Variety or consistency?

[Mario]

BBMmk2’s 15525 post in the “What classical music are you listening to” thread has prompted this.

To my knowledge, I can’t think of another conductor besides Lorin Maazel who varies so much. LM can be sublime one moment, and really rather ordinary, sometimes even crude and vulgar, the next. I understand he had a phenomenal photographic memory.

I hope this doesn’t turn into a stick-waverer bashing contest!

Yet other conductors (I’m thinking of Toscanini particularly), and more recently Haitink, seem to deliver consistently good, or very high results.

Mario

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

BBMmk2’s 15525 post in the “What classical music are you listening to” thread has prompted this.

To my knowledge, I can’t think of another conductor besides Lorin Maazel who varies so much. LM can be sublime one moment, and really rather ordinary, sometimes even crude and vulgar, the next. I understand he had a phenomenal photographic memory.

I hope this doesn’t turn into a stick-waverer bashing contest!

Yet other conductors (I’m thinking of Toscanini particularly), and more recently Haitink, seem to deliver consistently good, or very high results.

Mario

I suggest Maazel was one of those conductors who shone with his zestful incite in his early and middle years but lost much of his shine towards the end. His 70 minute Alpine Symphony was the final straw for me, so many years after he recorded what I still regard as the finest Tchaikovsky symphony cycle in the 1960s.

I'm with you all the way re Toscanini and Haitink.

[Serial_Apologist]

I thought from the thread heading that this would be a call for either one or the other in Radio 3 schedules!

[Braunschlag]

Hmm, this could get messy

[Braunschlag]

Haitink I’ve found coming consistently dull with the sole exception of his Beethoven/Perahia concerto set.
Previn is perhaps another who turned out some superb recordings for EMI.
Leinsdorf I appreciate greatly but he’s had a few indifferent recordings at times. On form - his Salome and Electra are my absolute benchmarks.
Solti - his Bartok (Concerto etc), are his ‘later’ remakes an improvement? Can’t make my mind up there.

[Petrushka]

Haitink I’ve found coming consistently dull with the sole exception of his Beethoven/Perahia concerto set.
Previn is perhaps another who turned out some superb recordings for EMI.
Leinsdorf I appreciate greatly but he’s had a few indifferent recordings at times. On form - his Salome and Electra are my absolute benchmarks.
Solti - his Bartok (Concerto etc), are his ‘later’ remakes an improvement? Can’t make my mind up there.

People say this about Haitink but I don't understand it as I have always found him anything but dull. Don't be fooled by the ridiculous 'dour Dutchman' tag which is nonsense. He gave me some of the greatest live performances I've ever heard.

For sheer consistency over a long career I doubt if you could find anyone better than Karajan as a comparison of his early and late recordings of the same repertoire will show.

If you want a conductor who had consistency AND variety I'd go for Rozhdestvensky who could, and often did, conduct absolutely anything and always turn in a good performance.

The conductors I miss seeing most in live performance are Haitink, Abbado and, above all, Tennstedt.

[Braunschlag]

Good - I’m pleased you enjoyed BH. I never saw him live and it’s always different in those circumstances I’m sure.
The much missed FHG lent me some Testament HvK recordings (Beethoven 4 / Heldenleben) and they were fabulous things. Similarly, I reciprocated with the Tennstedt collection (Mahler 2,8, Walkure Act 2) and I was equally blown away.
Someone who really puzzles me is Currentzis. I’m not a great Mahler fan but his 6 really caught my ear (same for his Tchaik 6 and Rite of Spring). But his current Beethoven project seems rather ordinary ( by his standards).

[Braunschlag]

Oops - Walküre. Another one comes to mind - Ozawa?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Inconsistent
Bernstein Mahler 5 vs Enigma Variations
Gergiev Russian repertoire and ballet vs Brahms
Davis - Berlioz, Tippett , Mozart vs Verdi and Wagner ??

Consistent (albeit sometimes within a narrow repertoire)
Furtwangler
Tennstedt
Klemperer
And supremely Karajan Brahms , Wagner to Verdi …

[richardfinegold]

I suggest Maazel was one of those conductors who shone with his zestful incite in his early and middle years but lost much of his shine towards the end. His 70 minute Alpine Symphony was the final straw for me, so many years after he recorded what I still regard as the finest Tchaikovsky symphony cycle in the 1960s.

I'm with you all the way re Toscanini and Haitink.

I never before had thought that Maazel had declined with age. I think the inconsistency was there from the start. I find his early Sibelius cycle unlistenable. And when I saw him in concert the second time in NY he seemed a lot more on the the first time I saw him leading Pittsburgh

[Petrushka]

Good - I’m pleased you enjoyed BH. I never saw him live and it’s always different in those circumstances I’m sure.
The much missed FHG lent me some Testament HvK recordings (Beethoven 4 / Heldenleben) and they were fabulous things. Similarly, I reciprocated with the Tennstedt collection (Mahler 2,8, Walkure Act 2) and I was equally blown away.
Someone who really puzzles me is Currentzis. I’m not a great Mahler fan but his 6 really caught my ear (same for his Tchaik 6 and Rite of Spring). But his current Beethoven project seems rather ordinary ( by his standards).

Haitink always let the music speak for itself without imposing too much in the way of interpretative licence and had the ability (Günter Wand was another such) to convince you that this was the way the music should go and no other! His sense of symphonic architecture was unfailing - he always had the end of a Bruckner symphony in mind from the very first note.

By the way, I'm sure it was a typo, but Tennstedt's recording was of Walküre Act 1 not 2.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I never before had thought that Maazel had declined with age. I think the inconsistency was there from the start. I find his early Sibelius cycle unlistenable. And when I saw him in concert the second time in NY he seemed a lot more on the the first time I saw him leading Pittsburgh

Your experience of Maazel outshines mine. I saw Maazel live just one, when he took the LSO to Manchester, with a stunning performance of Sibelius 1. Otherwise, my knowledge and understanding is restricted to recordings and broadcasts.

[richardfinegold]

Your experience of Maazel outshines mine. I saw Maazel live just one, when he took the LSO to Manchester, with a stunning performance of Sibelius 1. Otherwise, my knowledge and understanding is restricted to recordings and broadcasts.

Our local Chicago FM station also formerly broadcast NY Phil concerts weekly so I heard many of those (this show, most recently narrated by Alec Baldwin between his stints of punching out paparazzi, seems to be a Covid casualty). Again, LM could be spectacularly uneven—divine one week, infuriating the next)

[cloughie]

Haitink always let the music speak for itself without imposing too much in the way of interpretative licence and had the ability (Günter Wand was another such) to convince you that this was the way the music should go and no other! His sense of symphonic architecture was unfailing - he always had the end of a Bruckner symphony in mind from the very first note.

By the way, I'm sure it was a typo, but Tennstedt's recording was of Walküre Act 1 not 2.

Sir Adrian Boult was another who fit this mould!

However I think that care needs to be taken on how we describe conductors and their styles as a dull/interesting scale may come into the reckoning. I suppose it boils down to what we as individuals want from a maestro and their recordings.

[Mario]

Cloughie, I think you make a very good point here, hence my gentle warning in the OP.

Sir Adrian! How could I forget him? I don’t have many recordings by him, but the ones that I do have, have never disappointed. I saw him quite a few times in the RFH when I worked at County Hall for the GLC. His Brahms Symphony cycle I thought was very good indeed.

I’m not too interested in who posters do NOT like. (There are quite a few conductors who are highly revered on this forum who do nothing for me, but I tend to keep quiet about them, as negative postings I think achieve little).

I merely wondered why it is that someone like Lorin Maazel can be so variable.

In fairness to the man, and to balance the criticism, I remember commenting on a truly excellent Tchaikovsky 4th by him, as commented by EA upthread. So, he’s not all bad…

Mario