OK, well, I really don't want to get myself further involved in a U.S. critic vs. Euro critic type of conversation.
That's not what I started, Barry, so why aim the comment to me? See above in this thread for DH's input.
Neither do I wish to continue debating the relative worthiness of Claudio Abbado - it just doesn't mean that much to me.
Sure, neither do I; to a large extent the debate is of secondary interest and in the main useful as an illustration only. Let me just reiterate that what I see as being at issue here is not some particular conductor but the interesting dilemma in which, due to reasons involving demography, certain social insulation, and occupational fatigue (which you pointed to in another thread), many critics have made themselves part of the problem they believe to have correctly diagnosed (diminishing size of classical music audiences), and not the solution as they seem to think. I think it's an interesting problem and potentially worth talking about, but if people so prefer the discussion can certainly be had elsewhere as well. Abbado in this context is just a case in point, illustrating to me how DH, for instance, can be looked at as symptomatic of everything that's wrong with the reviewing industry today (to turn around one of his own catch phrases aimed at the former
).
But there is another level on which conductors actually are an interesting subject to talk about (as evident from the quazillions of pages devoted to the topic on these pages btw). "Classical" or composed music is interesting in the sense that, while pop/jazz/rock music is all about the performers/artists, it is in itself all about the work, not the artist, but at the same time the performer/artist remains vital to the critical reception of that work. Pretty much everything in "classical" music remains open to interpretation, down to the minutest details in the score (there is no absolute way of documenting the idea of the composer as it emerged in his mind, and Western notation is relative in its basic nature and besides that also rather inaccurate and full of qualitative, not quantitative, indices as a system of annotation). So the work is at the center, but getting it "understood" is a conscious, creativce act that relies on interpretation all the way from the note values and tempi markings to the various structural and orchestral balances, speeds, choice of instruments (strings? bows? percussion type?) and voices, everything. And of all the performer-interpreters (while there are of course many of them -- soloists, concert artists, chamber and orchestral musicians too), at least for me most of the vital functions are condensed and gathered under the role of the conductor. So I think we are right in debating which conductor is able to bring a composer through to the listener, which not. There are several good examples of both.
So the point about Abbado illustrates the dilemma I wanted to talk about quite well, in my view.
It may very well be that if I listened to this set of Mozart symphonies that TRULY seem to be the core issue here...
No; the core issue is what I just said it is (at least to me). This too was brought up just as something symptomatic of the "crisis of criticism" that I think we see today.
My interest is with composers, not artists (for artists, I much prefer jazz).
Probably the same is true about all of us; why else would we frequent a Mahler board? While we like to discuss recordings, it's always through the spectre of the composer and the composed work itself, I believe. In jazz, all there is to talk about is the one-time document that's unrepeatable (in the sense of being un-redoable) and accessible only through its singular appearance (the tape of that particular performance) thanks to the predominance of the performer and the performance situation.
I really feel that if this is going to be taken to the level of grilling the so-called professional critic because you feel that there's some crusade-like need to do so,
Come on, Barry; if there is a crusade I don't think I'm the one waging it. As I said there is a broader and in my view more important background interest in the topics broached, and DH's opinions I addressed only as an illustration. Just like he is doing with other posters' opinions. Besides, I don't think your professional critic needs any support from the flanks; he seems perfectly confident about his personal abilities to put "Europeans" in their place where need be, even if it be in the cultural capital of the musically most intelligent nation of that continent
.
...the two of you should take the dispute OFF THE AIR.
That's fine of course if so desired. You are right in that it's gotten to a territory that seems a bit flammable, I guess.
Last but not the least: Greetings to all from the aestival Northeast Atlantic seaboard! The sun was so bright I thought of Mahler but once every day ("Nun will die Sonn so hell ausgehn...").
Just kidding. To be honest, it was like this instead:
The Swedish Bikini Team came calling one afternoon when we got the music going.
-PT
Topic: Which is Mahler's most difficult movt. to bring off? (Read 16389 times)