Music Chat: Why I Gave Norrington's Stuttgart Beethoven A 10/10
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- čas přidán 9. 01. 2024
- Despite being wrong-headed and expressively sterile, in my ClassicsToday.com review of Norrington's Beethoven cycle I gave the set a 10/10. Some of you have questioned that rating, and so I wanted to discuss the matter a bit further by way of examining one particular critical approach to evaluating these interpretations.
- Hudba
Great video as always, Dave. BTW, "I'm not always a fan of Roger Norrington" is in my book a very serious candidate to the "most understated statement ever" award 🙂
Your intellectual honesty has impressed me, Sir. I commend you. Thank you for your work.
Good on you, Dave, for taking your time to explain something you really didn't have to. When you said, "taking a step back," that sealed the deal for your honesty and sincerity on this subject. Bravo, and thanks for your insights.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a narrow mind”- Emerson… I like how you give good reviews to musicians you don’t always like and “ it sounds good “ is after all what counts.
Kol Hakavod for your integrity and honesty, Dave. It takes insight and of course intestinal fortitude to give credit where it is due.
I don’t care about the discussion about "vibrato" or "no vibrato", or "authentic" or "not authentic". There are interpretations in either of these categories that I like or dislike. I bought the big Norrington box to make up my own mind, and most of it sounds sloppy to me. But that has nothing to do with the level of authenticity. I just don't find it good. Of course I'm not a critic. I don’t have to be (and I'm not competent to be) objective. That's why I value these videos. They give me a point of reference to form an opinion and to agree or disagree. I haven't heard the Stuttgart cycle, so no opinion on that one. But it's always great to hear you make the distinction between personal preference and objective evaluation and express it openly. That's what we expect from a professional critic. Thanks.
So well argued (as always)! Perhaps CT should have a third category in which you rate the extent to which the performers realzie the composer's intent?
I'd really like to invent a musical time machine so I could hear the tempi Beethoven actually preferred his symphonies to be played at. I'm not even sure if he would have followed his own metronome markings, if any. I'm still working on it in my garage.
It’s bold to assume that orchestras of that time necessarily were able to achieve what Beethoven had in mind. I don’t think it’s unlikely that he made pragmatic compromises to his artistic vision when conducting to actually get it performed and to stop the performance from breaking down.
He had little to no choice in these matters.
I have been listening to my 1970's recordings of David Munrow's compelling early instrument/vocal performances of ars nova pieces, and even he used some vibrato. I note that Antal Dorati discusses a movement in one of Haydn's symphonies where markings "simplice" and "dolce" were performed without and with vibrato, consecutively.
The "Schoolmaster" Symphony.
This cycle is truly impressive. Sir Norrington somehow managed, through an impressive strength of will, to make the adagio of the fifth symphony (one of the great adagios, I would say) almost completely unappealing.
Gerard Schwarz once said, “The reason that period instrument ensembles take such fast tempos is, that way, they don’t have to worry about phrasing.”
We have so many great performances of the standard repertoire already, so if someone wants to try something different, fair enough. They don't invalidate the other recordings. Maybe a very committed “wrong” approach will be more convincing than a half-hearted “correct” one. I always liked Harnoncourt even when I didn’t; by which I mean, even if he did something I didn’t agree with, he really went for it.
Now that is what honesty and integrity sound like! I will keep on listening, but never to Norrington.
The real question is, "to what degree does Norrington attempt to present what Beethoven was driving at in the music?" If the listener thinks that Beethoven really was not a sonority composer [among many other aspects], then perhaps a 10/10 review might be justified.
I shall not be rushing out to buy this Beethoven cycle, and that said, I do not really need to explain further what I think of what Beethoven had in mind!
Dear Dave, this is fascinating as ever, and I see your point over the rating, even if I could never endorse it!
Best wishes from George
I enjoyed Norrington's SWR Beethoven. It felt clean, fresh, and energetic. While every artist has their moments of hits and misses, and with Norrington, it might well be over 95% that misses. Still, that 1% that does work is worth giving a listen. Of course, as you rightly pointed out, credit is due to Stuttgart for this achievement.
If these people were serious and sincere about applying "authentic" performance practice to Romantic and later rep, then why aren't they playing with the liberal string portamento and slides that we really DO hear in century plus old recordings? It's also heard with singers of the period.
Apart from the issue of vibrato, there’s another issue that applies to late Romantic repertoire rather than to Beethoven: portamento. I’d love to know people’s thoughts. Don’t some of the early recordings of composers such as Elgar suggest that string players used to apply a lot more portamento to wide intervals than modern players do? I get the impression there used to be a fair bit more “scooping” than we’re used to today.
There was.
For me the "bottom line" about vibrato is that in general strings sound lousy without it and often out of tune as vibrato covers up those minor intonation flaws. Also there is far too much use of open strings which also sounds lousy and amateurish (which it is).
I remember when the period instrument brigade first started and I never really paid that much attention, everything was just fast. At least I now know why.
My problem with 'period performance' practice is that to compensate for having no vibrato, the musicians often squeeze out the notes at the end of every phrase or use harmonics to make expressive points, both of which become tiresome very quickly.
Point taken, Dave!
Could you give me your opinion on Barnabas Kelemen's Bartok violin concerto with Zoltan Kocsis? It is voted as best the top 10 violin concerto recordings by gramophone. I'd be glad if you could give it a listen🙏
It's an excellent version. I don't buy the "top 10" business, but there's no need.
@@DavesClassicalGuide" I don't buy the "Top 10" business..." except when I'M choosing the 10 best recordings of conductor X! 😁🫠
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you! Have you listened to his Solo sonata?
I'm not sure it's because of the instrument, the soloists or the recording, but to me the Barnabas Kelemen's sound is gray (not very colorful) and flat. The Capucon/Roth-LSO is surprisingly good in the 2nd concerto.
@@brunoluong7972 do you mean the solo sonata or the concerto? where its "flat"
I find this as funny thing and atleast Dave shows he make a justice to what it deserved even though he dosen't like particular person.
Any good, tasteful string player of the 20th century would have understood and taught that vibrato or no vibrato is no binary issue and that always using the same amount is bad, maybe even harmful to the muscles doing it, and certainly limits the variety of sounds and expressions available. The same holds true for singers and singing teachers: if a singer can't control and vary their vibrato, there's something wrong with their technique, and that would surely have been agreed upon by good, tasteful musicians in the 1920s just like in the 50s or 80s.
To prevent possible misunderstanding: I'm saying this in agreement with what is said in the video.
Understood. It was also the same in the 1820s, and 1720s...
Hence, put in short it is an outstanding performance and recording of a wrong concept.
Like I said.
To me it just sounds awful.