Hi David maybe you'll do a series called worst recordings EVER one day.Thanks for keeping us informed on which recordings to avoid purchasing . Have a great weekend.
Interestingly, Presto Classical just voted this Recording of the Week, recommending it especially for those "yearning" for Bruckner free of "indulgence," a 4th with a "refreshing elegance" and "captivating coherence." A few comments on each movement: "The opening sounds especially solemn played on a 19th-century horn over atmospheric shimmering strings." The 2nd is praised for its "emotional depth and integrity," the 3rd for its "deftness of touch and feeling of inevitability," the 4th for its "grasp of architecture" and for how its "careful attention to balance brings delicacy to the moments of quiet interplay between parts." But I have to say I heard none of this. I just don't understand these sorts of rhapsodic reviews that seem so easily contradicted by a good honest sit-down-and-listen experience of the performance.
What utter tosh from Presto Classical's 'critic!' "yearning" for Bruckner free of "indulgence," Surely Bruckner by default, is music of indulgence (which I love) 4th with a "refreshing elegance" If I want refreshing elegance, I listen to Haydn, Mozart et al... "captivating coherence." Lord alone what that is!!! Great presentation, Dave. Love hearing the neighing horses again!
I checked the beginning, and the horn solo is weird as hell and completely wrong. The score does not mark any accents and the phrase must be legato. Instead it sounds like a ship horn.
This review is actually doing this album a favour - it's exposure it wouldn't otherwise get, and I for one am going to check it out just because of it!
You can hear the first two minutes or so for free on UA-cam. Then you'll discover that David is being very generous in his review. Whoever is responsible at Harmonia Mundi deserves more than a white scarf ...
Sometimes you can learn much from a bad performance-- provided you know going in that It's a bad performance. Unfortunately, I've imprinted on many a bad performance.
Thanks for the video, and your continued championing of excellence in performance of Bruckner's music. By the way is there such a thing as redeemable chutzpah? :)
Is there a general 21st century trend, at least among HIP practitioners, to diminish and trivialize Romantic era music? Since Bruckner (and Brahms) were around into 1896 or '97, it's absurd to claim the ensemble is using the instruments of c. 15 years before when the 4th was initially created and is therefore "authentic" when the creator of the music heard improvements in instruments over the years. Or is there an unknown letter in which Bruckner or Brahms complain of the developments in sonority? Of course not. There's an awful lot of snake oil salesmen about and flim flam going on.
Just what we needed: Yet another misguided butchering of a great symphony. I find it particularly annoying, since long ago the 4th was my gateway to Bruckner and retains a warm spot in my heart. Thanks for the warning.
I think some of the PR materials, or perhaps a review, said this recording restores “lightness and elegance” to Bruckner’s 4th. Yikes. Bruckner’s 4th isn’t supposed to sound like Mozart.
This orchestra has just kicked out its founder and artistic director Jos van Immerseel for behaving badly. Seems among other things he was making disparaging comments about PHC’s conducting style. This might explain why…
The 4 is at the right bottom corner with that nice shadow ... gave this a try at prestomusic, found the horn ugly at the beginning, couldn't almost hear the brass at the da da dadada daa moment, stopped listening, turned to Wand NDR, wondering why there is no 200 Bicentennial Big Wand Bruckner Box ...
I had the misfortune to attend Parsifal in Bayreuth conducted by Pablo H-C - the production was bad enough, but the music was absolutely forgettable, in fact almost unnoticeable. Hartmut Haenchen managed a very creditable performance at the previous production even when he only had 2 weeks notice.
After listening to excepts of this album, I do have to say it is quite mediocre in it's interpretation and sonority. I'd like to imagine the conductor just didn't do his homework, but I can't hold the musicians completely faultless as well...
"Symphony No.4 in E flat major ‘Romantic’ For their first collaboration on harmonia mundi, Pablo Heras-Casado and Anima Eterna explore the world of Bruckner. The first instalment in this series is his tremendous Symphony no.4. An apotheosis of architectural rigour and poetry, this cathedral in sound, thanks to the unique sonorities of the period instruments played by the Bruges orchestra, regains its lightness and elegance in dazzling orchestral colours!"
Here is a question that always crosses my mind when I listen to poor versions like this: Do conductors/ interpreters prepare their performances beforehand by listening to many past versions of the same work by great conductors? It seems like this option would be the right approach, absorving ideas from here and there. Or on the contrary, do they prefer not to do that so as not to get biased by others and have their own voice? Thus running risks that might lead to tremendous flops, like in this case.
I was just reading a 1975 interview with John Nelson, in which he said he listens to other recordings of pieces he was working on, comparing them to a master class. "To listen to a Toscanini recording, for example, and hear the way the orchestra played, is like having another teacher." BUT he said at Julliard, "there was a strong feeling that it was verboten to listen to recordings... If you did, you were supposed to ruin the marvelous intuition or inspiration you'd get from studying the score." He said in the beginning he was "stupid enough" to accept this, but he began seriously listening to recordings in the "past three or four years. It's like hearing 100 master classes." I'd have to agree with that. You're free to accept or reject what you hear based on score study but who would ever want to conduct Delius without hearing Beecham or Munch or Davis or Toscanini (Harold, Romeo, Francs Juges) in Berlioz? And Nelson was and is a pretty darn satisfying conductor.
I've read that some conductors eschew recordings, supposedly to avoid polluting their own interpretation of the score. Whichever approach is taken, it is the result, of course, that tells the tale.
@@matthewbbenton sometimes the wheel everyone else is using is terrible. Though, to be fair, how would you know that without checking it out first? :P But some may say "the score should have all the details needed to produce the music as needed" and decide to work only off of that - anyone premiering new works or trying to revive works that have gone unrecorded will have to do that anyway. Honestly, I can see both sides. One just has to feel they fully understand the music and be convincing in performance.
I was in Linz last week and heard the 6th as part of the International Bruckner Fest 2024. The Brucknerhaus was surrounded by huge posters advertising Heras Casaldo with the same orchestra performing the fourth. 😂
The horn at the beginning sounds like a dying elephant and the whole performance suffers from musical anemia. I will always value Günter Wand and his performances of the Bruckner Symphonies.
Hi David! I'm just getting into listening to symphonic music, thanks to your channel, and Bruckner 4 has been my gateway. I would never have been able to find the joy I currently find in this symphony if it hadn't been for listening to your recommendations and learning from your reviews (both positive and critical) about what makes this symphony tick. So much was wrong in this particular recording -- the total lack of dynamic contrast (like you mentioned, in a work that goes from ppp to fff), horns that seemed always too forward regardless of their musical function at any given time, a structural inability to foreground melody/countermelody in the slow movement and second themes of outer movements... When I started to read the (largely positive) reviews emerging for this recording, I began to think there was something wrong with my ear. I still can't understand why I am reading reviews that praise this recording for its "clarity" and its "structure" when it just seems an objective fact that it's an ill-thought-out muddle. My ongoing thanks to you for re-assuring me that my ear isn't defective and for all the work you do in helping neophytes like me learn to find joy in Bruckner (especially amid all the intimidating verbiage that is currently being written).
I saw and heard this recording on Spotify and I knew you were going to have a field day with this. It’s a bad recording why do Bruckner and Mahler on period instruments. Were there “period instruments” in Bruckner and Mahler’s day? I can understand historically authentic Haydn Mozart Beethoven and Schubert performances as instruments were slightly different back in the Classical era but by the time of Bruckner, most instruments sounded and looked like the instruments we recognize today so this recording makes no sense. What’s next? Basso continuo on a recording of Bruckners 8th? It’s looking like it and it’s not good.
The "authentic performance" movement has never really got to the truly authentic experience of heaing a regional orchestra in an under-rehearsed performance (probably played by musicians who didn't turn up to the rehearsal) led by a conductor who really hasn't got to grips with the 'new music' he's rather unwilling to perform. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new & exciting trend in authenticity?
I bought Heras-Casado’s Debussy album (La Mer, Faune, and Saint Sebastian) because I found it on sale cheap, and I needed a CD of Saint Sebastian. I too found the St. Sebastian and Faune dull, and the La Mer was worse due to a strange lack of heft to the music and some weird balances. I will acknowledge that Harmonia Mundi packaged the disc in a really nice deluxe box.
Heard him doing Bruckner 6 and Te Deum in Stuttgart lately. Was the Radio orchestra of SWR. Sounded absolutely horrible because he rushed through the two works like a madman... 😢
For long time I think Heras-Casado is largely overrated. Big trend to promote (very) young conductors, presented as genies, he is on the list. But no, really no and not only because of this recording. To cite another one, I woul say Santtu-Mathias Rouvali.
Review from The Times (London): 'If any one recording could encourage fresh and positive thinking about this idiosyncratic figure it is Pablo Heras-Casado’s account of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony with the excellent period instrument ensemble Anima Eterna. The magic starts with the opening horn call, played on a late 19th-century instrument with such gentle beauty that I immediately went weak at the knees." Were they listening to the same recording?!
I honestly wonder about many critics (Dave being one of the exceptions of course) believing they need to wax lyrical about niche works to make themselves feel wired into the pulse of things, or if they only have abstract ideas about the subjects they write about. Critics should have a 6th sense related to common sense to be genuinely relevant. Then again, maybe critics see/hear/read so many repitions of existing work that any oddity strikes them as a breath of fresh air.
Heras Casado was voted „conductor of the year 2024“ by the magazine „Opernwelt“ in Germany. They praised his Parsifal. Bayreuth has officially posted a congratulation….
I was there, in the Bayreuth pit for Parsifal this summer. It was horrifyingly bad on all aspects. Dude has no single idea neither about music nor conducting. Rumor has it he will take over Dudamel’s former position in Paris. Good luck to them.
Some authorities stated that gut was standard until after WW2. But I've never seen any statement by a conductor active over that span, late 1800s-1950s or 60s that it was of any concern to them whatsoever one way or the other.
Hi David maybe you'll do a series called worst recordings EVER one day.Thanks for keeping us informed on which recordings to avoid purchasing . Have a great weekend.
@@eddiegreschak9995 this!
Oooh… or perhaps “most overrated”. Recordings that predate the annual ALDAs. Because you can’t not click on a video where Dave is wearing a scarf.
Interestingly, Presto Classical just voted this Recording of the Week, recommending it especially for those "yearning" for Bruckner free of "indulgence," a 4th with a "refreshing elegance" and "captivating coherence." A few comments on each movement: "The opening sounds especially solemn played on a 19th-century horn over atmospheric shimmering strings." The 2nd is praised for its "emotional depth and integrity," the 3rd for its "deftness of touch and feeling of inevitability," the 4th for its "grasp of architecture" and for how its "careful attention to balance brings delicacy to the moments of quiet interplay between parts." But I have to say I heard none of this. I just don't understand these sorts of rhapsodic reviews that seem so easily contradicted by a good honest sit-down-and-listen experience of the performance.
Yep. It's pure bullshit.
Presto Classical are a good source for downloads but their "reviews" are just ways of getting you to buy stuff.
@@bikerpaul68 Sounds about right. Many of the review's phrases seem like the standard issue PR-speak which accompanies any new release.
What utter tosh from Presto Classical's 'critic!'
"yearning" for Bruckner free of "indulgence," Surely Bruckner by default, is music of indulgence (which I love)
4th with a "refreshing elegance" If I want refreshing elegance, I listen to Haydn, Mozart et al...
"captivating coherence." Lord alone what that is!!!
Great presentation, Dave. Love hearing the neighing horses again!
So nice to hear the horses...missed them.
They sound well 😂
Thanks, Dave! This is now my go-to resource to find the best renditions of classical pieces, and also to discover new ones!
I checked the beginning, and the horn solo is weird as hell and completely wrong. The score does not mark any accents and the phrase must be legato. Instead it sounds like a ship horn.
This review is actually doing this album a favour - it's exposure it wouldn't otherwise get, and I for one am going to check it out just because of it!
Of course.
Same here - I'm always on the lookout for something so bad that it is funny. This sounds like it might have some potential in this regard.
You can hear the first two minutes or so for free on UA-cam. Then you'll discover that David is being very generous in his review. Whoever is responsible at Harmonia Mundi deserves more than a white scarf ...
Sometimes you can learn much from a bad performance-- provided you know going in that It's a bad performance. Unfortunately, I've imprinted on many a bad performance.
Wot, no harpsichord continuo? 😀
If you listen carefully, you may hear it.
*It would be a circa 1878 Bösendorfer, ne?
Yipee now Mildred has a new chew toy to play with. Listening to period instrument Bruckner is like eating hard uncooked pasta.
Thanks for the video, and your continued championing of excellence in performance of Bruckner's music. By the way is there such a thing as redeemable chutzpah? :)
I'll let you know if I see it.
Wow, okay, now I _have_ to hear it
Is there a general 21st century trend, at least among HIP practitioners, to diminish and trivialize Romantic era music? Since Bruckner (and Brahms) were around into 1896 or '97, it's absurd to claim the ensemble is using the instruments of c. 15 years before when the 4th was initially created and is therefore "authentic" when the creator of the music heard improvements in instruments over the years. Or is there an unknown letter in which Bruckner or Brahms complain of the developments in sonority? Of course not.
There's an awful lot of snake oil salesmen about and flim flam going on.
Just what we needed: Yet another misguided butchering of a great symphony. I find it particularly annoying, since long ago the 4th was my gateway to Bruckner and retains a warm spot in my heart. Thanks for the warning.
Glad the horses are alive and kicking this recording into touch.Missed them.
I think some of the PR materials, or perhaps a review, said this recording restores “lightness and elegance” to Bruckner’s 4th. Yikes. Bruckner’s 4th isn’t supposed to sound like Mozart.
I read that this is the start of a Bruckner series! The horror show continues.
Kill me now.
@@DavesClassicalGuide No, I don’t. I want to enjoy your videos for a long time!
@@DavesClassicalGuide There are an alarming number of "Likes" for your comment :^D
"They sound like they're screwing in rivets at a construction site."🤣
This orchestra has just kicked out its founder and artistic director Jos van Immerseel for behaving badly. Seems among other things he was making disparaging comments about PHC’s conducting style. This might explain why…
The SCARVES haven't been in play for a while! This must be the zenith of nadirs!
The 4 is at the right bottom corner with that nice shadow ... gave this a try at prestomusic, found the horn ugly at the beginning, couldn't almost hear the brass at the da da dadada daa moment, stopped listening, turned to Wand NDR, wondering why there is no 200 Bicentennial Big Wand Bruckner Box ...
I had the misfortune to attend Parsifal in Bayreuth conducted by Pablo H-C - the production was bad enough, but the music was absolutely forgettable, in fact almost unnoticeable. Hartmut Haenchen managed a very creditable performance at the previous production even when he only had 2 weeks notice.
After listening to excepts of this album, I do have to say it is quite mediocre in it's interpretation and sonority.
I'd like to imagine the conductor just didn't do his homework, but I can't hold the musicians completely faultless as well...
"Symphony No.4 in E flat major ‘Romantic’
For their first collaboration on harmonia mundi, Pablo Heras-Casado and Anima Eterna explore the world of Bruckner. The first instalment in this series is his tremendous Symphony no.4. An apotheosis of architectural rigour and poetry, this cathedral in sound, thanks to the unique sonorities of the period instruments played by the Bruges orchestra, regains its lightness and elegance in dazzling orchestral colours!"
Here is a question that always crosses my mind when I listen to poor versions like this: Do conductors/ interpreters prepare their performances beforehand by listening to many past versions of the same work by great conductors? It seems like this option would be the right approach, absorving ideas from here and there. Or on the contrary, do they prefer not to do that so as not to get biased by others and have their own voice? Thus running risks that might lead to tremendous flops, like in this case.
I was just reading a 1975 interview with John Nelson, in which he said he listens to other recordings of pieces he was working on, comparing them to a master class. "To listen to a Toscanini recording, for example, and hear the way the orchestra played, is like having another teacher." BUT he said at Julliard, "there was a strong feeling that it was verboten to listen to recordings... If you did, you were supposed to ruin the marvelous intuition or inspiration you'd get from studying the score." He said in the beginning he was "stupid enough" to accept this, but he began seriously listening to recordings in the "past three or four years. It's like hearing 100 master classes."
I'd have to agree with that. You're free to accept or reject what you hear based on score study but who would ever want to conduct Delius without hearing Beecham or Munch or Davis or Toscanini (Harold, Romeo, Francs Juges) in Berlioz? And Nelson was and is a pretty darn satisfying conductor.
I've read that some conductors eschew recordings, supposedly to avoid polluting their own interpretation of the score. Whichever approach is taken, it is the result, of course, that tells the tale.
For what it’s worth, Carlos Kleiber listened to every recording he could get his hands on. I certainly would. Why reinvent the wheel?
@@matthewbbenton sometimes the wheel everyone else is using is terrible.
Though, to be fair, how would you know that without checking it out first? :P
But some may say "the score should have all the details needed to produce the music as needed" and decide to work only off of that - anyone premiering new works or trying to revive works that have gone unrecorded will have to do that anyway.
Honestly, I can see both sides. One just has to feel they fully understand the music and be convincing in performance.
I was in Linz last week and heard the 6th as part of the International Bruckner Fest 2024. The Brucknerhaus was surrounded by huge posters advertising Heras Casaldo with the same orchestra performing the fourth. 😂
The horn at the beginning sounds like a dying elephant and the whole performance suffers from musical anemia.
I will always value Günter Wand and his performances of the Bruckner Symphonies.
Hi David! I'm just getting into listening to symphonic music, thanks to your channel, and Bruckner 4 has been my gateway. I would never have been able to find the joy I currently find in this symphony if it hadn't been for listening to your recommendations and learning from your reviews (both positive and critical) about what makes this symphony tick. So much was wrong in this particular recording -- the total lack of dynamic contrast (like you mentioned, in a work that goes from ppp to fff), horns that seemed always too forward regardless of their musical function at any given time, a structural inability to foreground melody/countermelody in the slow movement and second themes of outer movements... When I started to read the (largely positive) reviews emerging for this recording, I began to think there was something wrong with my ear. I still can't understand why I am reading reviews that praise this recording for its "clarity" and its "structure" when it just seems an objective fact that it's an ill-thought-out muddle. My ongoing thanks to you for re-assuring me that my ear isn't defective and for all the work you do in helping neophytes like me learn to find joy in Bruckner (especially amid all the intimidating verbiage that is currently being written).
Thank you for placing your trust in me!
I saw and heard this recording on Spotify and I knew you were going to have a field day with this. It’s a bad recording why do Bruckner and Mahler on period instruments. Were there “period instruments” in Bruckner and Mahler’s day? I can understand historically authentic Haydn Mozart Beethoven and Schubert performances as instruments were slightly different back in the Classical era but by the time of Bruckner, most instruments sounded and looked like the instruments we recognize today so this recording makes no sense. What’s next? Basso continuo on a recording of Bruckners 8th? It’s looking like it and it’s not good.
The "authentic performance" movement has never really got to the truly authentic experience of heaing a regional orchestra in an under-rehearsed performance (probably played by musicians who didn't turn up to the rehearsal) led by a conductor who really hasn't got to grips with the 'new music' he's rather unwilling to perform. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new & exciting trend in authenticity?
Appreciate your presentation of primary source material on VPO's true historical sound!
No Dave, you’re TOTALLY WRONG!!! …….There is a 4 on the cover.
Yeah, I missed it. My bad.
Dave: If you're breaking out the scarves this early in the year, Oh Dear God this must be a horrific performance. Thanks for saving me a few bucks.
I mean Heras Casado has always been a bad conductor . His debussy album was also pretty plain and boring
I bought Heras-Casado’s Debussy album (La Mer, Faune, and Saint Sebastian) because I found it on sale cheap, and I needed a CD of Saint Sebastian. I too found the St. Sebastian and Faune dull, and the La Mer was worse due to a strange lack of heft to the music and some weird balances. I will acknowledge that Harmonia Mundi packaged the disc in a really nice deluxe box.
Heard him doing Bruckner 6 and Te Deum in Stuttgart lately. Was the Radio orchestra of SWR. Sounded absolutely horrible because he rushed through the two works like a madman... 😢
He does that all the time with every piece, it’s unbearable
For long time I think Heras-Casado is largely overrated. Big trend to promote (very) young conductors, presented as genies, he is on the list. But no, really no and not only because of this recording. To cite another one, I woul say Santtu-Mathias Rouvali.
Hell no! You call it, Dave! Yay
Review from The Times (London): 'If any one recording could encourage fresh and positive thinking about this idiosyncratic figure it is Pablo Heras-Casado’s account of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony with the excellent period instrument ensemble Anima Eterna. The magic starts with the opening horn call, played on a late 19th-century instrument with such gentle beauty that I immediately went weak at the knees." Were they listening to the same recording?!
I honestly wonder about many critics (Dave being one of the exceptions of course) believing they need to wax lyrical about niche works to make themselves feel wired into the pulse of things, or if they only have abstract ideas about the subjects they write about. Critics should have a 6th sense related to common sense to be genuinely relevant. Then again, maybe critics see/hear/read so many repitions of existing work that any oddity strikes them as a breath of fresh air.
Stupid is as Stupid does
Hilarious. 😁
Heras Casado was voted „conductor of the year 2024“ by the magazine „Opernwelt“ in Germany. They praised his Parsifal. Bayreuth has officially posted a congratulation….
Of course he was...
I was there, in the Bayreuth pit for Parsifal this summer. It was horrifyingly bad on all aspects. Dude has no single idea neither about music nor conducting. Rumor has it he will take over Dudamel’s former position in Paris. Good luck to them.
Poor Bruckner has had so many bad performances if his music over the years...
Dave, I enjoyed your findings on the Vienna Phil sound in the 19th century. But isn’t it a fact that they used gut strings before 1900?
Who cares?
Some authorities stated that gut was standard until after WW2. But I've never seen any statement by a conductor active over that span, late 1800s-1950s or 60s that it was of any concern to them whatsoever one way or the other.
I mean, you can play well also on gut strings
That‘s true, but the sound in general is more muted and less powerful.