This business of "Personality"in performers has been going on for a long time, one of the earliest instances being when Dussek turned his piano side-on to the audience so that ladies could admire his distinctive profile. Sometimes it descends to ridiculous, even cheap levels (as seems to be the case with Ms. Matthiesen's exhibitionism as noted in the thread). I remember , years ago, when Nigel Kennedy was all the rage a friend of mine said to me that he had no wish to go to a concert to see a soloist who dresses like the man who collects the dustbins every week . Added to that there is film extant of Nigel Kennedy as a very young man talking which shows that the Cockney brogue which he affected later on was just as fake as London-born Stokowski's Eastern European accent.
My Cockney accent is as genuine as Barbirolli's or Campoli's , it's the Posh one that's fake.
Mr Hardy
Certainly don't deny what you and others have said about these conductors of today, but one of the benefits
is that companies are now releasing recordings by those admired conductors of the past (Beecham, Klemperer,
Szell, Kletzki etc etc) and their orchestras at very reasonable prices, so not all bad.
However, I'm afraid what you described is simply a fact of modern public life - the gradual disappearence of
talented individuals to be replaced by technically proficient robots.
There is also the matter of design and presentation. Yesterday's review of Entartete Musik by Nick Barnard
and the appalling lack of documentation is a case in point. And in today's reviews there is a collection of
well-regarded guitar music by Heike Matthiesen who, for reasons known only to herself, happily agreed to
display herself on the cover looking more like she was auditioning for Page 3 than a respected musician.
But if that is how she sees herself...
As Jeffrey has said, do we really need another cycle of symphonies by X, Y or Z?? Most worthwhile works by
various composers have already been recorded superbly by real musicians, and in many cases they are classic
recordings with many regarded as being the definitive versions. Something we are thankful to be reminded of
occasionally by the eminent Mr Moore here on MW - especially in the matter of opera recordings.
regards
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