Klarinet Archive - Posting 000533.txt from 1999/03

From: John Dablin <johnd@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Fwd: Gramophone Reviews De-coded
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 10:21:34 -0500

Roger Shilcock wrote:-
> These are (fortunately) largely from a bygone age.
I'm not so sure. Phrases like these still seem to figure in reviews in
BBC Music Magazine (I gave up reading Gramophone years ago), but I'd
have to look again to be sure. I've also given up listening to "CD
review" (previously known as Record Review - a weekly BBC radio program
which reviews new and reissued CDs and has a weekly feature "Building a
Library", where one critic does a comparative review of all available
recordings of a work and recommends "the best"). Too often it descends
to nit-picking fault finding, or points out nuances of performance that
are too subtle for my ears to detect, or perhaps I just don't care
about. I sometimes think it must be an agony for such people to listen
to music if they can find so much wrong with virtually every
performance.

But one thing which really annoys me is the tendency critics have to
credit everything about a recording to the conductor, they rarely even
mention the contribution of the orchestra. The exceptions are rare
enough to remember, such as a review of recordings of Rachmaninov's 2nd
Symphony a few years ago. The reviewer pointed out the superb playing
by the LSO's Jack Brymer of the clarinet solo in the slow movement which
eclipsed all the other recordings, and he was right, the comparison was
dramatic. However, too often it's "Karajan's allegro..." or "Solti's
performance..." as if the orchestra were a piano.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I don't expect to be flamed for moaning
about critics, but you never know :-)
--
John Dablin
Aylesbury UK

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org