Lucerne Festival Orchestra M3 DVD coming out

[Jot N. Tittle]

Is "Scotsman" a no-no these days?

PT

What'll you bet, somewhere there is someone who says "Scotsperson"? 

     . & '

[john haueisen]

I don't think anyone should get off "Scot-free" with such a remark.

[alpsman]

Now after all the scottconversation back to M3 and Abbado/Luzern.
It's an excellent performance of course, with great musicality, humanity and nobility, all highmarks of Abbado as musician and person.

There is a very interesting and fascinating  effect in the last movement:
The brass section( trombones and trumbets only) play a section near the end with their bells covered with velvet cloths, to make a real ppp.
Not  a mark from Mahler surely, but he will find this very usefull.

[barry guerrero]

.   .    .   probably the start of the long brass chorale. I'm more concerned whether the trombones pump out sufficient amplitude at the climax of the long brass chorale - right where the last cymbal crash is located. On the excerpt that's posted on Youtube, that whole passage sounds a bit tame to me. Also, Abbado conducts it all in one, rather monotonous tempo. And as usual, the bass drum roll doesn't match the roll coming from the two timpanists either. If you watch the same climactic excerpt posted on Youtube that's performed by some second tier orchestra down in Chile, the trombones really blast their two-part harmony right out there (again, I'm talking right where the symphony's final cymbal crash is located).

Could you do us a small favor, and post the timings for all six movements? That'll help me decide if I want to get this or not. Thanks in advance.

Barry

[alpsman]

The timings for Abbado/Luzern M3 in dvd are:
32.45
9.12
16.03
9.12
4.15
22.21

There is a silence of 22 seconds at the end before the apllause.

Now I think this is a very great performance, very noble, but not boring or tame.
The point of cymbal class seems to me just right.
Abbado plays the last three movements( mezzo, boychoir, finale) attaca, and this is right and effective.
Also he uses, in all these series of Luzern, a lot of strings-about 14 cellos and accordingly quite a lot violins.But despite of this the character is that of chamber music, not in power but in the clear voices.

The sustain last chord is without brutal force, as Mahler wanted, extremelly well voicing and tuning, like a giant organ.
All the principals are great Reinhard the trumpeter, Kolya the violinist, Gutmann, posthorn, Larsson etc.

This is an uplifting experience.

[John Kim]

16.03 for the Scherzo seems short. I much prefer 17-18 min. range. I bet Abbado played the two trumpet solo passages fast.

John,

[barry guerrero]

I bet Abbado played the two trumpet solo passages fast.

That's fine with me, as the posthorn solos are thematically and melodically, very repetitious.

These timings look swift enough for my taste, so I may very well get this then. Just judging from the excerpt that's posted on Youtube , as well as at the Naxos site, I would never have guessed that Abbado gets the last movement home in less than 23 minutes. I'll give it a shot.

Barry

[Leo K]

I very interested in this M3, as I like the swifter tempo in the scherzo and finale.  I wonder if Abbado has changed his interpetation from his BPO commercial release?

--Todd

[alpsman]

I would never have guessed that Abbado gets the last movement home in less than 23 minutes.

In the Berlin PO cd on DG th finale's timing is 22.02. I think in his first recording with Vienna it's about 26.30 min.
So Abbado changes his mind and plays the symphony consiously at this tempo. I remember it's the same interpretation in his live concert I had attented in 1998.

[Polarius T]

...despite of [the size of the string sections] the character is that of chamber music, not in power but in the clear voices.

The sustain last chord is without brutal force, as Mahler wanted, extremelly well voicing and tuning, like a giant organ.
All the principals are great Reinhard the trumpeter, Kolya the violinist, Gutmann, posthorn, Larsson etc.

This is an uplifting experience.

That, in my opinion, too, really puts a finger on what makes Abbado's conducting so unique and different from all the others'. (My bold.) Thanks for spelling it out. He becomes often overlooked in conversations which is totally mysterious to me and possibly a function of nothing but his high visibility on the music scene. Among aficionados like us there is either a tendency to love the "greats" of the bygone era or a desire to "discover" talent on the outside of the main channels and this leaves people like Abbado in a limbo. (For evidence just revisit the path leading to "the Hatto Affair" which really was a total Hatto Fiasco for specialist music criticism.)

PT

[barry guerrero]

Well, it was quite a long time ago - clear back in the very early 1980's - that I saw Abbado conduct M1 and M3 with the LSO. I got to tell you, neither performance did much for me. Perhaps they simply didn't live up to the hype. The best thing I ever saw Abbado conduct was just the plain-old Tchaikovsky 4th symphony, along with the "Firebird" Suite. The Mahler concerts struck me as way too careful and studied. I think that the acoustics of RFH was a factor for me as well. However, Tennstedt blew me away in the very same hall with the Mahler "Resurrection", performed just around the same time.

Hanna Schwarz was the mezzo in the M3 that I saw, who wasn't a terribly great singer at all. Perhaps if Abbado had delivered a 22 or 23 minute finale back then, I might have liked it better.  I've never been crazy about any of Abbado's M1 recordings either. I'll probably like this DVD of M3 just fine (better hall, better orch.). I do find him very hard to just watch though (same with Rattle).

I don't mean to be a bore on this subject (yes, I do), but I found Abbado's Berlin recording of M8 to just be dull as dirt. Believe me, I tried to get jiggy with it over and over again. I finally just gave up on it. What's wrong with Bertini's traversal of these symphonies? I find his recording of "DLvdE" to be pretty darn "chamber music" like.

[alpsman]

Polarius T,

your point for Hatto Fiasco is right on target. It is a big journalistic( of the special music journal, i mean) fiasco. I have write for this fiasco in two magazines i write-one internet magazine, and one monthly publiced political,economical journal.And my point is that it's not a scandal by her husband for economical or other reasons, but a big journalistic fiasco.

As for Abbado M3: I heard Abbado/BSO in May 1998,in a great concert hall-Megaron Athens. The performance was one in a lifetime. I can't forget the sound of basses( cellos and doublbasses), near the beggining in the upwards 64notes. Tremedous sound that vibrate the hall like grancassa.
And such perfect intonation. I heard again BPO unter Rattle, and I think it's the best( maybe) virtuso orchestra.
The mezzo soloist was Marjana Lipovsek. Very good.The whole finale goes like an hymn to the concluding paen.This concert runs for about 100min. and was the only concert in my all life, that I didn't turn my head, my view an inch from the scene.

It is really strange that the next night, I attented the second concert:Mozart/Haffner serenade(Kussmaul violin solo) and Pastorale.
Mozart was very very good. But in the Pastorale there was all the things that bothered me: steely sound, rush tempos non enough concetration.
 In the other Abbado/BPO Mahler concert i heard, they played M5.The great point in that performance was the middle of the second movement-the threnody of cellos after the big, dissonance climax.

For both of these two points-M3 basses and M5 cello threnody- i desperatelly look at all my discs,in vain. Even in the Abbado recordings.
This is a proof of the irreplaseable of great live concerts.

For the concerts of Abbado with LSO, that Barry refers, I have to say that the venues in London are really promblematic.
And so can be the orchestra itself. I heard LSO under Tilson Thomas in M7, and were great. But in an all Dvorak program under Andrew Davies they really sucks.

[Polarius T]

I think I know what you say; you describe it very well, drawing, as far as I'm concerned, attention to the point of the matter. When I lived in New York I made a point to go and hear Abbado with BPO every time they came to town after '89 or so, so I recognize what you say about the effect of their double basses and cellos. It is very difficult to reproduce through recorded media. That, as you say, is what distinguishes a real-time acoustic event unfolding in a physical space designed for it from your living room with two loudspeakers tucked away on the far end of it (or four or five speakers) trying to play back what the engineers caught of that event using a set of microphones placed where they thought they'd function the best. And you are right in that this is a virtuoso ensemble of the first order. Just about every first-desk player has had or is currently having a thriving international solo career, regardless of the instrument (well, I'm not sure now of the percussion and some of the brass). What I can say at any rate is that they have provided the most memorable concert experiences I have had (incidentally, with an M5 as perhaps my "concert of a lifetime").

Talking about Abbado in Mozart: Right now I am listening to the symphonies and violin concertos that just came out on Archive. Having ended up as a sworn enemy of "period performance" style per se (for sure we do have several things to learn from it, however), I am literally blown away by these, what are Abbado's first "period instrument" recordings. The intonation, of course, is very different and new to my ears but the way these works are characterized is simply unheard-of. I've never heard Mozart -- or perhaps anything -- like this, played with this degree and kind of vivacity and lightness. It is almost overwhelming, as a blurb on one of the discs also states. Please make it a priority to hear one of the two issues. I have heard a lot of Abbado's Mozart in the past and it has always been almost sensationally well played but still somehow unmoving, as I think you too are saying (for instance the Sinfonia Concertante with Christ and Kussmaul -- how can that not be moving?!? But it wasn't, totally unlike anything here!).




Unbelievable stuff. As compositions, the symphonies are more interesting to me, but especially the last violin concerto with Carmignola simply has to be heard to be believed. What is going on with Abbado? He is burning with some divine inspiration, and everyone around him gets washed away, too, in that sublime burst of creativity?

On the other hand, the concerto works for flute and clarinet with Pahud and Sabine Meyer (talking about that BPO roster...) have for me always been the first choices among all available recordings (on EMI).

PT

[Polarius T]

Well, it was quite a long time ago - clear back in the very early 1980's - that I saw Abbado conduct M1 and M3 with the LSO. I got to tell you, neither performance did much for me. Perhaps they simply didn't live up to the hype.

I think that's just it. I can't see the reason for some critics' endless praise for Abbado's LSO period and equally endless malign for his BPO period. What really was great during the London years was the incredibly fierceness, fury, and raw energy of some of their Prokofiev performances, but on the whole the Berlin era emerged as one of unprecedented sophistication and refinement whose realization was made possible by the virtuoso ensemble now entrusted to him. Just compare for example his Debussy (the Prelude) from the two periods -- case closed.

And yes, Abbado is actually a very good Tchaikovsky conductor; the 5th he recorded with BPO (yes, again) is a lasting favorite (never heard him do Tchaikovsky in a concert).

PT