Music Chat: The Myth of the Great Dead Conductor (or Pianist, or Violinist, etc)
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
- Why do we so enthusiastically welcome reissues of music by dead, lesser-known artists? Are we exaggerating the value of all of the old stuff that's getting boxed up and reissued?
The multiverse? Ah yes, there's a universe somewhere where Dave waggles his 12 tentacles at the screen and rhapsodises about the latest box set from Roger Norrington, weeping tears of joy...
Wahahahaha!!
I'd pay some cash to see that Dave going through every Norrington recording saying "Oh it's marvellous!"
How much?
Nostalgia isn't necessarily incorrect - the days when a conductor spent years buliding an orchestra - Reiner/Chicago, Karajan/Berlin, Szell/Cleveland etc, etc - are gone. Now a young conductor can fly between European and American orchestras and wave a baton. The old stuff REALLY IS better, as a result...
I'm a huge fan of Reiner/CSO and the consistency of the quality of their recordings is remarkable. But he probably didn't spend any more time in Chicago than did Solti (at least at the outset); Reiner may have been conducting a larger percentage of the season than MDs do today but it was a shorter season; the 52-week orchestra wasn't really a thing in the 1950s.
I don't know about Szell but Karajan didn't spend all that much time in Berlin - he also spent a lot of time in Vienna, Salzburg, Paris. But he was there a long time (35 years).
The funny thing is...not always....so many orchestras are so far superior to what was then.....I heard several performances of the Frankfurt Orchestra that were superior in almost every way to what was going on in the 1960s...the players are that good nowadays.
@@daviddavenport9350it's pretty obvious orchestras are technically superior compared 50 years ago unfortunately a Mahler performance these days sounds like a typical Taylor swift record compared with performances by Klemperer or Bernstein
I would say the biggest difference between the past and today is that orchestras back then were really playing as if they had something to prove. They were building their reputations, so they were challenging themselves, to keep pushing their limits.
But what do orchestras have to prove today? They know the repertoire like the back of their hands, and everyone knows they're extremely talented. So why would they bother? If I were mean, I'd say they became lazy. But conductors also have a big responsibility, of course. Very few of today's conductors make them play, and I mean REALLY play, proactively. Because so many of today's performances just consist of orchestras playing on autopilot, which sounds like death.
@@MisterPathetique the great maestros in the past started from building their career at a shitty opera house, then worked their way up. That time getting all players in their respective positions who can sight read competently was a luxury. Nowadays practically all conductors get their jobs through conducting competitions and there's only so much you can do just studying the score and listening to records without contact with different types of ensembles of varying degrees. I've witnessed a Mahler 3 by Berlin philharmonic by a "backup" conductor replacing an indisposed maestro. It's pretty obvious they looked bored shitless
I buy those big Dead Conductor boxes for the same reason I spend time in libraries reading old issues of Time magazine from the '40s and '50s and '60s: I'm curious about what was going on the world when I was a kid and unaware of what was happening. It's like a history lesson in sound. To listen to recordings of the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, then Rodzinski, then Mitropoulos and on to Bernstein is fascinating. There were some smoking hot recordings being made. Listening to the Philadelphia boxes - Stokowski, then Ormandy mono and now stereo is fascinating. Sadly, is there anyone out there today that will be famous enough that people will want a boxed set from them in 50 years? I don't think so.
Want because of fame? That remains to be seen, I guess. But: want because of quality? Absolutely. There are fantastic contemporaries (musicians, composers, and even conductors) out there. Don't sell the present short just because it's not yet nostalgic.
Speaking of Time, we'd be a lot better off culturally if magazines of general interest and news still featured great conductors, classical singers, and instrumentalists on their covers along with feature articles devoted to them. Those days are long gone. Often the magazines themselves are gone.
No offense...but orchestras simply werent as good back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s...with a very few exceptions.....
@@nathanshaffer3264 there sure are. But classical music is a non entity for 97%of the public. There are no big names today that the general public knows. 60 years ago toscanini, Bernstein were household names.
Talking about the madness of the recording industry, I thought that with the advent of the streaming services, what is released on a streaming platform would be available forever. No more problems of reissuing big boxes, or looking for out of prints recordings. I was really wrong! There are complete recordings that suddenly disappear from the streaming platforms, or single tracks that for some reason become no more available. This happened recently with Solti’s Carmen. After Dave’s video, I wanted to play again that recording, but only the highlights was still available. I had the full recording in my favourites, but it was gone. And when I tried to understand why these things happen, the most common answer I’ve found on the internet is that the owner of the rights simply revoked their licence. So it seems that even in the era of internet, big data, and streaming services, nothing is forever. Digging for more info on the topic, I understood that this problem is common also with other type of platforms like Amazon videos, and Netflix. Movies and series are released on the basis of licences that end and/or can be revoked. So, there is only one way to protect ourselves from this madness, and it’s to keep hard copies of whatever recordings we really want to bring with us on a desert island. For the remaining discography, let’s hope it will be still available tomorrow in any possible format.
That's why I avoid streaming services and still buy physical media.
Streaming is the work of the devil. It's great you can dial up (almost) anything, but then one day it evaporates. Physical media is a must for anything you plan to take on your trip to sunny Elba.
As a teenager, I was frustrated that I could not get recordings of Tchaikovsky's first, second and third symphonies! No label and no conductor seemed to be interested in them! I finally got to do the 2nd symphony myself....but I was already graduated from Masters school and Doctoral school and already teaching and playing. I always wonder why this was the case! Those first 3 symphonies are marvelous...as is the Manfred Symphony (which I heard the Cleveland Orchestral play in my last year of grad school....and that may bave been only the second time the Orchestra had ever played it in its history!)....so I dont know about it all.
An underdog doesn't get much underer than six feet under.
For me it is the composer and their music first. The performers are certainly important but they are not really in the same league as the composers. One or two really good recordings of a piece is what I want in my CD collection. In my teens and 20s I could, and would, spend hours on end listening to music. But at 65, I probably listen to music 0 to 2 hours a day (and half of that is rock, jazz, blues etc.). I can’t afford, and do not have time to acquire and listen to multiple recordings of the same piece.
I remember my grandfather going on about how dreadful contemporary musical standards were compared to the artists he heard in the day: Melba, Strauss, Kreisler, Schnabel etc! Each generation has a tendency to look back. Maybe the current generation will be clutching their Lang Lang boxes when they're middle aged, decrying the superficiality of their current breed of artists...But the historical boxes are important as a "record" of the often very different priorities of a different age (interpretation over technical prowess, to use a cliche), of a time less standardised (when orchestras had distinctive national styles), when there were a mind boggling number & variety of classical singers...and, perhaps above all, when record companies really took pains.
As for pianists, there are so many forgotten pianists that were born around 150 years ago, to me it is the last generation that really could make the piano "sing".
"Animalcule." Is the Paramecium Box Set on the way, then?
There is a third Sawallisch box coming, believe it or not. Operas for EMI/Warner. Honestly, I think a well curated box of his work across the major labels would've served his legacy better. (The more boxes I collect, the less enthusiastic I'm becoming with having the complete discography of virtually anyone--haha.)
And the one Sawallisch recording that I want to come back, Rossini's Le petite messe, is nowhere in sight during this centenary+1 year! Alas.
Usually I heard some excellent excerpts on UA-cam on some great dead conductor/pianist/violinist/vocalist, and I went ahead and purchase a big box of that musician. More often than not I'd regret at the end. Because the best ones are the excerpts I have already listened to on UA-cam and the rest of the stuff in the big box are just so-so.
I'm a charted member of the "dead musician society" and I admit it with shelves of cd boxes to prove it.
Why are we interested? My opinion?
Through my 70 some odd years I recall we formerly were not so interested in the dead people because there were plenty of greats we could buy a ticket for and hear in person.
As humans we need our idols and icon and today the classical music industry is more interested in the "Klaus Doll Syndrome" of which he is not an isolated case and for that we have a lot of faceless performances.
But, I'm convinced there are young, great musician that are likely more local to their areas that will never have a big household name careers.
Last month I heard 2 great pianists one after the other here in Boston.
Lukáš Vondrácek and Alessandro Deljavan. Both great neither will likely attain the fame of Lang Lang and Yuja Wang. They both look like the friendly guy in some small town butcher shop. Unlike the butcher they are great musicians and performers.
In my personal case , I look for vintage (old) interpretations , maybe just out of curiosity ,and the search for the discovery of hidden treasures .
You'll really have something to complain about when they bring out the Ken Doll box😅 So lets wallow in the greatness of the past.
that's a great idea in there- a lable releasing in a box all the versions they have of a given work, that would be fun!
It's been done with The Rite of Spring.
Dave, Any chance Warner will bring out a complete Giulini and maybe Nicolai Gedda?
I have no idea!
A bit of honesty among the flood of music being sold at a given time: the 1990s cassette of a Slatkin anthology program (on Telarc I believe) bore a warning that this product would not have the musical quality of the CD with the same contents. Of course this was a selling point for CDs as well as a concession about the limitations of the cassette. I'm old enough to remember the 50s with the conflicting messages about what was mono, stereo, or artificially faked stereo. There would be reassuring messages that a particular mono disc would just would be just as valid as the stereo version. On the other hand, I never knew if I could safely play a stereo LP on a mono record player without damage, as the producers promised.
I'm also old enough to remember the mono, simulated stereo, true stereo days. The basic thing to remember was that a stereo stylus wouldn't damage a mono record, but a mono stylus could damage a stereo record.
Right. With a limited budget i didn’t go stereo until after college.
Forgive me if it's not funny, but it would seem today's industry credo is: "Once you are put in the box, you are put in a box!" :\
Can you do essential works for beginners on John Zorn?
Sorry, I don't know his music well enough.