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Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by dieter barkhoff on July 29, 2022, 12:23 am
I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich? In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
Re: Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by Ralph Moore on July 29, 2022, 8:58 am, in reply to "Mravinsky Sibelius"
Thanks, Dieter. I knew I was sticking my head above the parapet when I wrote that review of his Sibelius 7 but I hear what I hear and was similarly puzzled. I do like the famous late Tchaikovsky symphonies on DG but even they are not exactly incomparable and little else by him has grabbed me, least of all his Bruckner.
Previous Message
I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich? In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
Re: Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by Marc Bridle on August 11, 2022, 12:13 am, in reply to "Mravinsky Sibelius"
I think of Mravinsky as the Russian Szell (with whom he has much in common as a conductor). Would I ever turn to Szell for Bruckner? No. Mahler? No. Brahms? Unlikely.
I do get what you are saying are about Mravinsky. I have over 20 CDs of rehearsals from him and they really are very uninspiring and torturous to get through (not unlike Karl Böhm rehearsals, in fact). Although the Beecham approach doesn't always work - play the whole work through and pick out a couple of rough spots - neither does the fractured pick up of every undotted crotchet and incorrect bowing or whatever either. Mravinsky performances couldn't possibly sound that different if he was playing Tchaikovsky's Sixth hundreds of times. (Oddly, with a conductor like Takashi Asahina who had a very narrow repertoire you hardly ever got the same performance - his Bruckner is in no way a copy of a copy.)
'Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich?'. Yes he does Dieter. What you mean is you don't like it, which is perfectly fair. What I will say is that it not the Holy Grail of Shostakovich performance. I have been listening to all the known performances of the Twelfth Symphony on disc for an article and Mravinsky is by no means the touchstone in this work. Is his approach to the symphony even right, for example? Are there better ones? You can argue this with the Tenth Symphony as well (in fact, I would rate Karajan's live performances of the Tenth, especially his Dresden one, every bit as fine).
I don't feel quite so much antipathy towards the Mravinsky Bruckner 9 as you do - and we have discussed this before. It's a raw performance, but it's also surprisingly monumental. The strings are marvellous but I don't like the brass - for the same reason I dislike Matacic's NHKSO Bruckner 9 - an epic. There's rawness and there's coarseness. Not the same thing.
I wonder what Mravinsky would have made of Sibelius's Fourth? Not in the Rodzinski class (but who is) but Mravinsky might have done it well, I think.
Previous Message
I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich? In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
Re: Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by dieter barkhoff on August 11, 2022, 8:16 am, in reply to "Re: Mravinsky Sibelius"
Thanks for your reply. You make some interesting and valid points. The Bruckner 9 recording certainly has those fierce moments, but after I had listened to Jochum and Karajan, Mravinsky's 'concept' is simply wrong- headed. With regard to his Shostakovich, I admit I have become a devoted Kurt Sanderling view of the Shostakovich world. It is not as fierce - a word which comes to mind repeatedly when I listen to Mravinsky - apart from the magic of his recording of Dawn on the Moscow River - nor as fast as the Mravinsky traversal, but that in itself makes it more attractive to me because I believe Shostakovich meant way more than that. My best example of this is the opening movement of the glorious 15th Symphony. Mravinsky is a gallop through the China Shop, while all of the three recordings I have with Sanderling, the chaos of the gallop becomes poetry. By the way, the Berlin Phil performance of this - on the Berlin Phil Label - is in my view the best of the three.
It's interesting that you nominate Mravinsky's recording of the 12th, a work, like the 7th and the 11th, I have never come to terms with. Significantly, neither did Kurt Sanderling. And with regard to the Sibelius 4, I recall doing a comparison with an old friend of mine, a man who learned his Sibelius from Beecham and his ilk. This man considered himself to be an expert on Sibelius, especially the 4th. I played the Maazel Vienna version first - blind, as it were, he had no idea who the conductors were. My friend said, Take it off, it's schmaltz, this music is glacial, it's cold, whoever is conducting makes it sound like Kol Nidrei. I replaced it with the Sanderling. My friend's face glowed, That's it, he roared, that's it, whoever this is understands Sibelius. The first one was a schmuck!
There is also a fine Mahler 4 with the Cleveland and I enjoy his complete Brahms symphonies with the same orchestra very much more than I would have predicted.
Previous Message
I think of Mravinsky as the Russian Szell (with whom he has much in common as a conductor). Would I ever turn to Szell for Bruckner? No. Mahler? No. Brahms? Unlikely.
I do get what you are saying are about Mravinsky. I have over 20 CDs of rehearsals from him and they really are very uninspiring and torturous to get through (not unlike Karl Böhm rehearsals, in fact). Although the Beecham approach doesn't always work - play the whole work through and pick out a couple of rough spots - neither does the fractured pick up of every undotted crotchet and incorrect bowing or whatever either. Mravinsky performances couldn't possibly sound that different if he was playing Tchaikovsky's Sixth hundreds of times. (Oddly, with a conductor like Takashi Asahina who had a very narrow repertoire you hardly ever got the same performance - his Bruckner is in no way a copy of a copy.)
'Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich?'. Yes he does Dieter. What you mean is you don't like it, which is perfectly fair. What I will say is that it not the Holy Grail of Shostakovich performance. I have been listening to all the known performances of the Twelfth Symphony on disc for an article and Mravinsky is by no means the touchstone in this work. Is his approach to the symphony even right, for example? Are there better ones? You can argue this with the Tenth Symphony as well (in fact, I would rate Karajan's live performances of the Tenth, especially his Dresden one, every bit as fine).
I don't feel quite so much antipathy towards the Mravinsky Bruckner 9 as you do - and we have discussed this before. It's a raw performance, but it's also surprisingly monumental. The strings are marvellous but I don't like the brass - for the same reason I dislike Matacic's NHKSO Bruckner 9 - an epic. There's rawness and there's coarseness. Not the same thing.
I wonder what Mravinsky would have made of Sibelius's Fourth? Not in the Rodzinski class (but who is) but Mravinsky might have done it well, I think.
Previous Message
I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich? In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
Re: Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by dieter barkhoff on August 12, 2022, 1:08 am, in reply to "Re: Mravinsky Sibelius"
I quite concur with your assessment of Szell's Bruckner 3 and 8, his Mahler 4, and his Brahms symphonies. I was gonna, as we say in Australia, mention them meself, but I was already rambling on enough: basta e basta!!!!
There is also a fine Mahler 4 with the Cleveland and I enjoy his complete Brahms symphonies with the same orchestra very much more than I would have predicted.
Previous Message
I think of Mravinsky as the Russian Szell (with whom he has much in common as a conductor). Would I ever turn to Szell for Bruckner? No. Mahler? No. Brahms? Unlikely.
I do get what you are saying are about Mravinsky. I have over 20 CDs of rehearsals from him and they really are very uninspiring and torturous to get through (not unlike Karl Böhm rehearsals, in fact). Although the Beecham approach doesn't always work - play the whole work through and pick out a couple of rough spots - neither does the fractured pick up of every undotted crotchet and incorrect bowing or whatever either. Mravinsky performances couldn't possibly sound that different if he was playing Tchaikovsky's Sixth hundreds of times. (Oddly, with a conductor like Takashi Asahina who had a very narrow repertoire you hardly ever got the same performance - his Bruckner is in no way a copy of a copy.)
'Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich?'. Yes he does Dieter. What you mean is you don't like it, which is perfectly fair. What I will say is that it not the Holy Grail of Shostakovich performance. I have been listening to all the known performances of the Twelfth Symphony on disc for an article and Mravinsky is by no means the touchstone in this work. Is his approach to the symphony even right, for example? Are there better ones? You can argue this with the Tenth Symphony as well (in fact, I would rate Karajan's live performances of the Tenth, especially his Dresden one, every bit as fine).
I don't feel quite so much antipathy towards the Mravinsky Bruckner 9 as you do - and we have discussed this before. It's a raw performance, but it's also surprisingly monumental. The strings are marvellous but I don't like the brass - for the same reason I dislike Matacic's NHKSO Bruckner 9 - an epic. There's rawness and there's coarseness. Not the same thing.
I wonder what Mravinsky would have made of Sibelius's Fourth? Not in the Rodzinski class (but who is) but Mravinsky might have done it well, I think.
Previous Message
I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich? In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
Re: Mravinsky Sibelius
Posted by Rob Barnett on August 12, 2022, 4:19 pm, in reply to "Mravinsky Sibelius"
Let me raise one quiet dissenting minority voice about Mravinsky and his 1965 Sibelius Seventh.
Having been 'brought up' with high expectations of Colin Davis's Seventh with the Bostonians and a broadcast tape of Jan Krenz conducting 7 with either the BBC Phil or BBC Scottish, I found the work unexciting/lacklustre. [Same applies to the always venerated Elgar 1 and 2 by EMI/Boult in the 1970s; always preferred the high calorific versions of 1 and 2 by Decca/Solti]. Before that, and on a teenager's limited budget and limited equipment (Philips cassette recorder EL3302), I purchased a DG cassette of Sibelius 4 (or was it 6?) and 7. His seventh was just too 'refained' and too smooth. After this, hearing Mravinsky in his super high tension Seventh (on a secondhand EMI/Melodiya LP from a shop in Bristol) was overwhelming ... and I am still overwhelmed despite have heard more than a few excellent versions since then. For me that Leningrad trombonist intoning the great sepulchral theme like something from primeval times still lingers, grips and raises a frisson. I go back to it from time to time and it has never disappointed me. Since then Segerstam's version of Ondine and the old reading by Ormandy/Philadelphia on CBS-Sony have registered strongly but have not displaced Mravinsky in Moscow in 1965.
A minority report from me but one I wanted to contribute to this strand and encourage others to hear Mravinsky in this work and in The Swan. Make up your own mind. Rob
I agree with you about both Solti's Elgar and Davis' Sibelius, Rob, but after Ormandy's and Karajan's Sibelius 7, I still find Mravinsky's crude. Maybe a lot of that has to do with what we are imprinted with when we first encounter the music. As you say, folk should make up their own mind and could start by sampling this on YouTube:
Previous Message
Let me raise one quiet dissenting minority voice about Mravinsky and his 1965 Sibelius Seventh.
Having been 'brought up' with high expectations of Colin Davis's Seventh with the Bostonians and a broadcast tape of Jan Krenz conducting 7 with either the BBC Phil or BBC Scottish, I found the work unexciting/lacklustre. [Same applies to the always venerated Elgar 1 and 2 by EMI/Boult in the 1970s; always preferred the high calorific versions of 1 and 2 by Decca/Solti]. Before that, and on a teenager's limited budget and limited equipment (Philips cassette recorder EL3302), I purchased a DG cassette of Sibelius 4 (or was it 6?) and 7. His seventh was just too 'refained' and too smooth. After this, hearing Mravinsky in his super high tension Seventh (on a secondhand EMI/Melodiya LP from a shop in Bristol) was overwhelming ... and I am still overwhelmed despite have heard more than a few excellent versions since then. For me that Leningrad trombonist intoning the great sepulchral theme like something from primeval times still lingers, grips and raises a frisson. I go back to it from time to time and it has never disappointed me. Since then Segerstam's version of Ondine and the old reading by Ormandy/Philadelphia on CBS-Sony have registered strongly but have not displaced Mravinsky in Moscow in 1965.
A minority report from me but one I wanted to contribute to this strand and encourage others to hear Mravinsky in this work and in The Swan. Make up your own mind. Rob