Sir Roger Norrington to retire

[Bryn]

Message 41

No Bryn, I won’t.

You’ve taken me to task once before regarding Sir Andras Schiff and I didn’t rise to it, simply because I do not consider this forum as a sacrificial altar on which to cut into little pieces any performer.

I didn’t rise to the bait then, and I shan’t do so now.

I respect the views of Schiff fans and Norrington fans, and as I’ve said once before, I see no purpose in attempting (and failing) to destroy the image of someone held highly – I see nothing to be gained by it.

You tube videos of Norrington rehearsing the Eroica are freely available.

I have no axe to grind and gain nothing by criticising Norrington. I responded as I did because he infuriated me in his attempt to explain the Eroica as a terrifying piece, while grinning in a self-gratifying way on the podium.

That’s enough from me. If others enjoy him, then genuinely Bryn, genuinely, I’m pleased for them.

Best wishes,

Mario

Ah, so you are happy to denigrate Norrington but not to support that contention with examples other than his use of a description of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony which you did not concur with. Not good enough.

[Mario]

I'm sorry if I disappoint you, but...

Did I say that was the only reason?

Onwards and upwards,

Mario

[Bryn]

I'm sorry if I disappoint you, but...

Did I say that was the only reason?

Onwards and upwards,

Mario

More like backwards and downwards, unfortunately. Making a denigrating statement, then refusing to support it with evidence is not good practice.

Not Norrington, but a conductor with some similar approaches to Beethoven's 3rd Symphony:

[RichardB]

Norrington sought to follow just what the composer wrote while also giving life to the resulting performances.

Which is in fact too contemporary an idea for some people, who prefer their music from 1803 to sound like it's coming from 1950 instead of from 2021. Whatever RN may have said in the rehearsal video, the "Eroica" IS a terrifying piece! at least, it must have been for many of those who heard it when it was new: it was revolutionary music that explicitly allied itself with the fall of the feudal regimes that seemed to have been in place by divine right for centuries. And if you don't bear that in mind when you play it the core of the music's expressive character is going to be missing. Same with the 5th - JEG has this to say about the last movement: "Imperceptibly, there comes another political motto, a reference to Rouget de Lisle’s Hymne Dithyrambique, specifically the phrase ‘Chantons la liberté’. It emerges gradually in the bass-line, passing to the trombones and the bassoons, and then to the violins. Then the whole orchestra is singing a hymn to liberty." I wonder how many conductors before JEG were aware of this reference which would have been familiar to many listeners when it was originally performed.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Which is in fact too contemporary an idea for some people, who prefer their music from 1803 to sound like it's coming from 1950 instead of from 2021. Whatever RN may have said in the rehearsal video, the "Eroica" IS a terrifying piece! at least, it must have been for many of those who heard it when it was new: it was revolutionary music that explicitly allied itself with the fall of the feudal regimes that seemed to have been in place by divine right for centuries. And if you don't bear that in mind when you play it the core of the music's expressive character is going to be missing. Same with the 5th - JEG has this to say about the last movement: "Imperceptibly, there comes another political motto, a reference to Rouget de Lisle’s Hymne Dithyrambique, specifically the phrase ‘Chantons la liberté’. It emerges gradually in the bass-line, passing to the trombones and the bassoons, and then to the violins. Then the whole orchestra is singing a hymn to liberty." I wonder how many conductors before JEG were aware of this reference which would have been familiar to many listeners when it was originally performed.

So is the C sharp in bar 6 the musical equivalent of lobbing a stone at the Bastille wall or am I being too literal?

[french frank]

Just doing some arithmetic: admitting Beethoven to have been a revolutionary in many ways, he was born only 13 years after Mozart and if Mozart had attained his 3 x 20 + 10 he could well have outlived Beethoven. [But was there already the whiff of grapeshot in setting Beaumarchais's Figaro as an opera?]

[Mario]

Hey guys,

What the hell's happening?

We are actually discussing music on this forum!



Wow!

I am just sooooo happy!

Mario

[Bryn]

When it comes to the 'Erioca' Symphony, Norrington's 'live' recording with 'his' Stuttgarters, I think preferable to his already interesting recording with the LCP. For those who understand the German language, as he speaks it, the 'bonus' CD with the Stuttgarters' set in its earlier Hanssler Classic edition offers his comments on symphonies 1 to 8. Ironically, there is no lecture on the 9th, the one he openly professed to a misreading of when recording it with the LCP.

[Mario]

Erm...

Mario

[jayne lee wilson]

When it comes to the 'Erioca' Symphony, Norrington's 'live' recording with 'his' Stuttgarters, I think preferable to his already interesting recording with the LCP. For those who understand the German language, as he speaks it, the 'bonus' CD with the Stuttgarters' set in its earlier Hanssler Classic edition offers his on comments symphonies 1 to 8. Ironically, there is no lecture on the 9th, the one he openly professed to a misreading of when recording it with the LCP.

"
Absolutely - and his later SWR 9th is among the greatest on record! The impact leaves shockwaves in your room.

Thanks to Bryn and RichardB for their detailed evidential arguments in support of Norrington's Eroica, and the truth about the music's background as it has been, with such painstaking research and scholarship, ascertained...

Norrington does not, in either recording, "wilfully change the score and “improve” it"....of course he doesn't.
He does just the opposite in fact, trying to get as close as possible to the original inspiration and notation, before launching upon his own marvellously, intentionally "heroic" ( a term he often used about the work in interview) creation of the music itself.

"The Shock of the New" in Norrington's Classical Recordings is still quite new enough to leave some listeners reeling, even in 2021...
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, as ever...

****
As for the Beethoven 5 - you only need to hear the recent "Farewell to Zurich" album with Harnoncourt to see - to hear - what it really means, how it should really go - 'Intimations of Mortality" as it were....

[Mario]

Really?

I’m no musicologist nor do I pretend to be one, but at 02.27 in this video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB-qq39e47I

where are the “detailed evidential arguments” please that the six syncopated fortissimo hammer blows should in fact introduce a pianissimo and a following crescendo, as simply one example?

I’m not after a fight, merely seeking enlightenment, not opinions.

Mario

[jayne lee wilson]

Really?

I’m no musicologist nor do I pretend to be one, but at 02.27 in this video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB-qq39e47I

where are the “detailed evidential arguments” please that the six syncopated fortissimo hammer blows should in fact introduce a pianissimo and a following crescendo, as simply one example?

I’m not after a fight, merely seeking enlightenment, not opinions.

Mario

If you refer to the six big chords towards the end of the exposition here, well, I've just checked several other recordings across the decades, from Furtwangler, to Vanska and Dausgaard among the most recent, and they all do something similar at this point (one cannot measure ps or pps in points of a decibel, after all; that is indeed an interpretive decision).
After those chords (which I can't really hear as "syncopated"...am I wrong?) the flow of the music naturally demands a quieter passage, then an increase in power at the exposition's end. Many such sonata-expositions do.

So I'm not sure why you should single out Norrington about this.

[Bryn]

Really?

I’m no musicologist nor do I pretend to be one, but at 02.27 in this video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB-qq39e47I

where are the “detailed evidential arguments” please that the six syncopated fortissimo hammer blows should in fact introduce a pianissimo and a following crescendo, as simply one example?

I’m not after a fight, merely seeking enlightenment, not opinions.

Mario

Ah, Georges E. Melki's question. I do not have my Jonathan Del Mar edition of the score to hand and did not splash out on his associated commentary. Perhaps others can offer elucidation in that particular matter. However, as an indication of how much the Eroica has come to be associated with RN, see https://www.classicfm.com/composers/...eroica-mashup/ . Don't worry, CFM is only the gateway to SWR>>Classic in this instance.

[Ein Heldenleben]

If you refer to the six big chords towards the end of the exposition here, well, I've just checked several other recordings across the decades, from Furtwangler, to Vanska and Dausgaard among the most recent, and they all do something similar at this point (one cannot measure ps or pps in points of a decibel, after all; that is indeed an interpretive decision).
After those chords (which I can't really hear as "syncopated"...am I wrong?) the flow of the music naturally demands a quieter passage, then an increase in power at the exposition's end. Many such sonata-expositions do.

So I'm not sure why you should single out Norrington about this.

They are marked sforzando in the Dover score - I don’t have the Del Mar . There is no crescendo or diminuendo marked. There is a sempre ff marked six bars before this very clever sequence. Those chords may not “sound “ syncopated but they are placed with a crotchet rest between them and as the time signature is 3/4 some are on the first , some on the second , and some on the third which is I guess syncopation. What Beethoven does here is a bit of a harmonic and tonal marvel and indeed rhythmic marvel.

[Mario]

You know, since I started contributing to this thread, I’ve had to maintain my equanimity and be patient, gently batting off ad hominem attacks, all questioning my judgement, reasoning and personal preferences.

Apparently I’m judged by someone who’s never met me to be someone who prefers “their music from 1803 to sound like it’s coming from 1950 instead of from 2021.”

Or, by someone who again has never met me that Norrington’s view “is still quite new enough to leave some listeners reeling, even in 2021”, when I have been screaming for exactly the opposite!

I’ve not heard either Vanska or Dausgaard, so cannot comment on their interpretation. I’m not pleading for indulgence, merely a lack of facility enjoyed by those of you in the UK.

My line of defence on those syncopated chords (I use the term syncopation loosely), is only in the sense that the chords sound in duple time in a triple time signature, unless my Grade 5 Music Theory is letting me down. But in the score, when a passage has been marked fortissimo at bar 113 (and I assume an LvB ff is different to a WMA ff but I haven’t studied this), then when those chords arrive at bar 128, each chord in each instrument is marked sf. There are 72 sforzandi in all (I’ve counted them – do I live a sad life?). This merits a sudden, spurious diminuendo, and a sudden, equally spurious crescendo, does it, for absolutely no reason at all?

Of course I’m on thin ice here, as how could I possibly argue with Norrington and now Vanska and Dausgaard. Only heaven knows the studies that they’ve carried out!

Clearly, I’m outnumbered and I’m never going to win this argument against such overwhelming odds, even though I have gently pleaded for evidence, or empirical data, or factual propositions, while maintaining a level of respect that my critics didn’t reciprocate with.

OK. That’s enough of me on this thread. I can’t think of much purpose in further contributions by me.

Mario