Were all the best classical recordings from 1930 to 1970?

Dear Milo,

What is even odder is that these old recordings don't get the advertising budget, and media push that a new recording does, and yet they just don't go away!

Could it be that there is a quality to them that does not need a media blitz to get them sold. There are an awful lot of old recordings that have rightly sunk without trace, but the best of the efforts from the old master musicians still deserves attention and study I am sure.

Kindest regards from Fredrik

especially in the human voice, I find that to be a unique thing that is not reproducable. No one singer sounds like another. tho 2 violin solos have distinction that's for very trained ears. But 2 sopranos are very different.

There is great stuff today. I happen to like Esa-pekka Salonen's interpretation of classic material because he has a clean and modern sound, but I'm prejudiced he's my homie. But with mid-century performers there was great recording and playing/singing technique that is changing a bit today. Some people prefer one or the other.

Glenn

My answer to this one would have to be a pretty emphatic no. Of course, that's not to say that the period mentioned wasn't something of a golden age, it was. However, that was as much down to the bredth of intrepretations available as it was to recording technology.

That said, there has been a trend in recent years towards providing a deeply unnatural level of detail which I think can be quite distracting.

However, I have countless discs done in last few decades that I could not bear to be without - Mackerras's surveys of the Janacek operas or Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart symphonies, Oramo's recent Sibelius or Paul Lewis's Beethoven. However, we do not today have quite the range we did in the days of Furtwangler/Toscanini. However, I think fine orchestras are as fine as ever (the playing of ensembles like the SCO, LSO, BPO or Cleveland Orchestras seems as fine to these ears live as ever they have done on disc).

I think there is some blame to be laid with period performance which (especially from such people as Gardiner and Norrington) has to some degree robbed us of the more eclectic interpretations that we might have got half a century ago, and I miss that. However, I think things are swinging back again now. Certainly the likes of Runnicles and Lewis, who would both seem to be rising stars, have their own things to say.

In my view, it tends to be the smaller companies that offer better recordings - the likes of Telarc and Chandos in particular do a fine job.



regards, Tam

If you're interested in Wagner, almost certainly yes.

If you're interested in Baroque opera, right now is the best time to be a listener (both live and on record) since the eighteenth century.

Oh, absolutely, yes. Indeed the great years were between the 1950s and the 1970s.

The conductors alone whose names started with "K" between 1950 and late 1970s could hardly be contrasted with the pygmies around today: Karajan, Keilberth, Kempe, Kleiber (E & C), Klemperer, Knappertsbusch, Krauss and Krips. Have I forgotten some? These were giants, before we even begin to think of people such as de Sabata, Furtwaengler, Mravinsky, Reiner, Szell, Toscanini, Walter et al. The little twerps who stand on the podium these days don't even begin to compete.

And we don't get anywhere near the visionary producers of the ilk of John Culshaw or Walter Legge today; just listen to Culshaw's 'Ring' or Legge's 'Tosca' (amongst so many others) to know that these will never be matched.

And I have to say, Tam, that Telarc, Chandos and Hyperion aren't even near the same league as the giant labels of yesteryear.

Graham

Hi Milo!
Of course, as Fredrik wrote, a lot is out there and a lot is lost in market strategies of music companies.
A shame indeed.
But a forum member, Timnaim, passed me this link:
http://www.classicstoday.com/index.asp
Enjoy!

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
And I have to say, Tam, that Telarc, Chandos and Hyperion aren't even near the same league as the giant labels of yesteryear.

I'm not sure what you mean. In terms of sound quality alone, I've not heard anything to rival telarc's finest offerings.

In terms of sheer quantity of great performances you may have a point. But I think, Telarc in parictular, possesses a number of recordings that should rightly be regarded as great. Of course, by this measure, the older labels do have something of an inherent advantage, having been in the business so much longer.


regards, Tam

Tam, you've got to accept that you're wrong here. Just to get the debate going, who are the present day conductors rising up to challenge the "K's" that I mentioned?

Graham

Dear Graham,

I will accept no such thing. I think it's an extremely despressing view to take that the period mentioned was a golden age which utterly eclipses anything on offer today (the more so given I intend to enjoy music both live and recorded for many years to come).

Take, to offer just one example, Beethoven's 9th symphony. A work which I have on disc at least 16 times (possibly more if one includes vinyl) and my favourite reading was made just a year or two ago by one Donald Runnicles. Of course, that's not to say there are not some extraordinary readings from yesterday (as many of my other much loved versions, such as Furtwangler or Bernstein are).

That's not to say I think that Runnicles is a better condcutor that Furtwangler or Bernstein (or Kleiber). Rather that there is a lot of wonderful music being made these days. Of course, there is a fair bit of rubbish being churned out too. Then again, I suspect a fair bit of Rubbish was churned out in the era of Furtwangler (indeed, I'm sure of it as I have one or two studio discs by the great man himself that pale poorly next to his greatest live readings). However, it is the great recordings of those years that stick out, are remembered and discussed. And so comparison with those of today will not be fair in quite the same way for a few years to come.


regards, Tam

quote:

I intend to enjoy music both live and recorded for many years to come

Dear Tam,

I'd take a good (or even decent) concert performance over a "great" recording any day.



Kind Regards


Big Brother

Many thanks for all your interesting comments.

I'm just amazed that the older recordings haven't been comprehensively eclipsed. In many other areas of life performance standards just keep going up, but perhaps not here.

So long as we can still buy the older recordings, I guess that's fine.

I'm not sure why it should be surprising. Bear in mind, of course, that a 1940s recording of Beethoven's 3rd symphony, say, has already over a century of performance practice behind it. One should no more expect the great recordings of the past to be eclipsed than the ceiling of the sistine chapel.



Dear Big Brother,

An interesting question. And I'm not sure exactly what my answer is - you see I very much enjoy having both. However, if what you mean is sit home and listen to a great recording or go out to a good performance, then I would absolutely agree.


regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
I'm not sure why it should be surprising. Bear in mind, of course, that a 1940s recording of Beethoven's 3rd symphony, say, has already over a century of performance practice behind it. One should no more expect the great recordings of the past to be eclipsed than the ceiling of the sistine chapel.
regards, Tam

Well, you have a point!

Tam, we shall have to agree to disagree over this. The 'golden age' is well and truly past, in my opinion. Indeed, I'd find it hard to envisage myself buying any new classical recordings of anything in the foreseeable future, as the present day pygmies just don't do it for me.

But no hard feelings!

Graham

The answer to the question is absolutely not. Plenty of extraordinary recordings have been made in the last 36 years - far too many to mention. And in all genres and for almost all major composers. And nowadays there are still stellar artists and recordings. Why Claudio Abbado's brand-spankin' new Die Zauberflote is among the best recordings of that work I've ever heard, easily beating some recordings from the so-called Golden Age, or whatever one chooses to call it.

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nope. although i would have throw myself into the HIP camp.

PACE

yes. I cant really think of any record I've bought that was recorded recently.

oh sorry. I recently bought the Poulenc Carmelites which is new. but then there was no old recording avilable as alternative ;=)

/jan l.

Dear Todd,

I am curious to know why you rate the Abbado Flute so highly. I can't get on with the recording at all - some of the singing is really rather patchy and some is simply against my tastes (for example, I find the Queen of the Night rather sour). I don't overly warm to Abbado's conducting either - I would prefer something a little brisker/more lively. What's more, I can't get over how badly made the recording is (horribly harsh) and with some decidedly odd balance issues. I didn't warm to it in the theatre in Edinburgh this summer either (and rather wished I'd gone to the concert performance of Meistersinger it was up against).



Dear fishski13,

I have to say that I find the HIP movement to be one of the key problems in the recording industry today. That's not to say I'm against period performance per se. There are a number of very great such recordings (the Mackerras firework music perhaps the greatest example). Rather that for too many artists it is an end in itself rather than a means to achieving a good performance. And often futilely so - for example, when choosing to perform Haydn's creation, should we use a large orchestra or small - Haydn is recorded as having done it with both. The same can be said of reproducing the exact forces used for a work's premier - when often the most logical explanation is that those were used because that was what was available. Certainly, I think the movement has contributed to a narrowing in the range of interpretations around, and that can only be a bad thing.



Dear jlarsson,

Is it simply that you've been buying older recordings or that you have listened to some newer ones but found them wanting?


regards, Tam

Abbado's Die Zauberflote is a delight. A few singers have been bettered, there's no doubt, though I wouldn't call Die Konigen der Nacht sour. Nor would I call the sound at all harsh, let alone horribly so; it's quite the opposite through my system. (Balances aren't always spot-on, but that's a minor concern here.) Abbado's conducting is precisely why I so like the recording. His tempi are flexible, and never rushed , though they're never too slow either, and his overall conception is lighter than is often the case with this work. Colin Davis' Covent Garden production on DVD offers a nice modern counterpoint to the Abbado. (Plus it has the superb Papageno of Simon Keenlyside.) But I'll take the Abbado over even that.

A couple more words on the original topic: one must always remember that when we, the classical music loving record buyers of the world, buy and write about now ancient recordings, we're doing so only after history has done us the favor of weeding out a lot of less distinguished recordings. The many great recordings of the past decades are not all there were. One of the more interesting things about some reissues that replicate original jackets and such are the resurrected ancient ads for slop recordings from the now lionized Golden Age. Lots of garbage made it to wax cylinders and shellac, just as lots of garbage makes it to small aluminum and plastic discs and compressed MP3 files today. Fifty years hence I have no doubt that people will raise similar (though not quantitatively identical) questions about today’s recordings.


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It does interest me that I seem to be the only one who finds the recording so harsh - I would suggest it was my system but the issue doesn't seem to plague other discs.

I suspect it has more to do with that Abbado's conducting here simply isn't to my tastes - each to their own.

You mention Keenlyside's Papageno - have you heard the Mackerras Opera in English reading on Chandos, where he pretty well steals the show. Given I love the conducting on that, and not Abbado, it may not be to your tastes, but it is still worth hearing for Keenlyside if nothing else (and the set is pretty cheap).

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Magic-Flute-Simon-Keenlysi...5755?ie=UTF8&s=music



regards, Tam

quote:

I have to say that I find the HIP movement to be one of the key problems in the recording industry today. That's not to say I'm against period performance per se. There are a number of very great such recordings (the Mackerras firework music perhaps the greatest example). Rather that for too many artists it is an end in itself rather than a means to achieving a good performance. And often futilely so - for example, when choosing to perform Haydn's creation, should we use a large orchestra or small - Haydn is recorded as having done it with both. The same can be said of reproducing the exact forces used for a work's premier - when often the most logical explanation is that those were used because that was what was available. Certainly, I think the movement has contributed to a narrowing in the range of interpretations around, and that can only be a bad thing.

i'm not a card carrying member or anything. let's just say that i gravitate rather than genuflect. i generally find that these interpretations are much more visceral and raw, with a more propulsive tempi, and with greater colorful tonal palatte with all the honks, squeeks, screeches, and spit & shine that a "period" group offers. personally, i don't like Mozart to sound like Mahler.

PACE

Concerning my area of greatest interest ( music from 1100 a.d. to 1750 a.d.) I can wholeheartedly say, that most of the really outstanding recordings were made after 1970 (with a few exceptions of course). I am not quite sure about Vienna classical and romantic music, but I think, that the HIP movement and the derivated HIP attitude already have begun to create really outstanding recordings of this kind of music some years ago. Time will show, if these will stand the test of time as well as the bunch of K´s from the 1950es and 1960es.

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
You mention Keenlyside's Papageno - have you heard the Mackerras Opera in English reading on Chandos, where he pretty well steals the show.

No, I haven't, and since I prefer my Magic Flute to be a Zauberflote, I don't think I will. I'll have to live with his superb rendition on DVD. (Woe is me.)

--

Dear Todd,

Fair enough - though I think the Mackerras makes a persuasive a case as is ever likely to be heard for doing the opera in translation. There is some really fine acting in the singing (not just from Keenlyside), something I find lacking in the Abbado reading. I think it would be a struggle to be disappointed.

regards, Tam

No