YouTube: the thread for interesting video links

[Bryn]

You're welcome. Here's a conductor with firm views on Beethoven's metronome marks. I wonder if he's heard of Roger Norrington, by the way....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSJ9Bkhb1Q4

[seabright]

I don't know about Norrington but this Cobra tempo is ridiculous. The score's metronome marking is crotchet = 88 and is 2-in-a-bar. This guy is conducting it 4-in-a-bar, making it twice as slow as it ought to be! ... If you want to hear it at an "Allegro" tempo, though without the "ma non troppo" qualification, hear Albert Coates in 1926. He knew how the 9th should go, long before Norrington came along! ...

[Mario]

Thank you seabright thank you, both to you and Mr Coates for helping to remove both a nasty taste and smell of yet another butchering of a cornerstone in Western music.

[seabright]

Since Norrington is also on YouTube, hear his 9th for a few minutes. Then switch to Stokowski and the NBC Symphony in 1941, the orchestra he was engaged to conduct during Toscanini's temporary absence. Of course, we mustn't forget that Debussy said a metronome mark is good only for the bar over which it is written. Well, Stokowski's tempo in 1941 is similar to Norrington's undated performance in Japan but I'll leave you to decide which of them is the most electrifying! ... First, Norrington ... Stokowski to follow separately ...

[seabright]

I'm only allowed to post one video at a time, so here is Stokowski / NBCSO in 1941 ...

[Maclintick]

I'm only allowed to post one video at a time, so here is Stokowski / NBCSO in 1941 ...

I'm not sure I care about who's most "electrifying" in the 1st movt, since I regard the "adagio molto e cantabile" as a supreme test for a conductor. For me, Stokowski passes the test, while Norrington, as so often, merely plays the notes in a perfunctory manner.

[Bryn]

I'm not sure I care about who's most "electrifying" in the 1st movt, since I regard the "adagio molto e cantabile" as a supreme test for a conductor. For me, Stokowski passes the test, while Norrington, as so often, merely plays the notes in a perfunctory manner.

Which Norrington recording are you referring to, that with the LCP or that with the Stuttgarters?

[Mario]

Again, thank you to seabright for starting a useful discussion.

The hairpin diminuendo / crescendo playing of the opening fifths in the 2nd violins and cellos was enough for me with RN.

Sigh! Let’s look again at what Beethoven wrote.

Before the first marked crescendo in bar 11, Beethoven marks pp 7 times (that’s SEVEN times) on all instruments, adding a sotto voce for the entry of the theme in the first violins. Importantly, he adds sempre pp (stay quiet for heaven's sake!).

I’m guessing here (as I haven’t spoken to him recently) that Beethoven wanted a throbbing, mysterious, organic growth in the introduction before the shattering spreading of the blinding light in bar 17/18.

Nothing could be clearer.

There is no point in continuing further.

[seabright]

One of the last LPs that Stokowski made was with the strings of the Royal Philharmonic and it included RVW's "Tallis" Fantasia. The LP was entitled 'The Stokowski String Sound' and one of the ways he achieved that 'sound' was by telling the string players to bow independently. It seems they loved his "free bowing" instructions, and not needing their up-bows and down-bows to match everyone else's, so one wonders why other conductors don't adopt it too. You can hear the "Tallis" recording here, well illustrating the "free bowing" sound, made a few months after Stokowski had celebrated his 93rd birthday ...

[Maclintick]

Which Norrington recording are you referring to, that with the LCP or that with the Stuttgarters?

I’m referring to the video posted by Seabright.

[seabright]

The Wikipedia entry on "Pictures at an Exhibition" lists about 70 different arrangements of the work. The orchestral versions are headed by Ravel of course but there are numerous other arrangements for all kinds of different ensembles. I just came across this one from Japan, arranged for winds, brass and percussion. It has its moments ... :) ...

[seabright]

Jeremy Paxman, now aged 72, has just announced that he will be stepping down from hosting University Challenge after 28 years, due to the onset of Parkinson's Disease. Evidently he's going to host one more series, which is a bit of a surprise, as he was clearly having some difficulty reading out the questions in the last series. Anyway, here he is with a classical music question a few years ago before Parkinson's set in ...

[seabright]

Incredible to think that a major orchestral work by Elgar, the "Prelude and Angel's Farewell," arranged from 'Gerontius' and lasting about 18 minutes, has never yet had a commercial recording. The score was published in 1902 but all that we have on record is a 4-and-a-half minute abridgement recorded by Elgar himself on an old acoustic 78rpm disc in 1917. 120 years is a long time to wait for a 'first complete recording' of an Elgar composition but I wonder how soon it might happen, if at all ...

[seabright]

'Essential Classics' played a Bach arrangement by Stokowski this morning, which was quite appropriate as he died 45 years ago on 13 September 1977, though this wasn't mentioned. Twenty years ago, he was featured in a BBC4 "Legends" programme and that's now on YouTube for all to see, with Andrew McGregor similarly immortalized along with Stokowski, as he was its presenter! ...

[smittims]

Thanks for posting that, seabright. I've long regarded Leopold Stokowski as a misunderstood and misinterpreted conductor. CD reissue boxes some years ago gave me a chance to reappraise him, and to appreciate him not merely as a pioneer of neglected music, but as a serious interpreter of the classics. I find him a conductor well-worth returning to, presenting an original view of music away from the recognised traditions.

Just before I logged in now I was listening to his lovely Grainger disc from 1950, performances still, I think, unsurpassed..