Todd:
Let us please be clear about something. You don't have to like my tone, or anything else about my discussion of Norrington, but there's a big difference between whether or not you, or I, or anyone else likes something, and how the performer presents his work to the public as a representation of the composer's evident intentions. Certainly you have the right to enjoy whatever your choose, and I truly wish you as much pleasure as listening to different interpretations, including Norrington's, gives you.
However, a principal issue with this performance is that Norrington doesn't simply come out and say "I hate vibrato and so I'm not using it, and if you don't like it, too bad." Just the opposite. He attempts to validate his approach objectively, by claiming that (a) Mahler never wanted vibrato or heard it used in the modern way, and (b) the 1938 Bruno Walter Mahler Ninth "proves" that the Vienna Phil did not use vibrato until sometime later. Both of these contentions are flat-out wrong, and the evidence in this regard is irrefutable and overwhelming. So Norrington either hasn't done his homework, or he has done it and he's lying to the public. Either way, he is falsifying Mahler's patent intentions. As a result of building his interpretation around this single issue (which is his stated intention, and not my characterization), there are numerous consequences relative to issues such as tempo, balance, and dynamics equally contrary to Mahler's clear directions, and I discuss several of them.
No one need care about this as much as I do--I enjoy plenty of strange and sometimes perverse performances (think about lots of Stokowski for example), but you won't find any of those artists saying "in doing whatever the hell I please I am following the composer's stated intentions in line with historical precedent." There is a fundamental dishonesty to Norrington's approach that I find very objectionable. As a listener, your job is simply to enjoy what pleases you, and you may or may not consider any broader issues. As a critic, it is my job to point out to potential purchasers why the claims made for a particular performance may not be true, why the basis for an interpretation that the artist himself specifically asks us to consider may in fact be false, and how well any performance realizes what the composer requests, to the extent we know what that is.
The world of music performance is, as I'm sure you would agree, extremely subjective in so many ways. That is why I think it is so important that performers be mindful of those facts we can establish (even if they then take issue with them or adopt a different approach). It shows a basic and very necessary respect for the integrity of the work being performed. Otherwise, the result is a circus, and Norrington shows this quite clearly.
Best regards,
Dave H
