The Handwriting of the Conductor

[cloughie]

Henry Fogel was the President of the CSO for many years and has a regular radio show here. This topic is a recurrent subject for him. He is also a Furtwangler specialist and I have heard him talk repeatedly about how W.F. built his sound from the ground up, and I think one can get a sense of that in some of the better recorded Furt pieces. Then there is the Stowkowsi sound, which Ormandy if anything intensified in Philly, with all the free bowing. Great for Tchaikovsky, not so much for Haydn.
Paul Paray in Detroit cultivated a French sound with light, lithe strings and prominent woodwinds and punchy but not over bearing brass. The Mercury remastering are great for clarifying what was achieved there, which frequently couldn't be gleamed from the scratchy lps.
This is an endlessly fascinating topic, at least for aficionados.

Paray’s French accent with Detroit coincided with Munch’s French sounding Boston SO. I agree with what you say of his recordings and would add that his preference was to play them with fairly swift tempi. Those 60 year old Mercury recordings are spot on!

[gradus]

In the sixties I remember Paray's recordings were sought after by very few but they were enthusiasts and they detected a distinctive musical voice unlike anyone else at the time. I never listened but I'm going to now; I'm a lot older and more willing to be swayed by the enthusiasm of others sustained over decades.

[french frank]

In the sixties I remember Paray's recordings were sought after by very few but they were enthusiasts and they detected a distinctive musical voice unlike anyone else at the time. I never listened but I'm going to now; I'm a lot older and more willing to be swayed by the enthusiasm of others sustained over decades.

I seem to recall (CD Masters) Paul Paray being one of Rob Cowan's favourites.

[cloughie]

In the sixties I remember Paray's recordings were sought after by very few but they were enthusiasts and they detected a distinctive musical voice unlike anyone else at the time. I never listened but I'm going to now; I'm a lot older and more willing to be swayed by the enthusiasm of others sustained over decades.

An interesting point there gradus — in the 60s Paray’s recordings were not as widely available as the Mercury label was indeed mercurial as it flitted through different distribution and his stereo recordings were not as available to buyers on a budget cf Munch, Ansermet, Reiner And others. What Paray that was available tended to be mono recordings on the budget Wing label which notorious for bad pressings and swingers.
CD transfers of what were very good original masters has given us a fresh hearing - though I suspect many of the ones I snapped up when they were first reissued are no longer in the catalogue.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The original quote was in Dutch (I think I got it from the Dutch Radio 4 website) which I can't now find and I did a Google translate to give the English version. In this context, I feel pretty sure that 'signature' is more likely closer to Haitink's original meaning.

There is a biography of BH called "De Klank als Handschrift", which I suspect references the quote. If so, it does indeed mean handwriting, as signature would be "handtekening" or "signatuur".

[makropulos]

To the excellent suggestions above, I'd add Boult's Elgar and VW –very distinctive in my experience. And I'd say the same about his Brahms too.

[richardfinegold]

The Paray recordings were reissued very recently by a Japanese company in an inexpensive reissue box. They appear to have a different remastering than the one used in the Mercury big box(es), and I slightly prefer the newest remastering. The whole box around 10 CDs went for around $20. The only disadvantage is that digitally many of the disc track listings appear in Japanese only, so instead of donating the CDs to a charity shop after burning them to my Melco I've kept them. The box still takes 1/4 of the space that the Paray discs which I had bought prior to the big box reissues.

[Alison]

A vote for Klaus Tennstedt

[makropulos]

Good call, Alison! I'd say particularly with live performances.

[kernelbogey]

There is a biography of BH called "De Klank als Handschrift", which I suspect references the quote. If so, it does indeed mean handwriting, as signature would be "handtekening" or "signatuur".

Just thinking more about 'handwriting' versus 'signature' - perhaps all these conductors mentioned above may be recognisable from their 'handwriting'.

But Karajan wanted his signature on everything he produced.

[Dave2002]

The Paray recordings were reissued very recently by a Japanese company in an inexpensive reissue box. They appear to have a different remastering than the one used in the Mercury big box(es), and I slightly prefer the newest remastering. The whole box around 10 CDs went for around $20. The only disadvantage is that digitally many of the disc track listings appear in Japanese only, so instead of donating the CDs to a charity shop after burning them to my Melco I've kept them. The box still takes 1/4 of the space that the Paray discs which I had bought prior to the big box reissues.

I wonder if those CDs are the same as these ones currently available from Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technical-B...8N8/ref=sr_1_1 on the Document label.

Some of the collections from other conductors, such as Martinon, Markevitch, Kletzki on the same label might be of interest, though I've not tried them.