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Beethoven Symphonies - Page 26

post #376 of 944
7/11/05 at 6:51pm
What? Herbert von Karajan's interpretations are not the alpha and omega of Beethoven interpretation? Scandalous! I won't hear of it.






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post #377 of 944
7/11/05 at 7:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PSmith08
What? Herbert von Karajan's interpretations are not the alpha and omega of Beethoven interpretation? Scandalous! I won't hear of it.
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post #378 of 944
7/11/05 at 7:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunnyears
The sad thing is that there are a few people I know who would be inclined to agree with my statement. No, that's not fair, they might make an exception for Kleiber's 5/7 set. However, that's only provisional, as there is always the chance a new Von Karajan recording (1939-1945) will be found that will trump Kleiber.

Of course, I have no room to talk, being the shameless Furtwangler partisan that I am.

:shakes head over fanboyism:

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post #379 of 944
7/11/05 at 8:21pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PSmith08
What? Herbert von Karajan's interpretations are not the alpha and omega of Beethoven interpretation? Scandalous! I won't hear of it.
I still love his 1977 B9, among my favorites. One of these days I'll give the Furtwangler a try, but the limited sonics on them can be sort of a downer. Time to time travel with some DSD recording equipment.

Scott
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post #380 of 944
7/11/05 at 8:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scottder
I still love his 1977 B9, among my favorites. One of these days I'll give the Furtwangler a try, but the limited sonics on them can be sort of a downer. Time to time travel with some DSD recording equipment.

Scott
The sound on the '42 can be rough sledding, but the performance is worth it.

FWIW, psmith would know better than me, but I've heard that the '53 Bayreuth Furty B9 offers a very similar interpretation to the '42 Furtwangler, with much better (although still mono) sound.
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post #381 of 944
7/11/05 at 11:47pm
The '51 Bayreuth recording documents the reopening of the Festspielhaus after reconstruction and sanitization. The sound is better, but it's 1951 live mono. It runs, almost to the second, the same as the '37 London performance. It is a minute longer than the '42 Berlin recording. Really, I see more in common for '51 with the '37 recording, as opposed to the '42. There is an intensity with all Furtwangler 9ths, but '42 is all but unbearable. In the '51 recording, there is a sense of relief and jubilation, in addition to the intensity. The London '37 is often reputed as the best performance he ever gave, but one must account for the worse than bad recording. The performance seems mystical and very spiritual.

The only thing I can compare the '51 Bayreuth 9th with is Bernstein's '89 Berlin 9th. The sense of occasion and jubilation are similar. However, his tempi are nerve-gas slow.

I am a fan of the Von Karajan '77 9th, but the CD is better than the SACD release. The SACD remaster put a veil on the sound that deadens the sound of the Philharmonie. The Jesus-Christus-Kirche has a far more neutral sound, but I prefer Von Karajan in the Philharmonie.
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post #382 of 944
7/12/05 at 12:05am
I was thinking about, and now am listening to, the '89 Berlin 9th with Bernstein. I have more thoughts about it, that I might have earlier posted, but I cannot recall.

I criticized his nerve-gas tempi, and still do. However, this one has a really neat feel to it. This isn't a first, reference, or specialist's 9th, this is one to get when you've gotten everything else on your wishlist (or find it randomly).

The soloists just aren't as good as Von Karajan's ('63 or '77) or any of Furtwangler's, but the choir does a creditable job, and the orchestra seemingly plays their hearts out. The big selling point for me is 1) the occasion and 2) the sound. By 1989, the digital scene had gotten past the glassyness of early recordings and had become a good record of the performance. It hadn't beaten '75-'85 analog, but it had a sound all its own. The Schauspielhaus acoustic was very nice, though not the Philharmonie or the Jesus-Christus-Kirche.

I think this recording, while a bit gimmicky, is a solid performance that captures the zeitgeist at the scene very well. This is one that I think is best heard before bought, but I also think prices are down on it to the point where you could jump on it and not be disappointed.
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post #383 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by PSmith08
I am a fan of the Von Karajan '77 9th, but the CD is better than the SACD release. The SACD remaster put a veil on the sound that deadens the sound of the Philharmonie.
Exactly, I listened to the SACD version originally and had no problem with it, UNTIL I heard the Galleria version. What were they thinking?

Scott
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post #384 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:43am
You're right. I ended up buying the Karajan Collection "Beethoven" disc, with the 5th, 6th, and 9th on it to A/B them. That 2-disc set was cheaper than the SACD, as it turned out.

I have no idea why, though. There is no good reason, based on the regular redbook CD edition, to dampen the recording. My only thought is that the remastering for SACD and Surround took something out of already spotty source material. Also, the SACD team might have decided that the Philharmonie sounds weird compared to other venues, such as the Grosser Musikvereinsaal in Vienna and the Jesus-Christus-Kirche (it does sound weird), and decided to "balance" the sound. Of course, the Philharmonie has a distinctive sound and the recording is mixed oddly. The male choral basses in the "Freude!" entry sound like they are right up with the soloists. In '63, there is proper separation. For that matter, it sounds like Van Dam is a bit back in the hall for his first solo.

All I know, though, is that the SACD sounds nothing like Von Karajan's 9th, and is miles away from Von Karajan's 9th in the Philharmonie.
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post #385 of 944
7/12/05 at 8:42am
PS
The older Karajan DG Galleria 9th sounds better to me than the new remastered 2CD set 5,6,9......both use 1977 version but Galleria has more treble energy and sounds much more exciting, remaster has bass pumped up and treble noticeably dialed back making it less successful than original CD. We discussed this here a few months ago when Scott picked up a used Galleria copy for $2-3 at Amazon......do pick one up

For Bernstein the new 2CD DG Panorama set has a 1980 live version that is best performance/sound of any 9th by Bernstein, after doing major study of nearly all top 9ths this would have to be one of three best ever! Must be purchased by any serious LVB fan, also discussed in more detail earlier in this thread.......perhaps Bunny can chime in here, it is one of the elite versions on any short list of best ever.......$7 used with Missa Solemnis coupling

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post #386 of 944
7/12/05 at 12:29pm
Goodness, how bad is the SACD then? The Karajan Collection disc sounds miles ahead of the SACD. Are the remaster producers that ignorant, or are they that obsessed with appealing to the average consumer?

However, it takes very little provocation for me to buy another 9th.
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post #387 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:15pm
I've been having a lot of trouble listening to the more recent dg recordings lately. They seem to have a predilection for eccentric miking and weird mastering. I have the Pollini-Böhm Beethoven piano concertos (remastered for their complete Beethoven Works boxed sets), and they sound so strange that despite a masterly (in the magisterial sense) performance, I rarely put the recordings on. It's another case of giant piano, and the orchestra is in a different room mentality. Where the orchestra plays alone everything is fine. where the piano plays alone everything is fine. When they have to play together, then things get really strange, and the difference in sound from movement to movement is even more appalling. DG was always the label that had the best sound on vinyl, but now I have come to dread what I may find on cd, especially when it's gone through the remastering process.
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post #388 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:25pm
I think it has been pointed out here, but DG is in love with spot-miking. From what I've been told, many labels were in the 70s, but since decided that spot-miking wasn't the thing to do. DG never quite made the transition. I understand that there are always new experiments, and spot-miking isn't the work of the devil. However, one expects a certain level of fidelity to the performance that various recording and mixing tricks cannot provide. Some of the more recent stuff (Boulez in Bruckner's 8th and his Mahler cycle) isn't bad. However, when one sees what EMI is doing with their GROTC remasters and Teldec's always-high quality standards, DG seems a bit behind the game. However, as I think I intimated, the spottiness of the quality bothers me more than the quality.
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post #389 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:31pm
Actually, Teldec's work with classical music is now a bit different. When Warner acquired the Teldec label, the engineers and many of the classical artists left the label and a new label called Teldex was formed. This evolved into DHM (Deutche Harmonia Mundi), which is where you will find those same great engineers who produced almost all of Harnoncourt's Teldec recordings and were responsible for that great "Teldec" sound. I may be wrong, but I think they are also the moving force behind many of the RCA Red Seal remasters as well.
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post #390 of 944
7/12/05 at 1:38pm
I didn't know that. However, it makes perfect sense.

I will say that, as late as 2000, for Harnoncourt's Concertgebouw "New World," everything sounded pretty good. The Requiem I have on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi is fantastic. I would put that very close to the top of Harnoncourt's recorded legacy, and that's saying quite a bit.

These record labels are so complicated as to who owns what that it hurts. I am getting the impression that four or five big media conglomerates own the whole shooting match, which is alright I guess, as long as they don't let the bottom line creep into the studio or concert hall. I will say that DG's back-catalog closet-clearing project (Musik...Sprache Der Welt) has good potential, but it requires one to like mono and like a fairly narrow band of works.
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