Do Current Conductors Measure Up To The Greats Of The Past?

[cloughie]

Quite so. Some people will prefer JEG's recording of the Symphonie fantastique while others will prefer Karajan's. The mistake is to deingrate one or the other on the spurious grounds of being "wrong" (or sounding like it isn't "well-funded"!)

...and some of us like a French accent such as Argenta or Martinon, and should it have the cornet solo in the bal, and what kind of bells in the witches sabbath?

[Richard Barrett]

...and some of us like a French accent such as Argenta or Martinon, and should it have the cornet solo in the bal, and what kind of bells in the witches sabbath?

Exactly. And of course HIPP performances are hardly all the same - when it comes to this work I find JEG totally engaging, Immerseel not at all.

[jayne lee wilson]

Anyway, isn't 'authenticism' dead as a force in music?

It was a big deal in the late eighties/early nineties and a cynical part of me (that's a fairly big part) still thinks it was just a ploy to sell CDs. But none of the conductors involved were able to draw big audiences (one of he most pitifully attended Proms I ever attended was presided over by JEG) and a lot of those conductors were deeply unpopular with the orchestras they conducted (to the extent that some of them had to form their own bands).

I think the wheel is coming full circle and audiences now want to hear 'big band' versions of Mozart et al, rather than the slimmed-down (sometimes anorexic!) stuff they've been fed on for nearly thirty years.

At some point in the near future, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn et al will be cloned and will be given the chance to listen to their own works performed by orchestras since, say, 1914. It would be very amusing if they vastly preferred Furtwangerl, Karajan, Walter and Klemperer to the HIPP crowd.

In fact it was the other way round: JEG, Norrington, Harnoncourt and others began with their own very innovative and adventurous HIPPs groups but were then invited to conduct no less than the VPO, Berlin Phil, Concertgebouw, SWR Stuttgart and many other distinguished ensembles, whilst continuing to renew, and rethink, their readings of Beethoven, Haydn and so on with their CMW or ORR.
Not to mention the fact that we continue to get wonderful new Haydn from such as Thomas Fey's () Heidelberger SO and Antonini's Giardino Armonico on the 2032 series... we've also had Abbado co-founding (directing and recruiting) Orchestra Mozart to mix new and HIPPs styles in Mozart, Bach, Schumann....YNS with the COE.... there are many others, all intent on giving very familiar classics as many different new lives as they can...

There's a lot happening out there, why not enjoy it all...

[Richard Barrett]

In fact it was the other way round: JEG, Norrington, Harnoncourt and others began with their own very innovative and adventurous HIPPs groups but were then invited to conduct no less than the VPO, Berlin Phil, Concertgebouw, SWR Stuttgart and many other distinguished ensembles, whilst continuing to renew, and rethink, their readings of Beethoven, Haydn and so on with their CMW or ORR. [/I]

As I said.

[Bryn]

In fact it was the other way round: JEG, Norrington, Harnoncourt and others began with their own very innovative and adventurous HIPPs groups but were then invited to conduct no less than the VPO, Berlin Phil, Concertgebouw, SWR Stuttgart and many other distinguished ensembles, whilst continuing to renew, and rethink, their readings of Beethoven, Haydn and so on with their CMW or ORR.
Not to mention the fact that we continue to get wonderful new Haydn from such as Thomas Fey's Heidelberger SO and Antonini's Giardino Armonico on the 2032 series... we've also had Abbado founding Orchestra Mozart to mix new and HIPPs styles in Mozart, Bach, Schumann....YNS with the COE.... there are many others, all intent on giving very familiar classics as many different new lives as they can...

There's a lot happening out there, why not enjoy it all...

Spot on!

[BBMmk2]

Don’t think this one has been mentioned but Ben Gernon, I think will turn out to be a fine conductor. He’s already Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC P.O.! He’s in Stockholm right now!

[Beef Oven!]

Today I've been listening to quite a bit of Bartók's orchestral music. Thinking about M4SP&C, the BaL recomendation of Iván Fischer's Budapest Festival Orchestra is a fine performance, no question whatsoever. But, I think Boulez Chicago, Karajan BPO 1969 and Reiner CSO 1958 are actually better. And what about the Concerto For Orchestra? IIRC, the BaL recommendation was Fischer, again. Ok, Krivine, Heras-Casado and Hrusa came after the BaL, but there's better than Fischer out there, isn't there? That's to say nothing of Boulez, Karajan, Solti and other 'old guard' geezers.

It's not straight forward.

Btw, I have bought all the afore mentioned reordings (and some!), so I have no beef about any of them.