Just very quickly:
Re: Barry: You say you feel like you are "underwhelmed" and that this might be because "Abbado follows dynamic markings TOO literally." This nicely points to the underlying issue: Earlier you guys said the conductor isn't very important, the work is; but then you look for the excitement from the conductor's intervention (and the orchestra's) in the realization of the score. You want your music to feel thrilling and that is the main quality you judge a performance by. But you don't trust the music enough to leave it alone to do its job; it needs to be in the interpretation, it seems, that thing that gets you to feel like something virile and big is enveloping you and having you along on a thrill ride. This is why people like Abbado don't appeal to you; his way of working with the orchestras does the most to eradicate all audible evidence of conductorial interference, letting the music itself speak freely and openly through the collective effort of multiple musicians acting in consort as peers. He certainly is no Szell nor an Ancerl and even less a Reiner or a Karajan or a Bernstein. For the performance to be successful in this approach, that organ really doesn't have to shatter the windows nor that bass drum stroke fracture the concrete foundation of the building across the street. Insteade, the key criteria become transparency, joy or spontaneity of music-making (not in the sense of not rehearsing like Davey H seems to suggest), and balances. The rest comes, after that much is there.
Where this kind of listening comes from that you and Davey H seem to practice, I'm not sure, but I think part of it has to do with the tradition of weekend entertainment as diversion. You really want to be transported somewhere else from this reality. Yet I think there are other ways of listening that find their interest points slightly elsewhere and don't really strive for that sort of "excitement" from the "event" but something else that, in my view, does greater justice to the composer's work than what's been the case till now, allowing a much more personal and direct relationship with it and letting it speak more freely on a greater variety of topics to you.
Or so I'd say! But this way of listening I think you're talking about might just also be about the fascination all boys (and I don't mean to imply anything about you; I speak from personal experience) share in creating a competion out of everything, putting everyone against everyone else, seeing who's lame and who's not, who's boring, who's the black horse, who's giving whom a run for their money, who's left in the mud and who comes out on the top in the end; and then creating a ranking list out of it all. That's just so much easier to do, too, if you have a concrete check list to follow and simple numericals to assign (for the biggest organ; the loudest thump; the fiercest tutti; the fastest scherzo-- things you could even measure with a machine if need be).
And then
The Rest:I think most subsequent conductors have had the same problem to greater or lesser degree, and this is particularly true of "micro-managers" like Rattle and (especially) Abbado, who like to fuss with tiny details, often at the expense of the big picture.
Sorry, what are you saying? That these two particular conductors (who just happen to be the last two music directors of the Berlin Philharmonic putting an end to Karajan's legacy
) don't adequately prepare for their concerts? Hmmmmmm.... Examples, please.
And again those cliches you like to circulate, beginning with that "fussing with detail/too many details" thing? I'm afraid it's becoming a bit transparent even if you didn't quite realize it yet.
Lastly, while you are at it, could you please point out a few instances where Abbado (I prefer not to talk about Rattle yet) loses "the big picture"? Thanks. And while you are it #2, also where Abbado so very disingenuously at length deviates from the score, as you claimed before (asking me just take you by your word). I've spent some time looking into this but haven't been able to find a thing, so please help.
That is, if you can, of course; for I have this doubt in my mind that you are just using your usual strategy of making vague unsubstantiated allusions to somehow try and cast doubt on people, as you do again right after this in the last citation below. And preferably these should be cases where it's not about taking your word versus the rest of the world once again.
I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that one of the reasons behind Abbado's reputation is precisely his outstanding ability to clarify the architectural plan of whatever it is that he is conducting.
It's not that Berlin or these conductors play Mahler badly
But thank you! So they do have business conducting Mahler, after all, then, and are allowed to be recorded, too, from time to time? That's seems to be the opinion of the rest of the world, too, if that matters.
when directly compared, and one's personal feelings will necessarily be conditioned by one's experience of those other performanances. If you haven't heard them, or don't want to, you may be perfectly happy with what you have.
Oh, so you want me to tell how many recordings I owe -- again -- is that it? So we can compare? But if that's so, this time you do it first, please, so you won't run away like last time after you asked me to do it it first. We got ourselves a deal?
-pt
