollians]

The winner was tediously predictable too.

[seabright]

I frankly think it's ridiculous to spend half-an-hour trying to recommend a recording of a work which has had over 100 of them. Only about half-a-dozen recordings were illustrated but at least Rob Cowan's September 2018 Gramophone survey gave us a short list of about two dozen names. If he'd been the reviewer instead of the woman chosen, we would undoubtedly have had a different recommendation. I realize it's a "personal choice" but Cowan's top three were Toscanini, Abbado and Stokowski, the last two getting no mention at all on Saturday. Cowan also had high praise for the recordings made by Cantelli, Munch, Reiner, Ansermet, Dutoit, and several others. Anyway, what we need in a work like this is the return of "Interpretations on Record" with an hour-long survey of far more recordings than can be heard in a BAL. At least we're more likely to hear excerpts from the ones we already have in our collections, though I won't be adding Roth to mine!

[Bryn]

I frankly think it's ridiculous to spend half-an-hour trying to recommend a recording of a work which has had over 100 of them. Only about half-a-dozen recordings were illustrated but at least Rob Cowan's September 2018 Gramophone survey gave us a short list of about two dozen names. If he'd been the reviewer instead of the woman chosen, we would undoubtedly have had a different recommendation. I realize it's a "personal choice" but Cowan's top three were Toscanini, Abbado and Stokowski, the last two getting no mention at all on Saturday. Cowan also had high praise for the recordings made by Cantelli, Munch, Reiner, Ansermet, Dutoit, and several others. Anyway, what we need in a work like this is the return of "Interpretations on Record" with an hour-long survey of far more recordings than can be heard in a BAL. At least we're more likely to hear excerpts from the ones we already have in our collections, though I won't be adding Roth to mine!

Your loss.

[cloughie]

I frankly think it's ridiculous to spend half-an-hour trying to recommend a recording of a work which has had over 100 of them. Only about half-a-dozen recordings were illustrated but at least Rob Cowan's September 2018 Gramophone survey gave us a short list of about two dozen names. If he'd been the reviewer instead of the woman chosen, we would undoubtedly have had a different recommendation. I realize it's a "personal choice" but Cowan's top three were Toscanini, Abbado and Stokowski, the last two getting no mention at all on Saturday. Cowan also had high praise for the recordings made by Cantelli, Munch, Reiner, Ansermet, Dutoit, and several others. Anyway, what we need in a work like this is the return of "Interpretations on Record" with an hour-long survey of far more recordings than can be heard in a BAL. At least we're more likely to hear excerpts from the ones we already have in our collections, though I won't be adding Roth to mine!

I guess harvesting the grapes of Roth does not match everyone’s taste! Is it one for easy summer drinking or a keeper?

[Master Jacques]

Good question: is he a keeper?

The Roth phenomenon - by which I mean the current, critical deference to his readings - is something we've seen many times before in recording history. In a phrase, he's flavour of the month, and that rarely lasts. Speaking personally, having heard his performances enthusiastically lauded by reviewers, I've been slightly disappointed by what I've heard.

Roth talks a brilliant game, like many before him; but the playing he conjures isn't always quite top class, technically. This - added to the (often) reduced orchestral numbers - exposes a thinness in texture which can be mistaken for freshness, or even 'authenticity'. It's almost as if the thought was something along the lines of "this isn't quite so well played as we're used to, so it's more what the composer would have expected".

Well, fresh air or hot air, we'll perhaps be left with a legacy of uneven, left-field records many of which don't quite hit the mark. That doesn't really matter, though. The good thing is, that in the here and now they keep people talking about these good old pieces!

[Master Jacques]

I think she is just about the worst reviewer on BAL.

Maybe so: she certainly has a tin ear and too many tedious agendas. But she's a good broadcaster, in the top quartile from that point of view - entertaining, if not to be trusted ... the modern Trevor Harvey, in my opinion!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I frankly think it's ridiculous to spend half-an-hour trying to recommend a recording of a work which has had over 100 of them. Only about half-a-dozen recordings were illustrated but at least Rob Cowan's September 2018 Gramophone survey gave us a short list of about two dozen names. If he'd been the reviewer instead of the woman chosen, we would undoubtedly have had a different recommendation. I realize it's a "personal choice" but Cowan's top three were Toscanini, Abbado and Stokowski, the last two getting no mention at all on Saturday. Cowan also had high praise for the recordings made by Cantelli, Munch, Reiner, Ansermet, Dutoit, and several others. Anyway, what we need in a work like this is the return of "Interpretations on Record" with an hour-long survey of far more recordings than can be heard in a BAL. At least we're more likely to hear excerpts from the ones we already have in our collections, though I won't be adding Roth to mine!

The reviewer didn’t mention the Reiner recording which I’ve heard a few times . It’s an interesting comparison with Roth . Although Reiner is one of the great post war conductors and desk for desk the CSO a is pretty much without compare the Roth recording has more “magic” and atmosphere to it . The CSO are too closely miked and the transfer is done at too high a level . Roth gets a genuine ppp at the beginning , Reiner (and engineers don’t ) . Although the woodwind playing of the CSO has better ensemble at the tricky beginning it all sounds a tad synthetic. I don’t like the slightly thin (vibratoless) top notes in the Roth violins. (Could be my iPhone thinning things - I’ll try later through a better DAC )
Just listened to BPO / Karajan in De L’Aube - have to say that although the BPO playing is super refined Roth wins again on the “magic” stakes. With his recording you actually think this could be a dawn.
In short don’t dismiss Roth …

[HighlandDougie]

Good question: is he a keeper?

The Roth phenomenon - by which I mean the current, critical deference to his readings - is something we've seen many times before in recording history. In a phrase, he's flavour of the month, and that rarely lasts. Speaking personally, having heard his performances enthusiastically lauded by reviewers, I've been slightly disappointed by what I've heard.

Roth talks a brilliant game, like many before him; but the playing he conjures isn't always quite top class, technically. This - added to the (often) reduced orchestral numbers - exposes a thinness in texture which can be mistaken for freshness, or even 'authenticity'. It's almost as if the thought was something along the lines of "this isn't quite so well played as we're used to, so it's more what the composer would have expected".

Well, fresh air or hot air, we'll perhaps be left with a legacy of uneven, left-field records many of which don't quite hit the mark. That doesn't really matter, though. The good thing is, that in the here and now they keep people talking about these good old pieces!

I'm going to rise to F-X R's defence here as I've seen him in concert reasonably often, most recently with the LSO (indeed, I think it was an excellent performance of 'La Mer", where the LSO playing was top-class). I've heard him in Cologne, in Paris, in Freiburg and in Aix-en-Provence. I have rarely been disappointed. I don't think that he is in any way - "flavour of the month". I might ask: with whom? The LSO doesn't really do, "flavours of the month". It has too much to lose in terms of its musical reputation to appoint a sort of Malcolm-Sargent-de-nos-jours as its Principal Guest Conductor. I've much enjoyed his recording with Les Siècles of 'La Mer' since it was issued in 2013. While, like others, I didn't think much of the BaL, I wouldn't dispute the recommendations of Roth or Karajan. Among the - I don't know - 30? 40? recordings I have of the piece, they are two which I do listen to regularly, albeit when TOH isn't there ("Not bloody 'La Mer' again").

[RichardB]

Roth's recordings of Debussy and Ravel have mostly become my go-to versions, apart from Abbado's La Mer, I am always changing my mind about which of the two I prefer but I don't really mind that. La Mer is a work I return to often (& my OH, who has played it a number of times, can't get enough of it either!).

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm going to rise to F-X R's defence here as I've seen him in concert reasonably often, most recently with the LSO (indeed, I think it was an excellent performance of 'La Mer", where the LSO playing was top-class). I've heard him in Cologne, in Paris, in Freiburg and in Aix-en-Provence. I have rarely been disappointed. I don't think that he is in any way - "flavour of the month". I might ask: with whom? The LSO doesn't really do, "flavours of the month". It has too much to lose in terms of its musical reputation to appoint a sort of Malcolm-Sargent-de-nos-jours as its Principal Guest Conductor. I've much enjoyed his recording with Les Siècles of 'La Mer' since it was issued in 2013. While, like others, I didn't think much of the BaL, I wouldn't dispute the recommendations of Roth or Karajan. Among the - I don't know - 30? 40? recordings I have of the piece, they are two which I do listen to regularly, albeit when TOH isn't there ("Not bloody 'La Mer' again").

Yes I also listened to the Roth / LSO live recording of De L’Aube . Again the same meticulous attention to the woodwind dynamics, the harps at the opening not over prominent as they are in Reiner and H von K. He also does something with the rising violin phrase at the beginning that no one else does, in short he is not a flash in the pan !
PS another Live recording Abbado with the Lucerne festival is also excellent . He gets the “magic” hushed effect as well..

[silvestrione]

I frankly think it's ridiculous to spend half-an-hour trying to recommend a recording of a work which has had over 100 of them. Only about half-a-dozen recordings were illustrated but at least Rob Cowan's September 2018 Gramophone survey gave us a short list of about two dozen names. If he'd been the reviewer instead of the woman chosen, we would undoubtedly have had a different recommendation. I realize it's a "personal choice" but Cowan's top three were Toscanini, Abbado and Stokowski, the last two getting no mention at all on Saturday. Cowan also had high praise for the recordings made by Cantelli, Munch, Reiner, Ansermet, Dutoit, and several others. Anyway, what we need in a work like this is the return of "Interpretations on Record" with an hour-long survey of far more recordings than can be heard in a BAL. At least we're more likely to hear excerpts from the ones we already have in our collections, though I won't be adding Roth to mine!

He chose Halle/Elder!