Two Furtwangler Experiences
Yoram Regev
Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan, Parsifal on
Biddulph.
Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and exuberant. The
others are slowish and heavy.
I only listened once, and I seem to like the Brahms, but not the
Beethoven. I am still undecided about the Wagner. The Vorspiele seem
good, but the Liebestod and the Good Friday music sound a bit tame to me
(first time hearing. I will try them again).
Anyway, I am not becoming a Furtwangler addict yet. I also find the
sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
Yoram
David Hurwitz
> Anyway, I am not becoming a Furtwangler addict yet. I also find the
> sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
You have put your finger on the "Furtwangler Problem." Some of his best
performances (or what some regard as his best performances) sound horrible,
while some of his best sounding recordings don't find him terribly inspired.
He was a very inconsistent conductor, and was futher hampered by the fact
that his vintage period, record-wise (from the late 30s to his death) found
him, more often than not, leading orchestras (Vienna and Berlin) which had
been gutted by Nazi racial policies and the tribulations of war. Playing is
often substandard, even when he's really "on." Purely in terms of orchestral
execution, his best recordings were made with England's Philharmonia, even
though that group was relatively new, and he never got from them the kind of
discipline you can hear in, say, Toscanini's Brahms symphony cycle or
Karajan's early recordings from the same period. But then, Furtwangler
wasn't that kind of conductor, which is yet another reason why you should
not feel that you need to become an addict. He was a great artist,
unquestionably, but also an acquired taste, and I believe one worth
acquiring for his uniquely personal style, intensity and insight into some
of the core German repertoire. But by the same token, there is no work that
he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance (albeit
different interpretively) in excellent modern sound (with the exception of
his own Second Symphony).
For performances in which sound is less of a barrier to enjoyment, I would
try:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Tahra--the Lucerne Festival performance with the
Philharmonia);
Beethoven: Symphonies 7 and 8 on Orfeo with the Vienna Phil. from the
Salzburg Festival;
Brahms: Symphony No. 1: Tahra again, with the North German Radio Orchestra
from 1951 (his best performance and best sound)
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde on EMI
Schubert: Symphony No. 9; Haydn: Symphony No. 88 (on DG "Originals")
You may still not like the approach, and the live sources have some ensemble
lapses and sundry noises, but this is the best of him sonically. I have
never warmed to the "wartime" Beethoven and Brahms performances as others in
this group have, finding them so limited sonically that much of their
vaunted "savagery" and tension appears to me to be poor balances and
distortion, but others can make the case for them better than I.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
Yoram Regev <yoram...@iname.com> wrote in message
news:386AE0FC...@iname.com...
> I bought my first two Furtwangler recordings:
>
> Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan, Parsifal on
> Biddulph.
> Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
>
> They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and exuberant. The
> others are slowish and heavy.
>
> I only listened once, and I seem to like the Brahms, but not the
> Beethoven. I am still undecided about the Wagner. The Vorspiele seem
> good, but the Liebestod and the Good Friday music sound a bit tame to me
> (first time hearing. I will try them again).
>
>
> Yoram
>
>
samir ghiocel golescu
On Thu, 30 Dec 1999, David Hurwitz wrote:
> He was a very inconsistent conductor, and was futher hampered by the fact
> that his vintage period, record-wise (from the late 30s to his death) found
> him, more often than not, leading orchestras (Vienna and Berlin) which had
> been gutted by Nazi racial policies and the tribulations of war. Playing is
> often substandard, even when he's really "on."
With the risk of unabashedly plagiarizing, buy yourself a new pair of
ears!
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
Yoram Regev <yoram...@iname.com> wrote:
> I bought my first two Furtwangler recordings:
>
> Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan, Parsifal on
> Biddulph.
> Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
>
> They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and exuberant.
The
> others are slowish and heavy.
>
> I only listened once, and I seem to like the Brahms, but not the
> Beethoven. I am still undecided about the Wagner. The Vorspiele seem
> good, but the Liebestod and the Good Friday music sound a bit tame to
me
> (first time hearing. I will try them again).
>
> sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
>
>
>
If you're interested in further exploring Furtwangler, I've cut and
pasted a post that I made on another thread with recommendations for
recordings. I'd also recommend that you not by anymore LYS releases.
You won't get the best sounding transfers on that lable for the most
part.
I'd also recommend that you explore his wartime recordings. They tend
to be his most intense performances.
Finally, I'll say that Furtwangler's style simply isn't for everyone.
You may not react well to extreme tempo changes and unclean playing, or
to historic sound, as you've already indicated.
Here is my post from the other thread:
My top two recommendations for someone exploring Furtwangler would be
the recently released Beethoven and Brahms 4 cd sets on Music and Arts
(the Brahms is cat. no. 4941. I can't think of the Beethoven number off
the top of my head).
I disagree with Mr. Hurwitz with regard to Furtwangler's best
Beethoven's 9th. The Lucerne performance on Tahra may have the best
sound quality of any Furt LvB 9th, but the performance is tame in
comparison to the 1942 BPO 9th. The extreme tempo fluctuations in that
one may be too much for some, but by missing out on it, you'd be
depriving yourself of precisely the type of performance that
Furtwangler's legend is largely built on. It was my intruduction to
Furt, and it basically completely transformed how I felt music should
be performed.
It comes as part of the above mentioned Music and Arts Beethoven set
along with wartime performances of symphonies 4, 5, 6, and 7, as well
as the Coriolon and Leonore III Overtures. All of these performances
are white hot.
The Brahms set contains what many people consider to be the best
available Furtwangler performances of all four symphonies, as well as
Furt's two best Haydn Variations on record and a fabulous 2nd piano
concerto with Edwin Fischer as soloist.
These two sets are a great way to be introduced to Furtwangler's style
of conducting at its best.
If you want to go further, other recommendations would be the 1938
Tchaikovsky Pathetique on Biddolph, the 1942 BPO Schubert 9th on Music
and Arts, the wartime Bruckner 5, 8, and 9 on Music and Arts (unless
you can find imports of the French DG transfers), and just about any
Wagner excerpts collection.
Barry
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Raymond Hall
>
> I bought my first two Furtwangler recordings:
>
> Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan, Parsifal on
> Biddulph.
> Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
>
> They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and exuberant. The
> others are slowish and heavy.
>
> I only listened once, and I seem to like the Brahms, but not the
> Beethoven. I am still undecided about the Wagner. The Vorspiele seem
> good, but the Liebestod and the Good Friday music sound a bit tame to me
> (first time hearing. I will try them again).
>
> Anyway, I am not becoming a Furtwangler addict yet. I also find the
> sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
>
> Yoram
I picked up the Furtwaengler/VPO Bruckner 8th (Oct17 1944) on Magic
Talent only a few days ago. I have also "the" famous/infamous 1942 LvB
9th on cassette.
On the basis of the two recordings, I find Furtwaengler totally
incandescent in the Bruckner. One of the greatest 8ths I have heard
(sound not too bad actually). Can't say I found his Beethoven 9th that
awe-inspiring, but the Bruckner is really something else. Just my
opinion.
Regards,
Ray Hall, Sydney
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
His inconsistancy was due to his refusal to every conduct any single piece of
music in the same way. For example, you can take the Bruckner 8ths from back
to back nights in 1949 and the Beethoven Eroica's from back to back nights in
12/52 and hear dramatic differences, yet they're all brilliant performances
in their own way.
But by the same token, there is no work that
> he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance (albeit
> different interpretively) in excellent modern sound (with the exception of
> his own Second Symphony).
>
> David Hurwitz
> Executive Editor
> www.classicstoday.com
> dhur...@classicstoday.com
If you insist on restating this position as a matter of fact, I'll again
refute it. If you're basing that statement on sound quality and clean
orchestral execution, I won't argue, but those aren't the criterion that most
Furtwangler fans judge his performances on. He brought a level of white hot
intensity, and often, a spiritual quality, to a piece that you simply don't
get with modern conductors. If, as a matter of fact, there are equally good
performances of this repertoire in good stereo sound, I can assure you that I
and countless others wouldn't be dropping so much money on mediocre and
sometimes poor sounding recordings. Every listener has to make that call for
him or herself. Barry
Marc Perman
[snip]
I have never warmed to the "wartime" Beethoven and Brahms
performances as others in
>this group have, finding them so limited sonically that much of their
>vaunted "savagery" and tension appears to me to be poor balances and
>distortion, but others can make the case for them better than I.
Have you heard the recent transfers on Tahra and Music & Arts of
Furt's wartime Beethoven and Brahms? These are eminently listenable
historic recordings - the Brahms 2 on M&A (1945) for example sounds
stunning for that era.
Marc Perman
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
> stunning for that era.
>
> Marc Perman
>
I couldn't agree more! I previously had the DG transfer on a Japanese import.
When I heard the Music and Arts transfer, I traded in the DG release to a
used cd store.
Simon Roberts
: YR concluded:
: > Anyway, I am not becoming a Furtwangler addict yet. I also find the
: > sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
: You have put your finger on the "Furtwangler Problem."
Is *that* "the Furtwaengler Problem"? Surely, if anything, it's the
"great performances that exist only in sound that many find sub-par"
problem, into which category one could put a large array of conductors and
other musicians.
Some of his best
: performances (or what some regard as his best performances) sound horrible,
: while some of his best sounding recordings don't find him terribly inspired.
: He was a very inconsistent conductor, and was futher hampered by the fact
: that his vintage period, record-wise (from the late 30s to his death) found
: him, more often than not, leading orchestras (Vienna and Berlin) which had
: been gutted by Nazi racial policies and the tribulations of war. Playing is
: often substandard, even when he's really "on." Purely in terms of orchestral
: execution, his best recordings were made with England's Philharmonia, even
: though that group was relatively new, and he never got from them the kind of
: discipline you can hear in, say, Toscanini's Brahms symphony cycle or
: Karajan's early recordings from the same period.
True, if the criterion is efficient execution and civilized tone. But is
there any reason to suppose that Furtwaengler or his admirers prize those
qualities? I don't like any of his Philharmonia recordings much,
including that great sacred cow, the EMI Tristan, in part for that
reason: sounds to me as though Walter Legge and his outfit have tamed him.
But then, Furtwangler
: wasn't that kind of conductor, which is yet another reason why you should
: not feel that you need to become an addict. He was a great artist,
: unquestionably, but also an acquired taste, and I believe one worth
: acquiring for his uniquely personal style, intensity and insight into some
: of the core German repertoire. But by the same token, there is no work that
: he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance (albeit
: different interpretively) in excellent modern sound (with the exception of
: his own Second Symphony).
"Equally fine ... albeit different" may be true in one sense (though use
of "equally" seems problematic here), but it rather misses the point. If
one doesn't like Furtwaengler (which, of course, is fine; it's a matter of
taste), it hardly matter whether the alternatives are stereo or mono, and
if one does it doesn't matter either because the alternatives, while they
may be as good in their different ways, are, as you say, utterly
different. Like him or not, there is no modern equivalent (for all that
DG thinks the ghastly Thielemann is), which is ultimately why one should
try, if interested, to get past the sound problem (which is equally true,
of course, for Kabasta, Toscanini, Mengelberg, etc., etc.).
[snip]
: You may still not like the approach, and the live sources have some ensemble
: lapses and sundry noises, but this is the best of him sonically. I have
: never warmed to the "wartime" Beethoven and Brahms performances as others in
: this group have, finding them so limited sonically that much of their
: vaunted "savagery" and tension appears to me to be poor balances and
: distortion, but others can make the case for them better than I.
I see no point in "making the case": one listens and is either moved by
the results or not -- arguing one way or the other surely won't make a
difference. As for the sound affecting the apparent quality of the
musicianship, surely that equally applies to all recordings of the period
regardless of their style.
Simon
Tony Movshon
"David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> YR concluded:
> > Anyway, I am not becoming a Furtwangler addict yet. I also find the
> > sound (especially the Brahms) a barrier to enjoying the performances.
>
> performances (or what some regard as his best performances) sound horrible
Dave is right. This is a serious problem even for those, like me, who
have some tolerance for "historical" sound.
Arguably the greatest body of Furtwangler recordings is the collection
done on early Magnetophon tape by the Reichs Rundfunk Gesellschaft (RRG)
during the war years. The irony is that there is every reason to believe
that many of these recordings were technically excellent, but they have
come to us only through inferior copies.
The great bulk of original RRG tapes were taken from Berlin after the
war by the Soviets, and kept in Moscow for many years. In many cases,
inferior copies made after the war or during the war for distribution
within the German radio network survived in the West, and it is from
these that most of what we hear now derives. These second- and probably
even third-generation copies are often harshly distorted, muffled, and
crudely dynamically compressed -- they can be a real trial to listen to
(or perhaps I should say "listen through"). Since 1989, better copies of
some performances have begun to emerge from a collection of tapes given
back to Germany by the Russians, and I suppose there is some hope that
more improved copies of some performances may yet come to light.
The great shame is that on those few occasions when what I presume is a
first-generation master is available, the sound is stunningly good,
easily the equal of anything done in mono in the postwar period. The
shining example of the quality of the RRG tapes is the 1943 Berlin
Philharmonic performance of the Beethoven 5th, as issued several times
in recent years by Tahra. In this incarnation, the sound is fabulous --
rich, detailed, with low distortion and noise, naturally wide dynamics,
and excellent high frequency extension. In many ways the most
interesting issue of this transfer is on a 2-disc set, priced as one,
that couples this 5th with two other Furtwangler 5ths, an HMV studio
recording from 1937 and a 1954 live RIAS (Tahra FURT 1032-1033). To hear
the evolution of Furtwangler's intepretation is fascinating, and each
performance is superb in its own way. The only downside of the set is
the relatively poor quality of the transfer of the 1954 performance,
which is rather distorted and (unusually for Tahra) has gobs of
unpleasant fake stereo processing added. The set also includes an
interesting lecture, illustrated with examples from the three
recordings, by Sami Habra of the French Furtwangler Society.
The story of the Furtwangler tapes is outlined at a site on the Web,
http://home.2friend.com/Taipei/runrun/rrg/rrg.htm
I believe that the story has been written up in more detail in one of
the French Furtwangler Society publications, but I have not seen the
article.
--
Tony Movshon mov...@nyu.edu
Center for Neural Science New York University
Bob Harper
internally contradictory. Unless you don't care about unique interpretation (I
do).
Bob Harper
David Hurwitz wrote:
(snip)
> He was a great artist,
> unquestionably, but also an acquired taste, and I believe one worth
> acquiring for his uniquely personal style, intensity and insight into some
> of the core German repertoire. But by the same token, there is no work that
> he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance (albeit
> different interpretively) in excellent modern sound.
(snip)
Sol L. Siegel
>I bought my first two Furtwangler recordings:
>Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan,
>Parsifal on Biddulph.
My own favorite Furtwangler 5th is his from postwar Berlin
homecoming concert on Tahra 1016, a performance with a
true sense of occasion in pretty good sound.
>Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
I will add my praises to M&A 4941, which I finally got a couple
of weeks ago. Great 1st, in fine sound (though the single-disc
release on Tahra is better yet); stunning 2nd & 3rd in adequate
sound; and a wild 4th in sound that's Good For Its Time. The
2nd Concerto with Fischer is a struggle to listen to, but that's
on the "bonus" disc, so you're not paying for it. CD now may still
have it at $21.38, and an online coupon from http://finditnow.8m.com may help
you get it for less yet. (Avoid M&A set 804, with the red
cover, which has been resoundingld panned in this ng.)
>They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and
>exuberant. The others are slowish and heavy.
It took me a LONG time to get used to Furt. in Beethoven and
Brahms.
I'll also second the recs for the DG Schubert/Hadyn, the
Tchaikovsky Pathetique on Biddulph, and the Bruckner 9
(paired with a live Tristan Prelude/Liebestod) on M&A.
I also like the Bruckner 7 on Italian Urania.
-Sol Siegel, Philadelphia, PA
---------------------------------------------------------
"The worst thing about Y2K is that we'll wake up on Jan. 1 and find that
nothing has changed."
(Remove "junkfree" from the end of my e-mail address to re
Sol L. Siegel
there's a sour patch in the finale, as if the tape had stretched.
Has anyone else noticed this (or said so here), or did I somehow
get a bad copy?
TIA.
Brian Cantin
> Question to ng: On my Tahra disc of the Lucerne Beethoven 9th,
> there's a sour patch in the finale, as if the tape had stretched.
> Has anyone else noticed this (or said so here), or did I somehow
> get a bad copy?
I noticed no such problem, but I have not listened to the
disc for several months. My impression of the sound on the
Tahra was highly favorable. The sound is much better, mono
aside, than many recordings made decades later.
--
Brian Cantin
An advocate of poisonous individualism.
To reply via email, replace "dcantin" with "bcantin".
David Hurwitz
> Have you heard the recent transfers on Tahra and Music & Arts of
> Furt's wartime Beethoven and Brahms? These are eminently listenable
> historic recordings - the Brahms 2 on M&A (1945) for example sounds
> stunning for that era.
Those were the transfers I refered to. I have heard them, and my opinion is
what it is. Particularly with regard to instrumental balance, there is
nothing in those recordings that can remotely be related to what an
orchestra sounds like in a live context. I do not find them "eminently
listenable." They are compressed, distorted, inconsistent in pitch, and
while I find those performances typically "Furtwangler" with respect to
tempo and phrasing, they are not especially well played by the orchestra,
and I do not find his interpretations interesting enough to induce me to put
up with the limitations of the sources.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
Marc Perman <per...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:386bfc02...@news.mindspring.com...
> "David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> I have never warmed to the "wartime" Beethoven and Brahms
> performances as others in
> >this group have, finding them so limited sonically that much of their
> >vaunted "savagery" and tension appears to me to be poor balances and
> >distortion, but others can make the case for them better than I.
>
>
> Marc Perman
DavidDGable
>ears!
This reminds me of a joke I once heard about a sensitive young composer who was
commissioned to write a work for string quartet. The dowager who paid for the
commission was roped into providing the money with little experience of music.
When she heard the piece premiered, she didn't like it, and the composer was
hurt. To cheer him up the first violinist of the quartet said to him, "Look,
you can't make a silk ear out of a sow's purse."
-david gable
David Hurwitz
of
> music in the same way. For example, you can take the Bruckner 8ths from
back
> to back nights in 1949 and the Beethoven Eroica's from back to back nights
in
> 12/52 and hear dramatic differences, yet they're all brilliant
performances
> in their own way.
I disagree. I have those Bruckner 8ths--both of which I dislike, as I do
Furtwangler's angular, hysterical, willful approach to Bruckner generally.
As for the Eroica, the second night (Dec. 8) is a terrific performance, the
first night much less so. The first movement, in particular, looses energy
as it goes, bogs down in the development, and never gets back to Tempo 1.
The funeral march, by contrast, picks up steam and and rises to a fine
climax, but the quieter moments (the funeral march proper) are slackly
phrased. The scherzo is OK in both performances, but the Finale is
sectionalized to its detriment. The opening tempo is unrelated to the
initial statement of the theme, the fugatos wander aimlessly, and the almost
dead halt before the coda sounds mannered. The coda itself features terrible
balances, horns completely drowned out after their initial entrance, and
what sounds like really badly tuned timpani. In both the first movement
(development especially) and the finale the strings have some really painful
problems with intonation (especially the cellos). While much the same
performance, the evening of December 8 finds better playing, and a higher
degree of integration of the details of the performance into the total
conception. It may not be my favorite "Eroica," either, but I recognize a
great realization of the conductor's intentions when I hear it. You are
operating from the basic assumption that because Furtwangler didn't believe
everything should sound the same every day, that everything he did must be
equally fine. While I agree with the first proposition, I disagree with the
second. In fact, Furtwangler's interpretations were remarkably consistent in
their broad particulars, and the "differences" are almost always simple
failings either of orchestral execution of interpretive temperament.
Sometimes he "got it right" and sometimes he didn't. He was human like
everyone else. I find it particularly strange to have people defending
performances taken from live sources that the great man himself NEVER
approved for commercial release. If he were alive today, I feel confident
that his opinions of many of these performances would be far harsher than
mine, and that his "fans" would be in for a very big surprise. He, at least,
had standards, as his best work so eloquently demonstrates. The sad thing
about his career is that he was so seldom in a position to have his best
work captured for posterity.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
<phlmaes...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:84h118$gcn$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <84gr31$mf6$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>,
> "David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > He was a very inconsistent conductor,
>
>
>
> But by the same token, there is no work that
> > he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance
(albeit
> > different interpretively) in excellent modern sound (with the exception
of
> > his own Second Symphony).
> >
>
> > David Hurwitz
> > Executive Editor
> > www.classicstoday.com
> > dhur...@classicstoday.com
>
> If you insist on restating this position as a matter of fact, I'll again
> refute it. If you're basing that statement on sound quality and clean
> orchestral execution, I won't argue, but those aren't the criterion that
most
> Furtwangler fans judge his performances on. He brought a level of white
hot
> intensity, and often, a spiritual quality, to a piece that you simply
don't
> get with modern conductors. If, as a matter of fact, there are equally
good
> performances of this repertoire in good stereo sound, I can assure you
that I
> and countless others wouldn't be dropping so much money on mediocre and
> sometimes poor sounding recordings. Every listener has to make that call
for
> him or herself. Barry
>
>
David Hurwitz
many other performances of the same period. But then again, I find
Furtwangler was a great conductor of this symphony at virtually any period
in his career, and there are several performances in excellent sound
(including the EMI "official" one) that show his interpretation in a fine
light. I see no need to listen to a dozen others which are, again in their
general outlines, virtually identical. He never could get those opening
notes together, though, could he? There's one version--I forget which--where
you can actually hear the clarinets!--something even the HIP people haven't
yet managed.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
Tony Movshon <to...@cns.nyu.edu> wrote in message
news:hvUa4.43$HH4....@typhoon.nyu.edu...
William A. Dirks
<yoram...@iname.com> wrote:
>I bought my first two Furtwangler recordings:
>
>Beethoven Symphony no. 5 and Wagner music from Tristan, Parsifal on
>Biddulph.
>Brahms cycle vol. 3 (Symphonies 1/iv and 4) on LYS.
>
>They are very different. The Brahms is amazingly fast and exuberant. The
>others are slowish and heavy.
>
>I only listened once, and I seem to like the Brahms, but not the
>Beethoven. I am still undecided about the Wagner.
I'm certainly with you on this. Tony's statement that "Furtwangler's
use of expressive devices [is] seamlessly integrated within his chosen
interpetation, and stem naturally from it" is one I can't understand,
at least as a generalization: If find it to be true in Brahms and
Wagner, but in Beethoven and sometimes in Schubert, I find his
expressive devices to be just the opposite, that is, badly disruptive
of the seamless, tightly-knit musical structure and the coherent flow
of the performance. I do regret, however, selling my copy of a
wartime 5th and 7th on DGG; I like the andante of the 5th, even if it
wasn't really an andante.
--Bill Dirks
Tony Movshon
"David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> He never could get those opening
> notes together, though, could he? There's one version--I forget which--where
> you can actually hear the clarinets!--something even the HIP people haven't
> yet managed.
His downbeat was notorious, and many of his recordings begin imprecisely
(e.g. the 1942 Beethoven 9th, the 1943 Brahms 4th). But I suspect that
if he had thought it desirable to get whipcrack precision on those
opening notes, he could have done so.
Tony Movshon
dirk...@ms14.hinet.net (William A. Dirks) writes:
> I do regret, however, selling my copy of a
> wartime 5th and 7th on DGG; I like the andante of the 5th, even if it
> wasn't really an andante.
The DG transfer of the 1943 5th is wretched. You really should get the
Tahra one. The intensity of the transition from the scherzo to the
finale in that performance is absolutely hair-raising.
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
didn't believe
> everything should sound the same every day, that everything he did must be
> equally fine.
> David Hurwitz
> Executive Editor
> www.classicstoday.com
> dhur...@classicstoday.com
>
You're attributing thoughts to me that I don't possess. I never said I felt
the two Bruckner 8ths and Eroicas were equally fine. I do think all 4
performances were great ones (it's certainly your perrogative to disagree),
but like you, I prefer the 12/8/52 Eroica over the one from the previous
night and I also prefer the Bruckner 8th from the 15th over the one from the
14th. While there may be similarities in many Furt performances of the same
piece, there are also dramatic differences, and I"m not talking about
execution. I think you make a mistake when you judge a Furtwangler
performance on that criteria. As I stated in an earlier post, most
Furtwangler fans aren't looking for crisp, detailed execution. It's
interpretation that matters most to me. This is of course a subjective
judgement. He works for some and doesn't for others. Barry
samir ghiocel golescu
On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, David Hurwitz wrote:
> MP wrote:
>
> > Have you heard the recent transfers on Tahra and Music & Arts of
> > Furt's wartime Beethoven and Brahms? These are eminently listenable
> > historic recordings - the Brahms 2 on M&A (1945) for example sounds
> > stunning for that era.
>
> Those were the transfers I refered to. I have heard them, and my opinion is
> what it is. Particularly with regard to instrumental balance, there is
> nothing in those recordings that can remotely be related to what an
> orchestra sounds like in a live context. I do not find them "eminently
> listenable." They are compressed, distorted, inconsistent in pitch, and
> while I find those performances typically "Furtwangler" with respect to
> tempo and phrasing, they are not especially well played by the orchestra,
> and I do not find his interpretations interesting enough to induce me to put
> up with the limitations of the sources.
What you find interesting is eminently uninteresting. If it were for
people with your astonishing handicaps, in perceiving art trough imperfect
media, people would have long abandoned painting in general and would have
devoted their attention exclusively to the art of photography.
David Hurwitz
Furtwangler fans aren't looking for crisp, detailed execution.>>
And you and your Furtwangler buddies are mis-stating my point by taking my
remarks about playing to extremes of caricature. I am not saying that all
orchestral performances should have the "efficiency" and finish of Karajan's
Berlin Philharmonic, or Toscanini's (or Szell's) precision. I am as open as
anyone to the notion that there is a place for the "ugly" sound, and that
Beethoven's style, in particular, demands an element of roughness which is
part of his energy and drive. But there's a big difference between this and
what is simply lousy ensemble playing, poor intonation, and bad rhythm,
things that no conductor, Furtwangler or anyone else, would tolerate given
the choice. These are generally not problems that afflict his approved
commercial releases. As I said earlier, while I agree that many of his best
recordings are live, there is a real ethical issue involved with respect to
the unlicensed (Tahra being an exception, generally) and in any event
unauthorized (by Furtwangler himself) release of these performances. The
defects in excecution obvious in these recordings go way beyond matters of
personal performance style. The fact is that Furtwangler groupies like SG
come to the screaming defense of recordings the very publication of which
might very well have been vigorously opposed by Furtwangler himself had he
been around to have a say in the matter, and the question of whether or not
these issues do the man's memory and reputation any justice, given their
limitations, is one which is certainly a valid subject for rational
discussion.
I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the crass
commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between those
dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow away
the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed by
the big labels. Get real folks. If selling unlicensed and above all,
illegal, unauthorized broadcast air checks of histoical material at full
price isn't the most crassly commercial enterprise going, then I don't know
what is. And don't tell me that Tahra is "authorized," because Furtwangler
fans don't care. If a better sound source for a specific performance
appeared, licensed, authorized, legal or not, you'd be lined up at the cash
registers. Be honest. I know I would be, because that's what rabid record
collectors do. The fact is that few other conductors have had their
reputations so mercilessly exploited by the record industry for purely
commercial ends, and fans practically never give this fact one second's
consideration. In fact, they celebrate it, and scorn the perfectly
reasonable suggestion that perhaps their God's artistic reputation isn't
always best served by a deluge of badly played, terrible sounding one-off
performances that may find everyone involved in less than good form.
My second point is this: that the fact that I dislike Furtwangler's approach
to certain composers (Bruckner, for example) does not mean that I dispute
his greatness as an artist historically. The question, as I noted above, is
to what extent the significance that we all acknowledge is apparent on the
recordings which survive. This question cannot be answered without careful,
comparative, critical listening to those recordings. And listening is very
revealing. One of the myths that I think the recordings themselves dispel is
that Furtwangler's "inconsistency" meant that his interpretations differed
wildly from one performance to the next. They did not. He was extremely
consistent in his approach throughout his career; in fact, his timings show
no more variance than Toscanini's (or just about any other conductor's), and
in some cases considerably less. But while he was very consistent in his
general approach, the result of the careful study and thought that he
obviously put into his interpretations, he was wildly inconsistent in the
RESULTS that he got, and this is clearly related to two factors (a) the
quality of the orchestra at his disposal, which, as I note, for various
historical reasons was seldom the best even by the standards of the day
despite their being "big name" ensembles; and (b) his own erratic podium
technique, which everyone, including Furtwangler himself and those who
played under him, acknowledges.
Finally, as my remarks concerning the two "Eroica" recordings indicate, I
have listened to the performances and can site chapter and verse with
respect to my evaluation of their quality, both with regard to the playing
and interpretation. In the weeks and weeks that I have waded through a
morass of hysteria and vituperation (and here I'm not talking about
phlmaestro, Tony or any of the other posters to this thread whose points are
quite sensible) from SG and his ilk, NEVER ONCE have I seen a single
reference to any specific moment of any specific performance of a given
work, nor any attempt to discuss concrete issues of playing quality, tempo,
dynamics, the broad details of interpretation, or (heaven forbid!) the
musical score itself. And this is surely possible. If we are all working
from the same discs, and I say, for example, that the orchestral balances in
the coda of the December 7 "Eroica" finale on Tahra are terrible because the
horns disappear completely, this is a FACT, which can be verified by anyone
on their own. We can then discuss the relevance of this fact with respect to
the interpretation as a whole. But this NEVER happens. Why? Because SG and
his crew aren't interested in facts. It's just more blather about "artistic
miracles" and other such nonsense. The best way to understand Furtwangler's
uniqueness, and therefore his greatness as an artist, is through a vigorous
discussion of the FACTS of his performances: what he does, how the orchestra
plays, and how the recordings sound. Simply to sit back in awe and exclaim
wonderingly (or nastily, in SG's case) about the stupifying transcendence of
it all is neither musically relevant, enlightening, nor respectful of the
man's memory and achievement. Furtwangler has nothing to fear by a
productive, detailed and critical discussion of the performances themselves.
Not only will his reputation survive this process, but we will all benefit
from a better understanding of what he actually achieved in performance, and
have a better basis to make the purely personal decisions about the value of
his artistic insights with respect to each work that he conducted, and
whether or not these insights outweigh the limitations of the sources
themselves.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
<phlmaes...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:84igmo$f91$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
you want, yet it won't change the fact that so many people who continue
to discover them will have the same reaction that I and many others
have.
I discovered Furtwangler on my own. I wasn't lured into it by companies
like Music and Arts or Tahra. The emotions that I felt when I first
started listening to these performances were real.
Of course not all of them are going to be equally good, and some are
availabe in better sound than others, but thank God I accidentally came
across my first Furtwangler recording (the 42' Beethoven 9th). It
opened up an entirely new and wonderful world for me in terms of music.
I don't understand why you can't just accept the subjective nature of
this argument. I stated in my first post that Furtwangler's style isn't
going to be for everyone. I know people who don't react to it. But the
majority of people I've turned on to his recordings (and I always
recommend that they start with the sort of live performances with the
BPO and VPO that you seem to feel inferior to the cleaner sounding
Philharmonia performances) have been blown away by what they heard and
quickly came back to me for further recommendations.
Do these people have shotty hearing because they can't pick out sloppy
playing, or are they completely taken by a style of performance and
interpretation that is completely different (and to many, better) than
anything they've heard on modern recordings?
I frankly have no interest in debating the ethical side of your
argument with regard to whether Furtwangler would approve of some of
these releases. I'm only interested in discussing the merits of the
performances themselves.
Barry
> perhaps their God's artistic reputation isn't
> always best served by a deluge of badly played, terrible sounding one-
off
> performances that may find everyone involved in less than good form.
>
Simon Roberts
: And you and your Furtwangler buddies are mis-stating my point by taking my
: remarks about playing to extremes of caricature. I am not saying that all
: orchestral performances should have the "efficiency" and finish of Karajan's
: Berlin Philharmonic, or Toscanini's (or Szell's) precision. I am as open as
: anyone to the notion that there is a place for the "ugly" sound, and that
: Beethoven's style, in particular, demands an element of roughness which is
: part of his energy and drive. But there's a big difference between this and
: what is simply lousy ensemble playing, poor intonation, and bad rhythm,
: things that no conductor, Furtwangler or anyone else, would tolerate given
: the choice.
That may well be the case (but then again it may not; why assume that
Furtwaengler cared about precision of ensemble and clarity? those things
aren't always virtues); the question is whether it matters. Some think it
does, some not. If I'm impressed by a Furtwaengler performance, the flaws
in execution don't matter to me at all; if I don't (the much bally-hooed
DG Schubert 9th, for example) it's merely another irritant.
These are generally not problems that afflict his approved
: commercial releases.
I've not conducted a survey of my own, but two Furtwaengler recordings I
dislike the most -- that DG Schubert 9th and the Bayreuth Beethoven 9th on
EMI -- are commercial releases (I assume the latter's an official release,
but don't know for sure). But again, the commercial releases are
generally not as interesting as performances as the non-commercial ones
(or so some of us think), so....
As I said earlier, while I agree that many of his best
: recordings are live, there is a real ethical issue involved with respect to
: the unlicensed (Tahra being an exception, generally) and in any event
: unauthorized (by Furtwangler himself) release of these performances. The
: defects in excecution obvious in these recordings go way beyond matters of
: personal performance style. The fact is that Furtwangler groupies like SG
: come to the screaming defense of recordings the very publication of which
: might very well have been vigorously opposed by Furtwangler himself had he
: been around to have a say in the matter, and the question of whether or not
: these issues do the man's memory and reputation any justice, given their
: limitations, is one which is certainly a valid subject for rational
: discussion.
Indeed it is. But of course whether the unofficial recordings do him
justice is a separate question from whether he should be the arbiter of
which recordings of his should be preserved and listened, which in turn is
a separate question from the ethical one you refer to.
: I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
: between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the crass
: commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
: colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between those
: dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow away
: the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed by
: the big labels. Get real folks. If selling unlicensed and above all,
: illegal, unauthorized broadcast air checks of histoical material at full
: price isn't the most crassly commercial enterprise going, then I don't know
: what is.
Of course it's crassly commercial; but that has nothing to do with the
contrast between the relative commercialism of Karajan and Furtwaengler (a
subject that seems to me to be essentially trivial and irrelevant).
[snip]
: In fact, they celebrate it, and scorn the perfectly
: reasonable suggestion that perhaps their God's artistic reputation isn't
: always best served by a deluge of badly played, terrible sounding one-off
: performances that may find everyone involved in less than good form.
I've not encountered a "deluge" of "badly played" performances, but
regardless of that, I would prefer there to be as many available as
possible so we can choose for outselves rather than having, say, Walter
Legge decide for us.
: My second point is this: that the fact that I dislike Furtwangler's approach
: to certain composers (Bruckner, for example) does not mean that I dispute
: his greatness as an artist historically. The question, as I noted above, is
: to what extent the significance that we all acknowledge is apparent on the
: recordings which survive. This question cannot be answered without careful,
: comparative, critical listening to those recordings. And listening is very
: revealing. One of the myths that I think the recordings themselves dispel is
: that Furtwangler's "inconsistency" meant that his interpretations differed
: wildly from one performance to the next. They did not. He was extremely
: consistent in his approach throughout his career; in fact, his timings show
: no more variance than Toscanini's (or just about any other conductor's), and
: in some cases considerably less. But while he was very consistent in his
: general approach, the result of the careful study and thought that he
: obviously put into his interpretations, he was wildly inconsistent in the
: RESULTS that he got,
Are you contradicting yourself here. First you say that listening
carefully dispels the myth that his interpretations differed wildly from
one performance to the next, because the timings tend to be similar,
then you say that his consistency goes only to his "general approach,"
which nevertheless got "wildly inconsistent" results. Well, since the
results are the performances, which apparently are both wildly
inconsistent and extremely consistent. Or are you referring merely to
execution?
Either way, I'm not sure I agree (though of course it all depends on what
one means by "wildly", I suppose). Take that DG Schubert 9th again. To
these ears its first movement is an incoherent mess, lurching between
frenzied excitement whenever the music gets loud and slow, slack, sloppily
played bumbling in between. But listen to the WWII recording and to me at
least the transitions make sense, the slow, quieter passages are more
alert and better played, the whole thing coheres and is almost as good as
Mengelberg. "Wildly inconsistent"? I don't know, but certainly
sufficiently different for me to find one of them dreadful, the other not
to be missed. And it's not the offical recording that wins....
Simon
David Hurwitz
argument with regard to whether Furtwangler would approve of some of
these releases. I'm only interested in discussing the merits of the
performances themselves.>>
And I have never said that there's anything wrong with your taste or your
perception of the recordings that you enjoy. I think I make it quite clear
that reasonable people can disagree about these things. The ethical issue is
not so much whether or not Furtwangler would or would not have approved
release of a given performance. This we will never know. Rather, it goes to
the issue of how representative of his art we feel these recordings are, how
much value we give them, and how critically we as listeners should approach
them. For many of you, the answer to this last issue (at least as far as
execution and sound are concerned) is "not very." I may disagree. But that's
perfectly fine as long as we are clear and honest on where we stand about
these issues. We're completely of one mind about this. What I object to, and
this has NOTHING to do with you, or Simon or Tony or any of the other
perfectly reasonable people who may or may not disagree about the value of
certain of these recordings, is that I suspect that there are plenty of
people out there who have felt unwilling or unable to participate in our
very stimulating discussions about these recordings because of the dogmatism
of SG & Co. No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
performance and then get personally trashed by a hord of fanatics. As the
object of much of this ire, I simply want people to know that the issues
raised are legitimate, and that however hard SG might work to stifle all
discussion other than the utterance of admiring banalities, opinions both
pro and contra are welcome in this group and will be given a respectful
reception, as you and several others have given mine. I appreciate that, and
I think that it ultimately makes a much better case for exploring the
Furtwangler discography than the bland protestations of the born again
believers.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
<phlmaes...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:84ismj$njd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > perhaps their God's artistic reputation isn't
> > always best served by a deluge of badly played, terrible sounding one-
> off
> > performances that may find everyone involved in less than good form.
> >
Tony Movshon
"David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
> performance and then get personally trashed by a hord of fanatics.
Drat.
samir ghiocel golescu
On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, David Hurwitz wrote:
> I agree with Tony that the 1943 Fifth offers a much better restoration then
> many other performances of the same period. But then again, I find
> Furtwangler was a great conductor of this symphony at virtually any period
> in his career, and there are several performances in excellent sound
> (including the EMI "official" one) that show his interpretation in a fine
> light. I see no need to listen to a dozen others which are, again in their
> general outlines, virtually identical.
Buy yourself a new pair of ears, if you hear "virtual identity" in
Furtwangler's 1937, 1943 and (studio) 1954 recordings of the Fifth.
> He never could get those opening notes together, though, could he?
I answered already that very perspicacious observation of yours, but I
feel obliged to recall and paraphrase Brahms's reaction in front of an
equally perspicacious remark: "yes, that's true, but any a... can hear
that".
regards,
SG
Nick Sun
> MP wrote:
>
> > Have you heard the recent transfers on Tahra and Music & Arts of
> > Furt's wartime Beethoven and Brahms? These are eminently listenable
> > historic recordings - the Brahms 2 on M&A (1945) for example sounds
> > stunning for that era.
>
> Those were the transfers I refered to. I have heard them, and my opinion is
> what it is. Particularly with regard to instrumental balance, there is
> nothing in those recordings that can remotely be related to what an
> orchestra sounds like in a live context. I do not find them "eminently
> listenable." They are compressed, distorted, inconsistent in pitch, and
> while I find those performances typically "Furtwangler" with respect to
> tempo and phrasing, they are not especially well played by the orchestra,
> and I do not find his interpretations interesting enough to induce me to put
> up with the limitations of the sources.
> --
BRAVO!!!
Nick
samir ghiocel golescu
How low a man can get (apud the great Victor Borge, a colleague into
comedy of Mr. Hurwitz)?
First of all, your contention that my postings would be floating in
hagiographic generalities is simply a lie, as anyone who followed in
time all my contributions here could tell.
Discussing the "concrete" of Furtwangler's interpretive conceptions?
With the greatest pleasure, but not with you, Mr. Hurwitz. We don't have
common ground to start a detailed discussion on, say, Furtwangler's
Eroica(s). You lack the most elementary understanding of the aesthetics of
the conductors of the past (seemfully you deny that the interpreter would
be entitled to possess individual aesthetics at all), and it's simply
laughable to read your efforts to compress, like the mythic Greek monster,
Furtwangler's conception into fitting your narrow, rigid, "bed".
E.G.:
<<The scherzo is OK in both performances>>
I imagine the poor Wilhelm, in Paradise ("or wherever dead conductors
go"--Leopold Stokowski), smiling shyly, grateful for this promising, if
ridiculously "superior", encouraging comment. "Dude, your scherzo was OK"
<<but the Finale is sectionalized to its detriment.>>
Oh, really, did Beethoven sent you a telegram with the degree of
sectionalizing he believed to be not-detrimental? Is that a "fact"?
<<The opening tempo is unrelated to the initial statement of the theme>>
No, Sir, there is always a relation between two tempos. What you meant was
that Furtwangler didn't use a tempo-relation that *you* would characterize
as judicious. "Fact"?
<<the fugatos wander aimlessly, and the almost dead halt before the coda
sounds mannered>>
"Mannered" is a most vague and dreadful notion, used when you don't
understand a style you are not familiar with. Every interpreter has a
"manner" and is "mannered" in his individual way. In the beginning of
Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, is there ANY pianist to play the first five
bars in the same tempo?! None, to my knowledge. (The closest to a constant
tempo is, paradoxically, Josef Hofmann, but I don't find his rendition
compelling, for *his* standards.) "Romantic" and "classic" pianists, they
are all stretching the tempo there, thing not indicated by Beethoven
himself, but you don't notice. Why? Because it is a "mannerism" you are
used to, which makes it unquestionable.
Your postings wander aimlessly around artistic phenomena you are not
able to comprehend, Furtwangler's music doesn't. Listing Furtwangler's
tempo shifts as "sins", these are your "competent" details, your facts?
This was done already, and much better, by Furtwangler specialists, like
the French critics that are members of the "Societe W F". Read them, and
their illuminating analyses on the matter (including very specific
comparisons, in certain symphonies, with the "agogic map" of other great
conductors). I don't feel like transcribing them here, at least not for
someone a priori opaque to Furtwangler's art. You dare speaking of
Furtwangler's Bruckner as "angular, hysterical, willful" and you expect me
to "demonstrate with facts" that that isn't so? Furtwangler's Bruckner is
close to the great German mistics, if you read them (I believe Herzfeld
suggested this spiritual filiation for the first time), and the
recognition of the "stupifying transcendence of it all", to quote
you, far from being ridiculous, or (necessarily) amateurish, is a good
*starting attitude*, if not an exhaustive way of perceiving the music.
<<The fact is that few other conductors have had their
reputations so mercilessly exploited by the record industry for purely
commercial ends, and fans practically never give this fact one second's
consideration.>>
FACT? If you weren't pathetic in your attempt to twist the facts around, I
would say that is a devilish way of turning things upside down. Did
Scherchen's daughter or Mr. Biddulph or Mr. Hardwick (from Testament) get
rich from publishing Furtwangler recordings? You should be ashamed of
yourself. You should inform yourself how expensive is for a serious (not
Italian or other pirates) historic label to provide itself with good
quality 78s and tapes, good quality transfers, good liner notes (i.e.
written by *competent* critics), all for editions that rarely go over 1000
copies, because of the elite-quality of the historic recordings
collectors, and because of the competing editions (sometimes both good) of
the same master recordings. They are doing that as an act of culture, and
profit, if any, comes second, when it comes.
I heard myself some relatively bad-sounding Furtwangler recordings (still
valuable in terms of documentary evidence), but, perfectly contrary to
what you are claiming, most (I'd say 70%) of Furtwangler's recordings are
in very good mono sound, much better than 90% of what are considered today
to be "collectors items".
Buy yourself a new pair of ears.
regards,
SG
phlmaes...@my-deja.com
I wouldn't go so far in my language as Samir and see no reason to be
personally insulting, but to comment on one particular item, the dead
halt before the coda at the end of the Eroica, especially the 12/8/52
performance, is, to me, one of the greatest and most powerful moments
of any performance I know of. Indeed, one of my favorite aspects of
Furtwangler's conducting is the way he used prolonged rests to such
powerful effects.
I'd also like to throw in that your last post to me was imminantly fair
and a great way to draw the debate to a conclusion before the New Year.
Barry
In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.991231...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu>,
Matthew B. Tepper
>
> "David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
> > performance and then get personally trashed by a hord of fanatics.
>
Really? Happens to me all the time. Especially when I mention the
Canadian automaton, Robot Glenn Gould.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
"Compassionate Conservatism?" * "Tight Slacks?" * "Jumbo Shrimp?"
David Hurwitz
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.991231...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu...
David Hurwitz
performance. That was my point (which perhaps I didn't make clear). On 12/7
it sounds less convincing to me than on 12/8, where the moment is better
prepared (more sensitive dynamic shadings from the winds and lower strings,
more mystery as a result, and a recording that lets you hear it clearly).
This is exactly what I mean, though, about inconsistency of results.
Sometimes these things work, and sometimes they don't, and no conductor has
such control over an orchestra that they can guarantee their success every
time. Furtwangler was no exception. I'm very glad that we have the later
performance to demonstrate the power of his vision of this particular
moment, and I can well understand your enthusiasm for it. Happy New Year to
you too.
<phlmaes...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:84j9nf$7g$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
HenryFogel
>From: "David Hurwitz" hurw...@worldnet.att.net
>
[long post edited]
>And you and your Furtwangler buddies are mis-stating my point by taking my
>remarks about playing to extremes of caricature. I am not saying that all
>orchestral performances should have the "efficiency" and finish of Karajan's
>Berlin Philharmonic, or Toscanini's (or Szell's) precision. I am as open as
>anyone to the notion that there is a place for the "ugly" sound, and that
>Beethoven's style, in particular, demands an element of roughness which is
>part of his energy and drive. But there's a big difference between this and
>what is simply lousy ensemble playing, poor intonation, and bad rhythm,
>things that no conductor, Furtwangler or anyone else, would tolerate given
>the choice. ... The fact is that Furtwangler groupies like SG
>come to the screaming defense of recordings the very publication of which
>might very well have been vigorously opposed by Furtwangler himself had he
>been around to have a say in the matter, and the question of whether or not
>these issues do the man's memory and reputation any justice, given their
>limitations, is one which is certainly a valid subject for rational
>discussion.
>
>I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
>between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the crass
>commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
>colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between those
>dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow away
>the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed by
>the big labels.
David, I was with you in what I thought was, at its beginning, a fair posting
and one that made a good point. But you do yourself in, in my view, by doing
exactly what you accused Furtwangler fans of doing to you. You have reduced
the comments of those who greatly admire Furtwangler to caricature. SG's posts
are far more balanced and probing and thoughtful than your attack might
indicate.
(And no, I am not saying that because he likes Furtwangler).
The fact is that all listeners have their own balance of priorities -- of what
is important to them. Clearly, matters of ensemble and intonation are very
high on your list. They are less so on mine. That doesn't mean that they
aren't important, just that to me they are LESS important than some other
qualities. Some of us do find the interpretive qualities of Furtwangler to
surpass, at least in our view, those of many of the conductors who have
followed him -- indeed most of the conductors who have followed him. That is
an honest view, just as honest, and just as deeply felt, and just as soundly
founded, as your opposing views. You are right in feeling that your views
should not be distorted by those who oppose them, but you also owe the same to
others, and frankly I think you violated that standard in your post.
Henry Fogel
Bob Harper
that he seeks to stifle (i.e. censor) disagreement with his views is simply
silly. That he goes overboard and is at times intolerant I'll grant, but the
fact is that he can't keep you from saying whatever you please. For me, he
makes more sense (usually) than you do, but that's just my opinion. So get off
your high horse and make comments about the music and its performance rather
than complaining about how much big, bad Samir is picking on you.
Bob Harper
David Hurwitz wrote:
(snip)
> What I object to, and
> this has NOTHING to do with you, or Simon or Tony or any of the other
> perfectly reasonable people who may or may not disagree about the value of
> certain of these recordings, is that I suspect that there are plenty of
> people out there who have felt unwilling or unable to participate in our
> very stimulating discussions about these recordings because of the dogmatism
> of SG & Co. No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
> performance and then get personally trashed by a hord of fanatics. As the
> object of much of this ire, I simply want people to know that the issues
> raised are legitimate, and that however hard SG might work to stifle all
> discussion other than the utterance of admiring banalities, opinions both
> pro and contra are welcome in this group and will be given a respectful
> reception, as you and several others have given mine.
(snip)
David Hurwitz
<<The fact is that all listeners have their own balance of priorities -- of
what
is important to them. Clearly, matters of ensemble and intonation are very
high on your list. They are less so on mine. That doesn't mean that they
aren't important, just that to me they are LESS important than some other
qualities. Some of us do find the interpretive qualities of Furtwangler to
surpass, at least in our view, those of many of the conductors who have
followed him -- indeed most of the conductors who have followed him. That
is
an honest view, just as honest, and just as deeply felt, and just as soundly
founded, as your opposing views. You are right in feeling that your views
should not be distorted by those who oppose them, but you also owe the same
to
others, and frankly I think you violated that standard in your post.>>
Well, Henry, if you read the thread thoroughly, and not just the piece that
you quoted, I think you will find that I say almost exactly what you say
above. To whit, from the next exchange:
"And I have never said that there's anything wrong with your taste or your
perception of the recordings that you enjoy. I think I make it quite clear
that reasonable people can disagree about these things. The ethical issue is
not so much whether or not Furtwangler would or would not have approved
release of a given performance. This we will never know. Rather, it goes to
the issue of how representative of his art we feel these recordings are, how
much value we give them, and how critically we as listeners should approach
them. For many of you, the answer to this last issue (at least as far as
execution and sound are concerned) is "not very." I may disagree. But that's
perfectly fine as long as we are clear and honest on where we stand about
these issues."
So I'm afraid I disagree with your contention that I "caricature" people who
admire Furtwangler greatly. I have always maitained that people are
perfectly within their rights to give different aspects of performance
different value, and having been in this group for several months and having
read all of SG's postings, it may be that I missed the thoughtful probing
ones. If that is the case and I have misjudged him, then I look forward to
seeing evidence of the qualities your site in future discussions. But I can
only go with what I see, and what I see is intolerance, fanaticism, and
hostility. Some, including you, may claim to see the same in me. That, it
seems to me, is a risk that one runs by shouting back when someone shouts at
you, and one I don't mind taking once in a while if I think the point is
important enough.
I this particular case, I think the discussion established two useful points
that have not received the attention or consideration they deserved in this
group to date, at least in my experience. First, I think the more guarded,
less worshipful view of Furtwangler has been stated and received with much
more consideration than usual, and the discussion, which for once wasn't
simply everyone listing their favorite recording until the entire
discography was recommended indiscriminately, will thus prove more helpful
both to the original poster and readers of this thread. Second, we finally
got away from the vague generalities of "it's a great interpretation" to a
real discussion of the pros and cons of the performances themselves; in
other words, to the audible facts and the issues they raise. Again, you have
more time in here than I do, but I read as much of SG as I could before over
the recent past before posting, and what I saw was a refusal to consider
that issues such as bad playing and bad sound even exist, or if they do
exist are so trivial as to be beyond consideration and that anyone who
raises them is somehow evil and beneath contempt. This is not an
exaggeration, given the tone of his postings, as you can easily confirm for
yourself at your leisure. I am far from the being the first person to note
this fact. In any case, I believe that if you read through this thread you
will find that, far from caricature, the discussion more or less ends with a
pretty harmonius agreement on these two significant issues, though sporadic
comments from posters coming late to the thread may make the "flow" of the
dialog somewhat choppy and hard to follow, or miss the evolution of the
various points of view.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
HenryFogel <henry...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000101115334...@ng-fy1.aol.com...
> >Subject: Re: Two Furtwangler Experiences
> >From: "David Hurwitz" hurw...@worldnet.att.net
> >
> [long post edited]
>
> >And you and your Furtwangler buddies are mis-stating my point by taking
my
> >remarks about playing to extremes of caricature. I am not saying that all
> >orchestral performances should have the "efficiency" and finish of
Karajan's
> >Berlin Philharmonic, or Toscanini's (or Szell's) precision. I am as open
as
> >anyone to the notion that there is a place for the "ugly" sound, and that
> >Beethoven's style, in particular, demands an element of roughness which
is
> >part of his energy and drive. But there's a big difference between this
and
> >what is simply lousy ensemble playing, poor intonation, and bad rhythm,
> >things that no conductor, Furtwangler or anyone else, would tolerate
given
> >the choice. ... The fact is that Furtwangler groupies like SG
> >come to the screaming defense of recordings the very publication of which
> >might very well have been vigorously opposed by Furtwangler himself had
he
> >been around to have a say in the matter, and the question of whether or
not
> >these issues do the man's memory and reputation any justice, given their
> >limitations, is one which is certainly a valid subject for rational
> >discussion.
> >
> >I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
> >between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the
crass
> >commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
> >colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between
those
> >dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow
away
> >the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed
by
> >the big labels.
>
samir ghiocel golescu
On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> Tony Movshon wrote:
> >
> > "David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > > No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
> > > performance and then get personally trashed by a hord of fanatics.
> >
> > Drat.
>
> Really? Happens to me all the time. Especially when I mention the
> Canadian automaton, Robot Glenn Gould.
Hopefully, unlike me, you are going to grow up out of that! (:
HenryFogel
>
>So I'm afraid I disagree with your contention that I "caricature" people who
>admire Furtwangler greatly. I have always maitained that people are
>perfectly within their rights to give different aspects of performance
>different value, and having been in this group for several months and having
>read all of SG's postings, it may be that I missed the thoughtful probing
>ones. If that is the case and I have misjudged him, then I look forward to
>seeing evidence of the qualities your site in future discussions. But I can
>only go with what I see, and what I see is intolerance, fanaticism, and
>hostility. Some, including you, may claim to see the same in me. That, it
>seems to me, is a risk that one runs by shouting back when someone shouts at
>you, and one I don't mind taking once in a while if I think the point is
>important enough.
David, I have far too much respect for all you have done for music, including
your superbly reasoned and written reviews in Fanfares some years back, to want
to turn this into a confrontation. And you have contributed likewise to this
newsgroup. But you are being disingenuous here -- were your reply aimed
directly and solely at SG, I'd let him fight his own battles (which he is
certainly capable of doing). But go back and read your post -- "You and your
Furtwangler buddies..." implies a wider net than I think (or hope) you mean to
cast. And a statement like the following:
>I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
>between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the crass
>commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
>colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between those
>dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow away
>the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed by
>the big labels.
Look at the words David -- you put Furtwangler fans into one boat, and sink
them all with sarcasm and hyperbole. That is the problem to which I was
objecting, and that is what I and others find offensive. Treat those who differ
with your views with respect (even if they don't always), and more people will
actually pay attention to what you say. And if you feel that one person has so
gotten your goat that you must bark back -- then do so narrowly and
specifically.
>Well, Henry, if you read the thread >thoroughly, and not just the piece that
>you quoted, I think you will find that I say >almost exactly what you say
>above
True -- but only after having heaped sarcasm on "Furtwangler buddies" and
"Furtwangler fans." Once past the sarcasm and, frankly, nastiness of tone in
the earlier part of your post, the actual musical meat is considerable.
Henry Fogel
Tony Movshon
> >admire Furtwangler greatly.
> ... But you are being disingenuous here --
> [snip]
> >Well, Henry, if you read the thread >thoroughly, and not just the piece that
> >you quoted, I think you will find that I say >almost exactly what you say
>
> True -- but only after having heaped sarcasm on "Furtwangler buddies" and
> "Furtwangler fans." Once past the sarcasm and, frankly, nastiness of tone in
> the earlier part of your post, the actual musical meat is considerable.
But rather difficult to digest, because of the unpleasantness of the
hors d'oeuvre.
tmki...@ucdavis.edu
that if immediate family members of his (i.e. Elizabeth Furtwangler; I
think he also had a son) do not approve, these recordings should not be
published. Otherwise Celi's CDs issued from EMI and DG wouldn't be
published. I also do see the exploitation in distributing most of "great
masters' " recordings. That's probably why Bernstein has Amberson Inc.
But then, he has always been celebrated and he does have most of his
recordings easily available even after almost 10 years of his death. From
what I read somewhere, WF's legacy was almost extinct before his ardent
admirers urged his recordings to be published. Whether Elizabeth
Furtwangler initiated that action, or got onto the action thru
"encouragement" of such figures, I don't know. I understand, however,
that she would pick to let recordings (illegimate or not) released to
obtain the deserving fame to her husband (especially after his misleading
reputation regarding him remaining in Germany during WWII and such), even
with the scent of exploitation, than to let people forget his art.
Before I joined this newsgroup (that was almost 5 years ago...), I didn't
care anything about whether CDs I want to buy were pirated or legit
copies. After reading thru more experienced listeners (especially ATF's
lengthy but revelatory postings), I decided not to buy pirated copies
unless they're used (so the profit doesn't go to such companies). So it's
up to how educated buyers are; Mr. Hurvitz's claim that collectors buy
WF's CDs regardless of legitimacy sounds as if he doesn't trust their
knowledge.
The other factor why people so much admire him is WF's philosophy on
music; the music has to have spontenuity and one-time occasion feeling.
That's probably why he didn't approve much of recordings to be released
during his lifetime since those _really_ interested could hear him live
(Boy, how these concerts would be! :)). But now that he's dead, music
lovers have to rely on his recordings.
One more possible factor is that WF has become a figurehead against
mass-commercialized, excessively-marketized classical music industry.
If you read the book of Werner Tahrichen (former timpanist of BPO) about
Furtwangler and Karajan, he questions the current situation of classical
music industry. Then he implicitly shows his admiration toward
Furtwangler. Nostalgia? Probably. His personal disgust toward Karajan?
That too. Do these factors make his argument about the current situation
totally dismissable? No.
It is an irony that the image Karajan had strived thru his marketing
strategy -- mystic, philosophical, ecstatic music making -- has never
reached to the level of the image of WF, which is made of yet another
marketing strategy. As much as WF at best does have mystic,
philosophical, ecstatic music making, his image has definately been
overhyped. WF in paradise is probably smiling sarcastically toward such
overhype of him image.
I'd still buy Furtwangler over Karajan first when there are duplications
of repertiore though :). His newest Brahms set from M&A is definately an
enlightenment, something I probably wouldn't get with Karajan's (or most
of recent conductors).
Takashi M. Kikuchi
David Hurwitz
"Furtwangler cult" than just SG, and what I wrote accurately reflects a
considerable number of my personal experience over the years, to say nothing
of SG's campaign of personal abuse in any number of other threads. I freely
admit that I was exaggerating to make a point, which we need not belabor
further. I accept the fact that you and others may have been offended, and
regret that. That was not my intention, but by the same token, I stand by
what I wrote. I think we can agree to disagree and leave it there.
HenryFogel <henry...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000102113942...@ng-da1.aol.com...
> David Hurwitz wrote [in part]
> >
> >So I'm afraid I disagree with your contention that I "caricature" people
who
> >admire Furtwangler greatly. I have always maitained that people are
> >perfectly within their rights to give different aspects of performance
> >different value, and having been in this group for several months and
having
> >read all of SG's postings, it may be that I missed the thoughtful probing
> >ones. If that is the case and I have misjudged him, then I look forward
to
> >seeing evidence of the qualities your site in future discussions. But I
can
> >only go with what I see, and what I see is intolerance, fanaticism, and
> >hostility. Some, including you, may claim to see the same in me. That, it
> >seems to me, is a risk that one runs by shouting back when someone shouts
at
> >you, and one I don't mind taking once in a while if I think the point is
> >important enough.
>
> David, I have far too much respect for all you have done for music,
including
> your superbly reasoned and written reviews in Fanfares some years back, to
want
> to turn this into a confrontation. And you have contributed likewise to
this
> newsgroup. But you are being disingenuous here -- were your reply aimed
> directly and solely at SG, I'd let him fight his own battles (which he is
> certainly capable of doing). But go back and read your post -- "You and
your
> Furtwangler buddies..." implies a wider net than I think (or hope) you
mean to
> cast. And a statement like the following:
> >I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to make
> >between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the
crass
> >commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
> >colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between
those
> >dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply blow
away
> >the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and marketed
by
> >the big labels.
>
> Look at the words David -- you put Furtwangler fans into one boat, and
sink
> them all with sarcasm and hyperbole. That is the problem to which I was
> objecting, and that is what I and others find offensive. Treat those who
differ
> with your views with respect (even if they don't always), and more people
will
> actually pay attention to what you say. And if you feel that one person
has so
> gotten your goat that you must bark back -- then do so narrowly and
> specifically.
>
>
> >Well, Henry, if you read the thread >thoroughly, and not just the piece
that
> >you quoted, I think you will find that I say >almost exactly what you say
> >above
>
> True -- but only after having heaped sarcasm on "Furtwangler buddies" and
> "Furtwangler fans." Once past the sarcasm and, frankly, nastiness of tone
in
> the earlier part of your post, the actual musical meat is considerable.
>
> Henry Fogel
Michael Weston
: > He was a very inconsistent conductor,
:
: His inconsistancy was due to his refusal to every conduct any single piece of
: music in the same way. For example, you can take the Bruckner 8ths from back
: to back nights in 1949 and the Beethoven Eroica's from back to back nights in
: 12/52 and hear dramatic differences, yet they're all brilliant performances
: in their own way.
I think David does a disservice to dicsussion by using that word without
being more specific. Was Furtwangler "very inconsistent" in the same way
that Mitropoulos was "very inconsistent?" I don't think so. And I'm sure
he knows that Furtwangler's "conducting as re-creation" philosophy puts
his music-making into entirely different terms than, say, Toscanini.
Michael Weston
: of the core German repertoire. But by the same token, there is no work that
: he conducted for which you cannot find an equally fine performance (albeit
: different interpretively) in excellent modern sound (with the exception of
: his own Second Symphony).
No, not equally fine. Differently fine. And therefore differently
effective based on the taste and manners of the conductor and the
particular listener. Your comfort with this idea is somewhat perverse.
michael
Michael Weston
: Those were the transfers I refered to. I have heard them, and my opinion is
: what it is. Particularly with regard to instrumental balance, there is
: nothing in those recordings that can remotely be related to what an
: orchestra sounds like in a live context. I do not find them "eminently
: listenable." They are compressed, distorted, inconsistent in pitch, and
: while I find those performances typically "Furtwangler" with respect to
: tempo and phrasing, they are not especially well played by the orchestra,
: and I do not find his interpretations interesting enough to induce me to put
: up with the limitations of the sources.
David, you undoubetedly have as fine a background in music as most anyone
who is available here to offer opinions. But you have a definite methid
to your system of judgement and it is not without its blind spots, however
well you may do in explaining why you judge against something. In this
instance, you technical familiarity with how an orchestra "ought" to
sound, your knowledge of the source scores and the performing instructions
contained therin as well as the literal notes which you hear as missing or
poorly played prevent you from appreciating the larger line still evident
to those of us who have not have a background such as yourself.
No doubt you bring an aura of correctness to your recommendations (and I
mean none of this negatively), but the imagination is certainly less
inhibited in those who are unaware in the same way of how things "should"
sound. I see nothing wrong with their opinions regarding a performance as
long as they don't try to pass themselves off as judges of quality
orchestral playing or faithfulness to the score.
You do an excellent job of trying to be fair to those you review, but I
rarely get the impression of a real person who has actual tastes and
passions for and against particular performers. It appears sometimes that
you believe that one should be able to appreciate any performance of note
no matter how far afield from one's tastes, and that dislike arises from
actual, objective and defensible criteria. This attitude has certainly
played a part in some of the most violent disagreements in which you
and I have participated. And I have not yet seen room in your words for
other tastes- those which manage to find pleasure in recordings which are
less than perfect, but special nonetheless (and I think the Collins
Sibelius recordings are a perfect example here, for they have been loved
by many for decades even though you find them hard to appreciate).
There most certainly are "special" Furtwangler recordings- that is where a
newcomer ought to start. If you are incabable of saying that no recording
of his offers unique and valuable pleasure, whatever the negatives, then
perhaps you should hold your tongue and admit that others are better
positioned to speak on the subject.
With that said, I'll add for my defense that the number of Furtwangler
recordings I would nominate for the pantheon is relatively small. But
despite all their drawbacks, I would nominate them as staggeringly unique
and powerful and something worth listening to by anyone who loves the same
music by other performers.
Brahms 1: wartime 4th mvt., '52 BPO on DG, '51 HAmburg on Tahra
Brahms 4: wartime on many labels
Bruckner 9: this one is marred by technicalities of various masterings,
though I find the M&A disk fine
Bruckner 7: the Telefunken adagio on Teldec
Beethoven 4: the wartime on DG and others
Beethoven 5: numerous- the BPO 5th on Tahra from 23.5.54 is wonderful and
in fine sound.
Schubert 9: wartime, studio BPO on DG or live BPO on Tahra/M&A- any of
these three
Beethoven 9: I'll take any of the wartime, EMI or Tahra Lucerne issues,
though the latter seems the consensus favorite.
Beethoven 3: wartime on Tahra or Bayer da Capo
Bruckner 4: the DG release
that's just for starters.
michael
samir ghiocel golescu
> I also have a much wider experience of the
> "Furtwangler cult" than just SG, and what I wrote accurately reflects a
> considerable number of my personal experience over the years
I am not surprised to hear about the considerable (but, as it seems, still
insufficient) number. Didn't they teach you nothing?
Did you ever experience the revelation of your absolutely outstanding
mediocrity, that what you do, say or write seems to respire? Probably not,
because not sensing that must be part of leaving that.
Again, the reason I attacked, with unprecedented (yes, I admit that),
overt rudeness your polluting activities in r.c.m.r. is that you are *not*
a music lover I may disagree with, fight a bit, exchange passionate,
sometimes over-heated, opinions, and end the whole thing with a joke and a
friendly common laugh, as it is in my nature, which is not rude and not
violent!
You are something incomparably worse or, much more properly said,
incomparable: a representative of the species of critics that ruined the
basis of classical music appreciation. You insist in ruining what is (was)
unique about r.c.m.r. If you are, as I am justifiedly suspecting, the
"expert" because of whom old and esteemed contributors like Phil Caron,
precious examples of knowledgeable and passionate amateurs, are
leaving r.c.m.r., that should make you question yourself, before judging
"cult(ist)s" derisively. You are obsessed with facts yourself being
unaware of the facts you dismiss or dislike. That you take advantage of
other people politeness does not change my view on the whole thing.
Sometimes I have gone overboard (and I was reciprocated (: ) with people I
got along very well after the "battle". With you "shouting out loud" was
not rhetoric ornament, but an assumed part of my discourse, because your
insidious pollution of r.c.m.r. doesn't deserve of more.
Out of respect for other readers which do not share my view on the matter,
I will cease now my anyway futile rebellion against the Hurwitz
infestation, and I will unilaterally stop the hostilities, unless you will
dare write again, swamped in ignorance, about great interpreters of the
past that had more music in their blood when they were born, than you, in
your future seventh reincarnation.
regards,
SG
samir ghiocel golescu
<<Didn't they teach you nothing?>>
anything
David Hurwitz
Let me take a leaf from Henry Fogel's book and try to answer this without
indulging in excesses of rhetoric. I stand by the word "inconsistent," but
should not have said "wildly." This was an exaggeration. By the same token,
those back-to-back Bruckners and Eroicas are not "dramatically" different at
all. They are only slightly different. Many of the differences are simply a
function of the technical quality of the playing. For example, I have spoken
about the coda of the Eroica on December 8 being more powerful than on
December 7 because of the more sensitive woodwind pianissimos before the
final, great orchestral eruption. There are many other matters, though, such
as string ensemble and intonation, matters of inner balance, rhythmic
accuracy, that no conductor can control perfectly, and which Furtwangler
seems able to control much less than most. I think I was very specific when
I said that by "inconsistent," I meant that the results he got from his
orchestras technically could vary quite a bit, not just over matters of
interpretation (the broad outlines of which are pretty stable from one
performance to the next), but in the quality of playing. I believe that a
conductor's ability to control the details of a performance is certainly a
legitimate test (but not the only one or the most important one) of his
communicative and interpretive skill. I do not believe that it was
Furtwangler's strong point, which is why so many people find it necessary to
hunt among so many performances in order to find the best ones. I realize
that some find this unpredictability exciting, and that his interpretations
rise above these technical considerations. I do not. I see it as a simple
failure of technique combined with the so-so quality of the orchestras that
he usually had at his disposal at the time. Now please don't take this to
mean that all conductors or performances should be robotically consistent. I
am just as opposed to conductors who "micro-manage" every detail, and
destroy all sense of spontaneity. For me, Furtwangler frequently flirted
with disaster, and sometimes crossed over (the finale of his EMI Brahms
Third is one such case where the execution is so terrible that I believe
Furtwangle lost control of the performance almost completely at several
points). I have no doubt that others may find this performance thrilling for
exactly the reasons I find it appalling. That's the nature of the beast.
Fair?
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
Michael Weston <rush...@interaccess.com> wrote in message
news:s6vilo...@corp.supernews.com...
Michael Weston
: from the same discs, and I say, for example, that the orchestral balances in
: the coda of the December 7 "Eroica" finale on Tahra are terrible because the
: horns disappear completely, this is a FACT, which can be verified by anyone
: on their own. We can then discuss the relevance of this fact with respect to
: the interpretation as a whole. But this NEVER happens. Why? Because SG and
: his crew aren't interested in facts. It's just more blather about "artistic
: miracles" and other such nonsense. The best way to understand Furtwangler's
This is as clear a statement of your method (or part of your method) as I
could want. I hope you at least hear some sense in my words if I offer
the opinion that it is entirely possible that the poor ballance in said
section doesn't matter *at all* with respect to the impact of the
interpretation. Your opinion and method are certainly not wrong, but you
seem to believe that they are the only right way to judge. Those who just
listen (and don't compare, consult the score, etc) and rely merely on
memory vs. previous experiences and measuing the effect of the
performance on themselves obviously work with inferior criteria for you.
It is clear that the person I represent here may be a poor critic (he may
have less to talk about) and nothing approaching an academic, but with
respect to his position in relation to the artform, it is a perfectly
legitimate position to hold. I'll be damned if listening to music means I
absolutely must learn the historical background, read the score, be aware
of all conductor decisions vis-a-vis the score, judge the playing of all
individual performers and their technical accuracy, recognize the accuracy
of the recording and its aural truthfulness to the orchestra in size and
recording location instrumental timbre. All of these may play an
essential part in musical and recording production and can be the basis
for a critical awareness. But none of them are absolutely essential for
me to listen to and make sense of music and to compare and hold an opinion
regarding various recordings.
No doubt there are those whose behavior and nutty fanaticism make them
models for criticism when comparing your method and theirs. But it is
still only one method, one set of rules and I don't see you as having the
imagination or modesty at this point to acknowledge that. I suppose it
would just be too ugly to see you and SG as equals of entirely different
sorts- or perhaps I should say "equally fine performers with different
interpretive styles."
michael weston
Michael Weston
: certain of these recordings, is that I suspect that there are plenty of
: people out there who have felt unwilling or unable to participate in our
: very stimulating discussions about these recordings because of the dogmatism
: of SG & Co. No one wants to express an opinion about a piece of music or
I think you're completely mistaken on this point, especially in terms of
picking SG as the token heavyweight. Do you know who Dan Koren is? And
yet I miss Dan (and the days when we could argue about Celi withought any
decent recording as a reference.)
m
samir ghiocel golescu
On Sun, 2 Jan 2000, Michael Weston wrote:
> David Hurwitz (hurw...@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
> : from the same discs, and I say, for example, that the orchestral balances in
> : the coda of the December 7 "Eroica" finale on Tahra are terrible because the
> : horns disappear completely, this is a FACT, which can be verified by anyone
> : on their own. We can then discuss the relevance of this fact with respect to
> : the interpretation as a whole. But this NEVER happens. Why? Because SG and
> : his crew aren't interested in facts. It's just more blather about "artistic
> : miracles" and other such nonsense. The best way to understand Furtwangler's
>
>
> This is as clear a statement of your method (or part of your method) as I
> could want. I hope you at least hear some sense in my words if I offer
> the opinion that it is entirely possible that the poor ballance in said
> section doesn't matter *at all* with respect to the impact of the
> interpretation. Your opinion and method are certainly not wrong, but you
> seem to believe that they are the only right way to judge. Those who just
> listen (and don't compare, consult the score, etc) and rely merely on
> memory vs. previous experiences and measuing the effect of the
> performance on themselves obviously work with inferior criteria for you.
Excuse me, Mr. Weston, but you are, so to speak, entrapped in your own
modesty. I could only say that the dichotomic image of, say, two
conductors, one of them who knows his score, balances etc. but does not
make, perhaps (after all, that is only an imponderable quality) a great
psychological impact on the listener, the other one a gifted, charismatic
conductor, who is incapable to read and reproduce truthfully a score, but
by magic means only is having an superior "effect" on the listener. This
image is simply not adequate. Furtwangler was perhaps a genius and a
charismatic orchestra leader, but he certainly knew to read a score and to
conceive a balance as well! His basic ideas about how a balance could be
diametrically opposed to those of, say, Reiner or Szell. Having
certain lines rhetorically emphasised and other lines blended in a global
orchestral color was part of his professional credo. When he wanted, he
had every single line of a score prefectly audible, he just didn't want
that all the time. What I am trying to say is: when you are impressed by
the Furtwangler recordings listed by you in a precedent message (very good
choices, by the way, IMO), there is no need for you to be apologetic--I
mean to excuse yourself for giving in to Furtwangler's "general effect",
as it would be based on less than outstanding professional standards. For
one thing, Furtwangler's instinct for orchestral color, the richness, the
variety, the substantiality of his sound signature, are much much rarer
qualities, *both in technic* and artistic terms, then, as someone said it
here, fast, (c)lean, and uninflected orchestral playing.
For one (other) thing: I can understand you disapprove of my style, it was
a risk I have taken. Just, disapproval apart, don't be caught in the
error of believing that any critic (or me, or any other guy is writing
here) knows something about a Beethoven or Brahms score Furtwangler
himself didn't, or even that he knows 1% of what Furtwangler did.
regards,
SG
Michael Weston
: I this particular case, I think the discussion established two useful points
: that have not received the attention or consideration they deserved in this
: group to date, at least in my experience. First, I think the more guarded,
Choose:
"I consider this important..."
or
"This deserves attention..."
The latter, even if couched in modest terms late in the sentence clearly
communicates "I have access to the BIG PICTURE and know what ultimately is
important."
But in fact, it may not be important to others. So even as you speak
sense, you cast others as small. Obviously, you don't really mean to do
this, as you're able to state some fine principles when asked for them.
But arrogance is easily seen in big words. And it is liable to inflame
those of us (the us that don't know each other) who know we speak only for
ourselves.
michael
samir ghiocel golescu
> It is an irony that the image Karajan had strived thru his marketing
> strategy -- mystic, philosophical, ecstatic music making -- has never
> reached to the level of the image of WF, which is made of yet another
> marketing strategy. As much as WF at best does have mystic,
> philosophical, ecstatic music making, his image has definately been
> overhyped. WF in paradise is probably smiling sarcastically toward such
> overhype of him image.
Takashi, if the substance of the "hype" is authentic, as you seem to
acknowledge, it may be the discrepancy between Karajan's marketing and the
reality of his music-making that put you off, thing that you cannot say
about Furty.
> I'd still buy Furtwangler over Karajan first when there are duplications
Exactly what I meant.
regards,
SG
David Hurwitz
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100010...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu...
David Hurwitz
Because you post seems directed at my personal philosophy of performance, I
feel compelled to respond. Those not interested in this tangential topic are
free to ignore this posting. You've been warned :-)!
> You do an excellent job of trying to be fair to those you review, but I
> rarely get the impression of a real person who has actual tastes and
> passions for and against particular performers. It appears sometimes that
> you believe that one should be able to appreciate any performance of note
> no matter how far afield from one's tastes, and that dislike arises from
> actual, objective and defensible criteria. This attitude has certainly
> played a part in some of the most violent disagreements in which you
> and I have participated. And I have not yet seen room in your words for
> other tastes- those which manage to find pleasure in recordings which are
> less than perfect, but special nonetheless (and I think the Collins
> Sibelius recordings are a perfect example here, for they have been loved
> by many for decades even though you find them hard to appreciate).
I think you judgment of me is quite perceptive, and almost completely
accurate. Although it seems to me that the second part of this paragraph
"And yet I have not seen room in your words for other tastes..." contradicts
the first. I believe, first of all, that far too much attention is paid in
performance to generalities of interpretation "I like it, it's exciting,"
and not enough attention to facts: what actually happens, how is it played,
can it be accurately described. My approach is different from yours, and
probably from many people in this group, partially because of what I believe
to be my responsibilities as a critic (and I expect people not to sneer at
the idea that I may have standards), and partly because of the fact that,
over the years, my philosophy as a critic and my understanding of music and
enjoyment of it have merged to become one and the same thing.
I do not regard criticism as a job where someone gets paid (or not!) for
answering the question "Do I like it?" This is one component of a critic's
job, but not the only one, or even the most important one. A critic of
recordings answers the question: "Given all the available recordings, how
does the performance under review compare, and how best can the reader spend
his or her money given the alternatives." Obviously, my personal taste has
something to do with my evaluation of the recording, but I have tried very,
very hard, rather than taking a position and saying "this is the only way to
interpret a piece," to try to understand the range of performance options
available, and to evaluate each recording according to my assessment of the
degree to which it lives up to the premises that the performers establish
for their interpretation, and based on what I take to be the composer's
intentions as expressed in the score.
A critic must constantly try to find a way to make comparisons and describe
the facts of a performance as clearly as possible so that the people with
strong tastes one way or another can make up their mind about the
performance. It is just as valuable information, for example, if you loathe
my standards and opinions, and love every recording I hate. I have very few
"favorite" recordings of anything; I generally enjoy a range of different
interpretations, and seldom feel that one is "best." There are also times
when, despite having a favorite performance, I would not recommend it to a
first time buyer or friend because my appreciation of it is personal, not
necessarily transferrable, and is in any case based on an extensive
knowledge of how the work sounds that a newcomer doesn't have. I realize,
for example that there are some people whose first experience of classical
music was Furtwangler, but I doubt anyone will deny that their enjoyment of
Furtwangler has increased when his achievement is compared to other
recordings of a different type. I also suspect that most Furtwangler fans
came to him later, after already having a sense of what a "standard"
recording sounds like, and were then all the more blown away by his
uniqueness.
I don't believe it is a critic's job to come out "for or against particular
performers" as you put it. Quite often in this group, someone will ask for a
recommendation of a piece Furtwangler has conducted, and his fans will of
course recommend his recording because it's their favorite. I don't believe
that this is the most useful way to help someone asking the question if I
think this person does not know the music well. And this has been the source
of so much friction; not whether or not Furtwangler's performance is good or
bad, but whether it is always the best possible recommendation given what we
know about the person asking the question. And here, I do honestly believe
my "professional" approach to be sometimes, not always but sometimes, more
valuable than a simple "this is the one I love more than any other" answer.
I believe that far too little attention is given to what you call "objective
criteria," and I think that before you get to a discussion of the
metaphysical or purely personal impressions of an "interpretation," there
should be some attempt to agree on (or at least establish) what these
criteria are. Finally, while I assure you that I am a "real" person with a
real passion for music (why else would I do this?), I am not a "fan" of
anyone. I think the cult of the great conductor or performer is
fundamentally unmusical, since it's about personalities, and not the music
itself. No performer offers a "definitive" performance, and most, even the
greatest, have their good points and bad points, their strengths and
weaknesses. For me, the love and pleasure that I get out of classical music
is trying to find the "strengths" is as many places as I can, and in
listening as "blindly" as I can to each new performance, reporting as
honestly and accurately as I can on what I actually hear, without regard to
the performer's name, reputation, or popularity. If you find this cold or
lacking in "passion," I can understand that. But it works for me.
> There most certainly are "special" Furtwangler recordings- that is where a
> newcomer ought to start. If you are incabable of saying that no recording
> of his offers unique and valuable pleasure, whatever the negatives, then
> perhaps you should hold your tongue and admit that others are better
> positioned to speak on the subject.
This you could not have written if you have ever paid attention to what I
have written about Furtwangler. I have NEVER said that he wasn't a great
conductor, nor have I ever maintained that there are not many pieces that he
interpreted as well as anyone, and which I would recommend without
hesitation, even as first recordings. I have made Furtwangler
recommendations on numerous occasions (you can see them, for example, in the
rec.music.classical newsgroup), and my list, for the record is:
Brahms Symphony No. 1 (NDR, 1951 Tahra)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Philharmonia, Lucerne Festival, Tahra)
Wagner: Tristan (EMI and one of the two greatest recordings of the work;
Bohm being the other)
Wagner: Walkure (EMI Reference with the Vienna Phil)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Vienna Phil. on Orfeo, Salzburg Festival)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 (EMI "Official" Recording, or almost any other he
conducted)
Schumann: Symphony No. 4 (DG "Originals")
Furtwangler: Symphony No. 2 (DG "Originals" or Vienna Phil one on Orfeo--the
more exciting performance--and I have always endured the ridicule of my
colleagues in claiming that this symphony is a masterpiece)
Beethoven: Eroica (Berlin Phil, Dec. 8, 1952, Tahra, DESPITE the fact that I
do not like all aspects of the interpretation, I find the performance
totally convincing and so well realized so as to make my personal feelings
about it irrelevant; it is one of the most perfect Furtwangler
performances).
There are several other performances of other works that I enjoy very much,
including the EMI Mozart Symphony No. 40, Wagner excerpts on Testament, the
Ring (both of them), and many more Beethoven and Brahms recordings. This
entire discussion has not, in fact, been about whether I regard Furtwangler
as a great conductor or not. I do. But I also find the surviving sources
with document his work deeply flawed in many ways, and for me, both
personally and professionaly, these flaws often outweigh the insights of his
interpretations. Some people seem simply unwilling to accept this view.
There's nothing I can do about that, but I can at least describe the reasons
for my dissatisfaction based on the facts of what I actually hear. I thank
you for the opportunity to set forth my position on these issues more fully,
and I apologize if I've bored you to death.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
Michael Weston <rush...@interaccess.com> wrote in message
news:s6vl2lj...@corp.supernews.com...
samir ghiocel golescu
On Sun, 2 Jan 2000, David Hurwitz wrote:
> Well Henry, care to comment on this?
Reaching for a bit of compassion never hurts, does it?...
David Hurwitz
I will cease now my anyway futile rebellion against the Hurwitz
infestation, and I will unilaterally stop the hostilities, unless you will
dare write again, swamped in ignorance, about great interpreters of the
past that had more music in their blood when they were born, than you, in
your future seventh reincarnation.>>
Dear Samir:
I shall continue to offer my insights and opinions on Furtwangler when the
opportunity presents itself, and you should feel free to continue offering
yours regarding me. I love the attention, and I'm perfectly content to let
individual readers make up their minds as to which of us is the more
musically relevant.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
samir ghiocel golescu
> I shall continue to offer my insights and opinions on Furtwangler when the
> opportunity presents itself.
Insights? Insights? That's an arrogant overstatement.
Your way of criticizing Furtwangler's recordings, by counting wrong
notes, suggests me the specter of an art critic that would want to give
"insights" on Gioconda's beauty, by unburying and measuring the bones of
the model's skeleton, instead of watching da Vinci's painting.
regards,
SG
Michael Weston
: regret that. That was not my intention, but by the same token, I stand by
: what I wrote. I think we can agree to disagree and leave it there.
I hear: "I'm set in my ways and don't consider the relationships
here valuable enough for me to really second-guess any of my words."
Maybe then you would havbe written "I hope we can agree to disagree.."
Anyone who feels comfortable with the "I didn't intend it, so I don't need
to reconsider, rephrase or apologise" deserves to be slapped by their
mother and taught some new manners, no matter how old they are.
michael
tmki...@ucdavis.edu
: Takashi, if the substance of the "hype" is authentic, as you seem to
: acknowledge, it may be the discrepancy between Karajan's marketing and the
: reality of his music-making that put you off, thing that you cannot say
: about Furty.
Let me rephrase it: the level of overglorification on Karajan's part, in
my opinion, is larger than that of Furtwangler's. That partly comes from
my analysis on their character. Usually when one knows more about the
person, admiration level goes down. Not with Furtwangler.
More that I get to know about Furtwangler, especially his humble but
diligent effort to deliver what he did the best -- deliver the music to
encourage listeners during tough times -- during WWII, including his
temper, I get to like him. If I were to visit him after the concert for
an autograph, in my image he'd gladly give me one. With Karajan, I have a
feeling (educated one, I mind you) that I'd probably have to wear a very
nice suit and bring an important Japanese "friend" (maybe the equivalent
of Ohga?) to get an autograph.
My analysis may sound not related to their music making, but for me, it
does because it indicates just how open they are to audience perception.
I always welcome, even thru old recordings, to Furtwangler's musical world
of wonder. As for Karajan, he just delivers the goods and so be it. I
enjoy that once in a while because his goods are occasionally very good;
but I rarely am inspired by them (except recordings he made in his last
few years when, I think, he sounds freer on instrumental singing).
As much as I know that Karajan has his humble side (at least toward the
predessor), most of what I get from his music making is efficiency. I
enjoy nice, smooth ride with some calculated avoidance of bumps, but I
want more than that especially if I were to collect CDs of same
composition. I am amazed however that of Mr. Hurwitz's knowledge, and
assume that he can hear more orchestral details than I do with his
thorough musical knowledge. I'll get to learn how to read scores little
by little, although that might only highlighten my awe toward
Furtwangler...
Takashi M. Kikuchi
Simon Roberts
[stuff I generally agree with snipped]
: Finally, while I assure you that I am a "real" person with a
: real passion for music (why else would I do this?), I am not a "fan" of
: anyone. I think the cult of the great conductor or performer is
: fundamentally unmusical, since it's about personalities, and not the music
: itself. No performer offers a "definitive" performance, and most, even the
: greatest, have their good points and bad points, their strengths and
: weaknesses.
This may all turn merely on disagreement about what's meant by "cult" and
"fan", and what follows may be rather trite, but one can admire and,
thus, be a fan of someone without falling into "cultist" status. The
reason why we (i.e., those of us who do) admire and become fans of
particular musicians surely has nothing to do with their personalities
(the more I learn about musicians' personalities, the more I wish I
hadn't, on the whole) but with their musicianship: it *is* fundamentally a
*musical* phenomenon because the reason we are fans of whoever it is is
because of what they generally do *for* the music in question (and the
reverse is true: we dislike musicians because of what they do to the
music in question, not, for the most part, because of their
personalities). I dare say there are Furtwaengler et al. fans who are so
because of the cultish aspect that does indeed seem to exist, but that's
not true of all fans of all musicians.
Simon
Michael Weston
: performance to the next), but in the quality of playing. I believe that a
: conductor's ability to control the details of a performance is certainly a
: legitimate test (but not the only one or the most important one) of his
: communicative and interpretive skill. I do not believe that it was
It is easy to understand this as showing his communicative skill. And it
certainly affects how well his interpretation comes across. But I don't
know what "interpretive skill" means here. I take "interpretation" to
mean the act of rationalizing the notes and the judgement of what to
emphasize and prioritize.
: Furtwangler's strong point, which is why so many people find it necessary to
: hunt among so many performances in order to find the best ones. I realize
: that some find this unpredictability exciting, and that his interpretations
: rise above these technical considerations. I do not. I see it as a simple
: failure of technique combined with the so-so quality of the orchestras that
: he usually had at his disposal at the time. Now please don't take this to
: mean that all conductors or performances should be robotically consistent. I
: am just as opposed to conductors who "micro-manage" every detail, and
: destroy all sense of spontaneity. For me, Furtwangler frequently flirted
: with disaster, and sometimes crossed over (the finale of his EMI Brahms
: Third is one such case where the execution is so terrible that I believe
: Furtwangle lost control of the performance almost completely at several
: points). I have no doubt that others may find this performance thrilling for
: exactly the reasons I find it appalling. That's the nature of the beast.
: Fair?
I think much of what is here is pretty easy to agree with. I'm certainly
not here to defend Furtwangler on every piece of turf we have to pick
over. And if forced, I could probably give up at least half my
Furtwangler collection and not be too disturbed. However, the strengths
of what I love in the better half make concerns for consistency pointless.
As bad as the worst material, I still see more potential in a Furtwangler
recording than in the same material conducted by someone else.
Let's forget about judging the whole man, his entire ourvre on disk.
Have you listed your favorite Furtwangler performances?
michael
tmki...@ucdavis.edu
I perceive you as a competent critic (no sarcasm intended), and as you
have claimed, you exaggerate things in a hope to get your point across.
Some people can filter out, but others can't, especially when the
discussion topic is something people believe almost religiously. I
personally think that when one senses that there might be some content
which one cannot filter out through exaggerations, sarcasm, and even
flame, one should just ignore for a while, let your mind calm a bit, read
what that person says as much as possible, then respond carefully
(assuming one has energy after all this; but I think that's an etiquette).
Also, sometimes people want to know impression or information that can
be connected their existing knowledge. When I went to Peter Serkin
concert, I explained a bit about Schoenberg with my limited knowledge
(because I myself was not accustomed to Schoenberg yet) in terms of
musical terms. She was baffled, so I told her my "theory" that that
composition of his (I think it was Suite op. 25) can be considered as the
product of decadance and turmoil happening in Europe. Yes, it was an
over-generalization, but at least she seemed not too bored when the
Schoenberg was played (I know, I wanted to impress her too :P) because I
gave her some hint on how to tackle that piece.
Well, I'll never be a good critic will I ;).
Takashi M. Kikuchi
Michael Weston
: I believe that far too little attention is given to what you call "objective
: criteria," and I think that before you get to a discussion of the
: metaphysical or purely personal impressions of an "interpretation," there
: should be some attempt to agree on (or at least establish) what these
: criteria are. Finally, while I assure you that I am a "real" person with a
Most of what you say fits the pattern of what one could expect of a
critic. No surprise, and I'm sorry to make you go to such work.
This paragraph above perhaps deserves more attention. I don't think it is
perfectly clear, so let me say that one way I can read it is to see it as
a request that we develop our conscious/verbal criteria before engaging in
aesthetic judgement. This criteria- technical accuracy in playing notes,
for instance- should be merged with the aesthetic judgement as much as
possible, so we can truly appreciate the quality of orchestral playing
more. The other way to read it is a request theat we develop such criteria
because they are too often ignored and deserve equal consideration
alongside (but not necessarily merged with aesthetic judgement).
Let me follow with a personal note which might help give a sense why your
medicine is not for me. I have a four year degree in studio art which
involved a good degree of academic study and knowledge acquisition about
my areas of emphasis. My love of art objects gradually changed to a love
of the idea and cultural possibility of art, and my appreciation of art
objects became wedded with a complex understanding- and critique- of art
objects as they related to one another, to larger cultural fields of
thought, and the significance of art pieces positioned against the
extended history of movements both localized and far-flung. When I go to
a museum or gallery, I am preoccupied with big things and rarely relate
personally to a particular piece. This is just the way it works.
I don't want that to happen with my music. I am a picky-ass-bastard- I
don't want the awareness of technical fluffs (or lack of them) taking my
Collins Sibelius 1 away from me. (And I think it would be wrong to assume
that I could replace such a dazzling recording with something I found
equally impressive given my expandeed range of criteria) Many other
aspects of orchestral music- compositional structure and theories,
composer intent, historical background- have I avoided to a certain degree
because of my very reasonable concern that they would become paramount in
my appreciation of sounds and inhibit my enjoyment. Because that is the
way my head works.
If you can respect the accuracy of my descriptions here, then I think you
could see that what you ask might not facilitate my greater enjoyment of
music.
Let me also say that many of your concerns for fairness and appropriate
criteria just don't matter as much here than in the traditional position
of a critic- where one is alone in voicing judgement, where one is
obligated to thoroughness and fairness. RMCR works because of the
multiple voices and opinions. Your manner and thoroughness may be better
suited for a situation where you are charged with coming up with THE
answer rather than one among many. Some of your phrases would be quite
effective alone in a published review or on the website, but seem to rule
out the experiences, foundations or opinions of others who want to offer
opinions as well. This is the forum for everyone, even as those people's
opinions lack all the things you name- thoroughness, fairness, awareness,
technical knowledge, etc. These are music lovers who are talking about
something that for them is not a job, and they don't have to play the game
on your terms if they don't want to. In this sense, you come on as
somewhat heavyhanded: "I've thought it through and am right, unless you
care to back up your disagreement with thorough explanation and show the
worth of your opinion."
: real passion for music (why else would I do this?), I am not a "fan" of
: anyone. I think the cult of the great conductor or performer is
: fundamentally unmusical, since it's about personalities, and not the music
: itself.
Well, I think here you miss out. (though I swear I hear a fan in the
person who writes "Lenny was the greatest Mahler conductor ever.")
In general, though, I think you have made yourself into one who can't see
the possibility that one performer or conductor might have a manner of
enunciuation that allowed the music to speak more forcefully to you more
often than not. Take Horenstein- I really know very little about the man,
but consistently admire his music-making. What can be wrong, then in
calling me a fan as long as I am still capable of hearing the turkeys?
michael
M-T
<<This is the forum for everyone, even as those people's
opinions lack all the things you name- thoroughness, fairness,
awareness, technical knowledge, etc. These are music lovers who are
talking about something that for them is not a job, and they don't have
to play the game on your terms if they don't want to. In this sense,
you come on as somewhat heavyhanded: "I've thought it through and am
right, unless you care to back up your disagreement with thorough
explanation and show the worth of your opinion.">>
I fully endorse Michael's eloquent statement. To Dave Hurwitz I say that
he's misunderstanding what this forum is about, both on the surface and
more in depth. This is not an academic forum, or a specialized
publication; it is more like a cafe with lots of "regulars" and lots of
others who drop in once in a while. Sometimes opinions are backed up,
sometimes not. Some participants are like insiders who drop horse-race
or stock market tips. Others just think it's fun. Yet, this is where
it's happening, "it" being a dynamic and democratic discussion of music,
covering virtually every composer, every performer, and every recording
that has seen the light. If it exists, sooner or later it will crop up
here. I respecfully contend that you are misunderstanding both the
medium and the particular forces, personalities and styles that make
rmcr what it is.
Above all, a little more geniality wouldn't hurt. Here you don't have
anything to lose. We're crazy but we're not revengeful.
Regards,
mt
samir ghiocel golescu
Superbly said, *much* more patiently and elegantly than I would have done
it, of course, but the essence is there.
> Above all, a little more geniality wouldn't hurt. Here you don't have
> anything to lose.
Never ask a chicken to fly... it might end in the oven... (-:
regards,
SG
David Hurwitz
This is positively my last posting on this thread (Thank God, I hear you
say, and believe me, I agree). It has been fascinating for me personally for
a variety of reasons which I would like to share with you all. I want to
make one general observation, and one specific observation. The general
tenor of much of the above debate concerning my perception of Furtwangler's
performances stems from the distinction some of you make between being a
"critic" and being a "music lover." Of course, I became a critic because I
am a music lover, not the other way around, and for me there's no conflict
at all between the two. The more tolerant among you allow that my critical
perceptions may have merit for the purpose of writing a record review, but
are inappropriate or inadmissable in this forum (for a variety of reasons),
which is for music lovers, and not "professionals." The less tolerant
believe that everything I say or do is simply poison, period, whether
because I am a critic, a bad critic, or simply an evil, pretentious,
arrogant, pompous person--all of these adjectives used to describe me in
this and other threads. I should point out in this respect that the vast
majority of people using these adjectives have seldom, if ever, been the
object of similar observations by me as regards their person, and that no
one has ever found it necessary to think twice about their own
qualifications to judge my competence as a critic (despite which I have
NEVER thrown this fact back in anyone's face, not even Samir's, because part
of serving the public is accepting its right to make these judgments).
I believe that the distinction that is being drawn here is false. My work as
a critic as had an impact on my personal understanding of music, but it is
still my personal understanding. It has led me to the point where my passion
revolves not around any specific performer, but rather around specific works
that I love, and specific performances of them by a variety of performers.
It has made me skeptical of "fandom," despite a strong enthusiasm for
certain performers in certain repertoire. I have never said that this is the
only legitimate approach to enjoying a piece of music; I have insisted on
its legitimacy as AN approach, and on its value to me personally. The fact
that I wear two hats in this group, and yet still actively participate,
makes some people uncomfortable. Other than leaving the group, which I will
not, there's nothing I can really do about this, since it's simply a fact of
existence. And let me make this clear: I would stay here and chat even if it
means that not a single one of you will ever visit Classicstoday.com, for
the simple reason that I enjoy it. And frankly, I'd be a very stupid
"professional" if I planned that the success of my site should be in any way
dependent on its acceptance in this forum. Your support and approval of the
site matter to me because you are the most knowledgeable and opinionated
group of classical music lovers that I have ever encountered, but NOT
because that support or approval is a "make or break" business issue. If
some of you want to attribute to me nevertheless some nefarious "commercial"
interest in being here, I understand that nothing I can say or do will
change your minds, and I must live with you, just as you can live with me.
When I bring my experience as a critic to bear in answering a question, it
is always with the intention of helping the questioner. Do I enjoy showing
off my knowledge? Of course. It would be hypocritical of me to say
otherwise, but I am by no means the most active poster here--not by a huge
margin. Aside from joining in occasional recommendations of specific
performances and works now and again, there are maybe three or four "major
discussion" threads of any length in which I am actively involved, none of
which were started by me (actually, one falls under a posting by me but the
discussion, not started by me, was of another subject unrelated to the
posting, which was simply a review announcement). This can be verified by a
glance at the past couple of week's postings.
In sum, I believe that many here are attributing to me far more influence
(for good or ill) than I truly have, or ought to have, because of an almost
holy horror of having a "professional" critic (and one proud of it) loose in
the group. I further believe that the actual facts of my participation, both
qualitatively and quantitatively bear this contention out, and are there for
all who are interested in the reality of the situation to see. It is not an
influence which I sought, and I don't want it, but as long as the topic of
conversation is ME instead of the music, that influence will remain. I have
been accused of attempting to dominate the group, to cram my opinions down
the throats of others, etc. I can't deny that I like a vigorous discussion
or defend myself passionately (while at the same time being accused of a
lack of true passion with respect to the music; go figure). Time and time
again, as I look at this thread, I have attempted to steer the discussion
back towards the facts of performance, of sound, of interpretation,
playing--and away from myself personally, to no avail. My views are no more
or less significant than anyone else's, however passionately I state and
defend them, and if you give them more importance than they deserve because
of who I am (or who you think I am), there's nothing I can say or do that
will stop you. It is the group that will decide the extent of my influence,
if any, and not me.
Now, second point, as to my list of "essential" Furtwangler, here it is
(complete and for the last time in this thread):
Beethoven: Fidelio (Vienna Phil. EMI)
Brahms Symphony No. 1 (NDR, 1951 Tahra)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Philharmonia, Lucerne Festival, Tahra)
Wagner: Tristan (EMI and one of the two greatest recordings of the work;
Bohm being the other)
Wagner: Walkure (EMI Reference with the Vienna Phil)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Vienna Phil. on Orfeo, Salzburg Festival)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 (EMI "Official" Recording, or almost any other he
conducted)
Schumann: Symphony No. 4 (DG "Originals")
Furtwangler: Symphony No. 2 (DG "Originals" or Vienna Phil one on Orfeo--the
more exciting performance--and I have always endured the ridicule of my
colleagues in claiming that this symphony is a masterpiece)
Beethoven: Eroica (Berlin Phil, Dec. 8, 1952, Tahra, DESPITE the fact that I
do not like all aspects of the interpretation, I find the performance
totally convincing and so well realized so as to make my personal feelings
about it irrelevant; it is one of the most perfect Furtwangler
performances).
There are several other performances of other works that I enjoy very much,
including the EMI Mozart Symphony No. 40, Wagner excerpts on Testament
(Prelude to "Lohengrin"!), the
Ring (both of them), and many more Beethoven and Brahms recordings. My worst
Furtwangler: Brahms 3 (EMI), anything by Bruckner, and many more Beethoven
and Brahms recordings, including the fabled wartime Beethoven 9th and much
else from the same period. Just my opinion, folks. Take it or leave it.
--
David Hurwitz
Executive Editor
www.classicstoday.com
dhur...@classicstoday.com
<tmki...@ucdavis.edu> wrote in message
news:84p8pu$ald$2...@mark.ucdavis.edu...
Matthew Silverstein
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100010...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu...
> Out of respect for other readers which do not share my view on the matter,
> I will cease now my anyway futile rebellion against the Hurwitz
> infestation, and I will unilaterally stop the hostilities, unless you will
> dare write again, swamped in ignorance, about great interpreters of the
> past that had more music in their blood when they were born, than you, in
> your future seventh reincarnation.
While I approve wholeheartedly of a cease-fire (unilateral or otherwise),
this seems somewhat perverse. First of all, Samir's cease-fire is not very
unilateral if it includes the condition that the "opposing side" stop as
well. Second, Samir is not offering to end the ad hominem attacks if Dave
does the same. Rather, he is offering to end the ad hominem attacks *only*
if David stops expressing his views on Furtwängler and Mengelberg. In other
words, if David continues to make strongly worded but reasonable and
intelligent posts about the merits of Furtwängler's conducting (with which I
may or may not agree), then Samir will continue to make vitriolic posts
chronicling the ways in which David has become the fifth horseman of the
apocalypse. The condition, if there needs to be one, should be that David
stop his own ad hominem attacks against Samir.
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
Samir, it's just a different approach to art than yours. Why is one better
than another?
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> Excuse me, Mr. Weston, but you are, so to speak, entrapped in your own
> modesty.
A problem you certainly do not share . . . :-)
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
samir ghiocel golescu <gol...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.100010...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu...
> a risk I have taken. Just, disapproval apart, don't be caught in the
> error of believing that any critic (or me, or any other guy is writing
> here) knows something about a Beethoven or Brahms score Furtwangler
> himself didn't, or even that he knows 1% of what Furtwangler did.
Samir, do you believe that Furtwängler was incapable of making a mistake? Do
you believe that it is impossible for him to have missed something in a
particular score?
Matty
Michael Weston
: > Excuse me, Mr. Weston, but you are, so to speak, entrapped in your own
: > modesty.
: A problem you certainly do not share . . . :-)
: Matty
Actually, SG misunderstood one of my posts and we had a cordial discussion
offline, as he sent me an emailed copy.
In fact, he was so persuasive, that I feel I must colse the message with
the comment: Viva la Mengelberg! ;-)
michael
Michael Weston
I'm sorry to see David direct a message like this to the group in general,
as I wrote so much more or less criticising him in the Furtwangler thread,
yet I have a hard time telling if he's really talking about me in what
follows. A few other comments below.
: am a music lover, not the other way around, and for me there's no conflict
: at all between the two. The more tolerant among you allow that my critical
: perceptions may have merit for the purpose of writing a record review, but
: are inappropriate or inadmissable in this forum (for a variety of reasons),
I had a point similar to this, but hardly wished to go this far with it.
It's a question of style and manner. You wear "authority" on your sleeve
a little too heavily. Your words should show a bit more that you are one
person among many here, even if you can write and defend yourself better
than most of them.
: object of similar observations by me as regards their person, and that no
: one has ever found it necessary to think twice about their own
: qualifications to judge my competence as a critic (despite which I have
: NEVER thrown this fact back in anyone's face, not even Samir's, because part
: of serving the public is accepting its right to make these judgments).
I think David is a fine critic. Furthermore, I very much enjoy the
classicstoday website.
: I believe that the distinction that is being drawn here is false. My work as
Well, I'm not sure who here really was looking to draw such a stark divide
here. In certain situations you have exaggerated such contrasts to make a
point- your description may simply be wrong here.
: It has made me skeptical of "fandom," despite a strong enthusiasm for
: certain performers in certain repertoire. I have never said that this is the
This is a good point which might have been added to your somewhat negative
comments on fans earlier.
: that I wear two hats in this group, and yet still actively participate,
: makes some people uncomfortable. Other than leaving the group, which I will
: not, there's nothing I can really do about this, since it's simply a fact of
I am not uncomfortable, and enjoy picking on you ;-). Glad to hear you're
staying!
: because that support or approval is a "make or break" business issue. If
: some of you want to attribute to me nevertheless some nefarious "commercial"
: interest in being here, I understand that nothing I can say or do will
: change your minds, and I must live with you, just as you can live with me.
I think the "commercial" concerns are misplaced. It's not that you are a
critic, but sound like one. :-)
: In sum, I believe that many here are attributing to me far more influence
: (for good or ill) than I truly have, or ought to have, because of an almost
: holy horror of having a "professional" critic (and one proud of it) loose in
: the group. I further believe that the actual facts of my participation, both
"Holy horror?" When you get mad at people who are wrong, you sure know how
to feed the fire.
: the throats of others, etc. I can't deny that I like a vigorous discussion
: or defend myself passionately (while at the same time being accused of a
: lack of true passion with respect to the music; go figure). Time and time
I think I posed this question, but have ben satisfied with your responses.
Passion? You've got it.
: again, as I look at this thread, I have attempted to steer the discussion
: back towards the facts of performance, of sound, of interpretation,
Which not all people will like, nor do they have to appreciate it. This
act on your part does not necessarily make you worthy of praise, even as
they are perfectly appropriate for your professional critical activities.
: Now, second point, as to my list of "essential" Furtwangler, here it is
: (complete and for the last time in this thread):
Yes, I ended one of my messages with a taunt of sorts to contribute to the
recommendation list, but afterwords read a list you had already posted.
I'm sorry to have not seen it at that point.
In sum: it's your manner that gets you in trouble, David, and nothing
else. Because judged on its own terms, most everything you write is
correct. I look forward to your continued contributions.
michael w
August Helmbright
"David Hurwitz" <hurw...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> <<As I stated in an earlier post, most
> Furtwangler fans aren't looking for crisp, detailed execution.>>
>
> And you and your Furtwangler buddies are mis-stating my point by
taking my
> remarks about playing to extremes of caricature. I am not saying that
all
> orchestral performances should have the "efficiency" and finish of
Karajan's
> Berlin Philharmonic, or Toscanini's (or Szell's) precision. I am as
open as
> anyone to the notion that there is a place for the "ugly" sound, and
that
> Beethoven's style, in particular, demands an element of roughness
which is
> part of his energy and drive. But there's a big difference between
this and
> what is simply lousy ensemble playing, poor intonation, and bad
rhythm,
> things that no conductor, Furtwangler or anyone else, would tolerate
given
> the choice. These are generally not problems that afflict his approved
> commercial releases. As I said earlier, while I agree that many of
his best
> recordings are live, there is a real ethical issue involved with
respect to
> the unlicensed (Tahra being an exception, generally) and in any event
> unauthorized (by Furtwangler himself) release of these performances.
The
> defects in excecution obvious in these recordings go way beyond
matters of
> personal performance style. The fact is that Furtwangler groupies
like SG
> come to the screaming defense of recordings the very publication of
which
> might very well have been vigorously opposed by Furtwangler himself
had he
> been around to have a say in the matter, and the question of whether
or not
> these issues do the man's memory and reputation any justice, given
their
> limitations, is one which is certainly a valid subject for rational
> discussion.
>
> I never cease to be amused by the contrast Furtwangler fans like to
make
> between their poor idol stuggling for artistic perfection against the
crass
> commercialism of the record industry and the relentless opportunism of
> colleagues like Karajan, or the comparisons they love to draw between
those
> dim sounding but oh so artistically truthful documents that simply
blow away
> the mediocre products of later artists so relentlessly hyped and
marketed by
> the big labels. Get real folks. If selling unlicensed and above all,
> illegal, unauthorized broadcast air checks of histoical material at
full
> price isn't the most crassly commercial enterprise going, then I
don't know
> what is. And don't tell me that Tahra is "authorized," because
Furtwangler
> fans don't care. If a better sound source for a specific performance
> appeared, licensed, authorized, legal or not, you'd be lined up at
the cash
> registers. Be honest. I know I would be, because that's what rabid
record
> collectors do. The fact is that few other conductors have had their
> reputations so mercilessly exploited by the record industry for purely
> commercial ends, and fans practically never give this fact one
second's
> consideration. In fact, they celebrate it, and scorn the perfectly
> reasonable suggestion that perhaps their God's artistic reputation
isn't
> always best served by a deluge of badly played, terrible sounding one-
off
> performances that may find everyone involved in less than good form.
>
> My second point is this: that the fact that I dislike Furtwangler's
approach
> to certain composers (Bruckner, for example) does not mean that I
dispute
> his greatness as an artist historically. The question, as I noted
above, is
> to what extent the significance that we all acknowledge is apparent
on the
> recordings which survive. This question cannot be answered without
careful,
> comparative, critical listening to those recordings. And listening is
very
> revealing. One of the myths that I think the recordings themselves
dispel is
> that Furtwangler's "inconsistency" meant that his interpretations
differed
> wildly from one performance to the next. They did not. He was
extremely
> consistent in his approach throughout his career; in fact, his
timings show
> no more variance than Toscanini's (or just about any other
conductor's), and
> in some cases considerably less. But while he was very consistent in
his
> general approach, the result of the careful study and thought that he
> obviously put into his interpretations, he was wildly inconsistent in
the
> RESULTS that he got, and this is clearly related to two factors (a)
the
> quality of the orchestra at his disposal, which, as I note, for
various
> historical reasons was seldom the best even by the standards of the
day
> despite their being "big name" ensembles; and (b) his own erratic
podium
> technique, which everyone, including Furtwangler himself and those who
> played under him, acknowledges.
>
> Finally, as my remarks concerning the two "Eroica" recordings
indicate, I
> have listened to the performances and can site chapter and verse with
> respect to my evaluation of their quality, both with regard to the
playing
> and interpretation. In the weeks and weeks that I have waded through a
> morass of hysteria and vituperation (and here I'm not talking about
> phlmaestro, Tony or any of the other posters to this thread whose
points are
> quite sensible) from SG and his ilk, NEVER ONCE have I seen a single
> reference to any specific moment of any specific performance of a
given
> work, nor any attempt to discuss concrete issues of playing quality,
tempo,
> dynamics, the broad details of interpretation, or (heaven forbid!) the
> musical score itself. And this is surely possible. If we are all
working
> from the same discs, and I say, for example, that the orchestral
balances in
> the coda of the December 7 "Eroica" finale on Tahra are terrible
because the
> horns disappear completely, this is a FACT, which can be verified by
anyone
> on their own. We can then discuss the relevance of this fact with
respect to
> the interpretation as a whole. But this NEVER happens. Why? Because
SG and
> his crew aren't interested in facts. It's just more blather
about "artistic
> miracles" and other such nonsense. The best way to understand
Furtwangler's
vigorous
> discussion of the FACTS of his performances: what he does, how the
orchestra
> plays, and how the recordings sound. Simply to sit back in awe and
exclaim
> wonderingly (or nastily, in SG's case) about the stupifying
transcendence of
> it all is neither musically relevant, enlightening, nor respectful of
the
> man's memory and achievement. Furtwangler has nothing to fear by a
> productive, detailed and critical discussion of the performances
themselves.
> Not only will his reputation survive this process, but we will all
benefit
> from a better understanding of what he actually achieved in
performance, and
> have a better basis to make the purely personal decisions about the
value of
> his artistic insights with respect to each work that he conducted, and
> whether or not these insights outweigh the limitations of the sources
> themselves.
You've generated a lot of comments, but I'll add my $0.02 worth as well.
As to ensemble problems in many of the posthumous Furtwängler
recordings that have been issued (live performances that I agree F
would probably have supressed): my first experience with F. was his
Bayreuth Beethoven 9th recording, which he reportedly did not like, and
which is chock full of about every execution problem imaginable.
Although I had grown up on Toscanini's recording of the 9th and never
quit cherishing it, I realized immediately that there was something
very special about F's performance that no other conductor had managed.
The problems of execution simply were irrelevant to me, or, at least, I
would hate to be deprived of this noble performance just because it
wasn't "perfect." I think of the story I heard about Artur Schnabel,
being asked if he could re-record a passage he had not managed
perfectly from a technical standpoint, and he replied that he could
play it more correctly, but it wouldn't be as good.
Precise execution (not defined as simply playing together, but playing
with a common vision -- sense of balance, phrasing, form, etc.) can
indeed enhance musical communication, but when a great performer
(including F.) manages to communicate a lofty vision despite some flaws
in execution, the result can still be a great performance.
By the way, I am not a "Furtwängler buddy," nor do I think that most of
those who admire his musicianship fall into the category you describe.
Yes, there are those who seem to hold up anything F. did as the
artistic ideal, and who never tire of carping at Toscanini and his
admirers, but there are many more, like myself, who simply appreciate
and enjoy the work of all great musicians (F. included).
--
Join the petition for a memorial edition CD for the late Georg Tintner
at http://tintnerpetition.tripod.com
August Helmbright
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Raymond Hall
Actually I too, fully endorse Michael Weston's eloquent post, and
without being in any way disrespectful to David, who obviously seems to
be the complete professional critic (and has much to offer rmcr), a
little more "give and take" would be nice. Congeniality is the word I am
seeking. Many of us are mere amateurs, after all, even though we are
completely crazy (according to some).
;-)
Regards,
Ray Hall, Sydney