there are many examples of the artificially soft pianissimos in Abbado's Mahler recordings.
Yes? Where? And what is "artificial" about these? And just out of curiosity, that would not be in comparison to your Reference Artiste, who by global agreement was perhaps the champion of artificial magnifications, would it? Or to Ancerl who, despite his many merits, seemed incapable of accomplishing a true ppp, even pp? If these are what your ears are conditioned to, I'm not surprised by your discomfort at real soft sounds balanced right. Or are you being merely rhetorical?
Not that we ever seem to get any exact information out of you when requesting a clarification.
in his Chicago recordings...when the Second Symphony came out it was almost impossible to hear the rute in the scherzo, the soft tam-tams in the first movement and elsewhere, and all kinds of colorful details that simply vanished into the disc surface (and DG had decent quality pressings).
That's because back in the mid-'70s your sound system was still nothing special.
The performance itself is quite special still, in its sheer intensity (which to be sure is not just thrown on your face a la your Reference Artiste but allowed much better to unfold according to its own logic).
Later, on CD, the situation had hardly changed.
That's for two reasons, the 2nd being likely and the 1st obvious. No. 1, that was an early digital transfer and like all early digital transfers they were still busy learning the art, not really knowing how to do it. Same thing as in the transition from mastering and editing for mono to stereophonic all the sudden, nothing special about it per se. People learn but it tends to take a bit of time. I have a Japanese remaster of this and there is nothing wrong with the sound (see below). No. 2, by that time you had already damaged your hearing by blasting the artificial magnifications by your Reference Artiste with the volume knob way too high up, for excitement.
Those details just aren't given the presence that they need to have. The loss of color, atmosphere, and (in the scherzo) rhythm was telling
This from the disturbing "micromanager who keeps fussing with details"?? You are contradicting yourself (or backtracking?).
Besides, what you are really talking about is the quality of the sound recording, not performance attributes. It's not a bad recording, but it's not on par with the best from the period (mid-'70s), and some aspects suffer accordingly -- but mostly in comparison to later, better recorded examples only. As I said I have a fine version of this particular recording and none of what you say is true about it outside of the engineering context.
You last point about "loss of rhythm" in the scherzo is very weird, to say the least, and would seem to need some additional elaboration to make sense. If anything this is a very sharply characterized interpretation, and not least when it comes to the rhythms which is the area where Abbado typically excels. Earlier on, he was frequently characterized as a hothead and as someone almost overdoing the dynamics (not just in loudness terms but in the intensity department that Barry so nicely drew our attention to).
Like I said, I have the recording, and anyone who'd like to hear it I can probably send over snippets or even whole movements one at a time if you wish. The sounds will not lie.
One additional point that could be made concerns auditive memory. It's been shown to be particularly volatile (unreliable and prone to falsifications) and have the duration of no more than 17 to 20 seconds at best. For these reasons alone anecdotes about experiences one had in one's youth should always be held suspect ("I remember that when I heard it 30 years ago I was not impressed..."). Not only do we not remember, remember imperfectly, and remember just plain wrong, but we also rewrite our memories in the light of later life to suit our current frames and interests. In addition we need to remember that the "audio codes" informing our perceptions and experience are malleable. They change over time, and so does the way we "hear" music as a result. Today we seldom enjoy, at least not in the same way, what moved us in our youth. Or at least hopefully that is the case.
So for all these reasons the power of anecdotal evidence is seldom taken to be something we need to really reckon with.
I think that this illustrates exactly the point that you are trying to make
Everyone knows the point you want to make, Davey H, and it's a bit of a tired cliche by now if I may say so.
I can understand why you find Abbado's musicianship so antithetical to you and what you would like to represent. First of all, it's a paradigm of music making that's already overtaken you and your stagnated view of texts and their interpretation. I admit there is a possibility you really may not be capable of understanding/hearing the point in it even when sincerely trying. But like all things novel and unknown, it does pose a threat to those who invested so much in the old. Second, you've staked too much of your professional credentials on Abbado (and some other musicians') bashing to be able to reverse your position now. Especially so after your disastrous embracement of the "Hatto Genius" which turned out to be a hoax. (By "you" I mean the website you are the founder and president of.) You have to have something to show why you are special (why else would anyone want to read you? There are many competing sites with trained music critics writing for them), and being the only one in the world who "has the guts to tell" Abbado he's "grotesque" and "see through" his "utter absurdity" is basically the only sales pitch you've got left. So I don't expect you to stop propagating this myth, although I do wish you would save your time and energy for more valuable pursuits (and don't you have a day job to attend to as well?) and at least be generous enough to save those reiterations for special occasions only so we don't need to read through the same empty phrases rehearsed over and over again at every available opportunity. And why not pick up a new young (or old and dying, if that's what you prefer) genius somewhere and start promoting him (somehow I don't think it'd be a "her" again)? That would be positive, which is always a better way of promoting one's business compared to campaigns premised on the negative. I think you'd see better results.
Let's face it, on any given night your average concert will be, well, average, and the audible results only confirm this fact.
And on any given night your extraordinary evening will be, well, extraordinary.
I think you are running out of things to say.
And as far as the "enjoyable" Mozart concertos vs. the "grotesque" symphonies, that too tells about two things. First, you're no friend of vibratoless playing, which we all knew already (what HIP recordings have you actually listened to?). Second, I think after bashing the symphonies you realized that just about everyone else thought they were splendid, so you had to mitigate your position a bit with the concertos. It's the exact same band of young players that you said can't play and shouldn't even be allowed, and it's basically the exact same music plus one extra violinist, recorded not long apart on the same home turf under similar conditions and the very same conductor with unchanged ideas about how to play this music. Now how radical a transformation can there be between the two recordings? I think you are just trying to save face, and probably for a good reason.
Now that's all I have to say about the subject. Abbado is not my "favorite artist" as you've claimed, nor do I consider myself "a fan," as you've tried to insinuate to relativize the points I've made; he just provides a good example of something that I think is symptomatic of a broader problem (among critics and especially CD reviewers, not the musicians or record labels). There are other examples as well, of course, but what I particularly admire Abbado for is the sovereign manner in which he has brought orchestral music-making into the 21st century while at the same time carrying forward the spiritual impulse inspiring the greatest conductors of our past such as Mahler himself, Furtwaengler, Desormiere, Scherchen, Klemperer and maybe a few others -- if anything only rejuvenating that vital center in the process. What he certainly can't be said to be is "eccentric," a label I would, among the names I respect, rather apply to someone like Sinopoli (a true eccentric) or Boulez (not eccentric in the personal but in a historical perspective as someone who not tot long from now, I am afraid, will be seen as nothing but a brilliant exception in his era; he will have no [capable] disciples whereas Abbado may well have already affected the way music performance traditions will be carried forward in keeping with the spirit of great art).
-PT