David, I have to confess you make me chuckle... I too feel delighted Mr. Norrington has retired... you express your distaste for his conducting much better than I.
Spot on, Dave! Two comments about wacko conductors: I saw Norrington conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in the early 2000s. I never felt such obvious distain from an orchestra towards a conductor as I did on that concert. Also I recently saw a rehearsal in Vienna with Theodore Currentsis and Musica Aeterna.. They were playing Mahler 5. The entire orchestra - minus the cellos -played standing up! I did not see the concert, but I believe they did on the concert, too. Either way, as you would say, balderdash!
Can't say much about Norrington since I'm more familiar with other period instrument people but in general, historically informed performance is cool and good. Whether their approach works for Romantic music is up for debate but for Classical and Baroque music I think it sounds a lot better, fresher and more colorful. I'm definitely not the only one who thinks this. Nowadays, even if the orchestra is using modern instruments, they will almost always incorporate some elements of the period instrument approach when playing music from these periods.
To be historically informed was crucial to perform early music like Monteverdi. Simply, because Basso continuo means, there are notes to be played, that are not written down. But it's quite ironic to apply to romantic music, what you learned about early music, and still call it "historically informed".
In the 1970s I sang music by Schütz in the Schütz Choir conducted by Norrington. The experience was thrilling musically and he paid no attention to our singers’ natural vibrato - very different from string vibrato of course but still something that can be modified. Performances went down well as did our recording of the Schütz Christmas Story (what views if you know it?). He was unacceptably rude, but not as cruel as JE Gardiner (for whom I sang Monteverdi in his Monteverdi Choir). Decades later I heard him conduct vibrato-free Brahms in London - yuk. And a few years ago he returned to Trinity Oxford (where his father was President) to conduct a group of alumni - even more offensively rude and got nowhere with the music. Thank you Dave for always being objective and fair - as you say, colleagues who may work together can’t speak the truth as you do.
I completely agree with this assessment, based on hearing his performances of Romantic works on the radio over the years. Truly wretched. But imagine my surprise when I bought a job lot of CDs on eBay recently, and in it came two CDs of Mozart symphonies with the Stuttgart forces. I have to admit that some were pretty enjoyable, though you could exactly hear when he felt the need to interject his affectations, and then it was ruined. But without those, surprisingly palatable. Perhaps he was just having a "bad day" and managed paradoxically to produce something lovely, despite himself, as it were.
What blows my mind is this: the first time Norrington played Elgar without vibrato and called it "authentic", did nobody point at all the Elgar recordings conducting his own music with plenty of vibrato?
Norrington has said Elgar was influenced by the technology and started doing it for the recordings. As if there is no evidence for vibrato before 1914.
@@BenPalmerconductor The first recording of the Starlight Express has vibrato right from the start. An appropriate amount of portamento as well. Unless there is a different set of recordings than what I've heard? There is plenty of evidence for vibrato from that era and before.
@@Equality-7-2521 There are plenty of (later) recordings of Elgar conducting orchestras with continuous vibrato. But the earlier ones have none, or almost none, and lots of portamento, of course.
I agree completely on Norrington and on Germans being obsessed with (and prone to) ideology. Sir Roger's Bruckner for one Is an emetic cataplasm to the ear and to the soul.
I still enjoy Norrington's EMI Beethoven set from the 80s - the London Classical Players (like the English Concert under Pinnock) were always wonderful on their (presumably) rather cranky but colorful instruments, and Norrington didn't bother me in Beethoven, except for that odd 9th. Enjoyed some of his Schubert, too, but anything deeper into the 19th century, with the LCP or Stuttgart, only revealed his kapellmeister-ish drabness of imagination. Gosh, I'm glad I never heard his Bruckner!
Complain all you want about Norrington, but he did accomplish something significant: he made us reconsider and really think about music performances. He really added to the conversation. Great conductor? Maybe not. But that Berlioz Symphonie fantastique with real ophicleides was surely an ear-opening recording. Then there was that Brahms 2 which he somehow found a way to make it dull. How long before we get the Complete Norrington EMI box?
That is true. He stimulated conversation, and perhaps even got some people listening who would not have otherwise. I give him that, on the theory that "there is not such thing as bad publicity." It's just a shame that he had to do it under such false pretenses.
welcome to Stuttgart, David. I was lucky enough to largely miss Norrington in my adopted city (although I still like a small handful of his early Beethoven recordings and enjoyed his 5th live a time long ago when this was all relatively novel) and have been repaid by getting Currentzis who at least has the merit of wild unpredictability in his over-inflated ego which means that there are are elements of genius there. Genius is not something I would associate with Roger N. But no, he is not the worst conductor ever in an answer to another video of yours. Ever more, it's the superstar conductors of some of our leading orchestras who are more interested in creating an artificial effect than trying to reproduce the music in a sincere and honest way. A sign of the times, I guess...
For me the best of Norrington is his Mozart 38-41, the Beethoven cycle (in particular the earlier works) and his Schubert's 4-6. None should be the sole representatives of these works within a collection, but they do add (to use your word) a "different" interpretation which is both important and worth hearing. The 60s, 70s and early 80s classical music scene was dominated by big bands, playing with large amounts of vibrato; as a result the various musical layers got hidden, wind instruments suffered particularly badly. Also orchestras were not always tight, and hence cloudy, and hid that failing behind the string "fuzz" (Scimone's Clementi is a example of this). Karajan was the most extreme example of the big string approach (but the BP were tight) - all the layers were obliterated and his interpretations sounded like they had more to do with Led Zeppelin's heavy rock riff approach than anything else. Further, Karajan had one other similarity to Led Zep, both parties would quieten down the rock riff long enough so that one could hear either a violin or lead guitar play vibrato soulfully (ie like Bambi being strangled at birth) to add "pathos", and both parties referred to this unsubtle commonly used schema as the "light and dark" or chiaroscuro (you will appreciate I like neither Karajan nor Led Zeppelin). Yes Karajan is great at playing Honegger, because the composition favours that style of playing, but his Scheherazade amounts to cultural vandalism and his Mozart is unlistenable (to me anyway). Norrington was part of a movement that questioned that style and it has changed both playing and listening habits to a very large extent and led to bands "tightening up" a lot providing more clarity in performance, the vibrato heavy Bambi approach to violin solo playing has quietened down too. His Classical (ie 18th Cent) and early romantic (ie Schubert) might or might not be "authentic" (I doubt that is fully "authentic" but it may "approach" authenticity a little) but it is certainly authentic 70s/80s rebellion against the big bands and that alone gives it some historical credibility because of the changes he helped bring about. Norringtons late romantic interpretations are not so great, his Brahms is dour (I fail to understand why he even went there, these works are best left to modern orchestras); even his late early-romantic works (ie Schumann) are at best acceptable. But his Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are not just historically, but also aesthetically, worth hearing - as part of a wider, more embracing collection. Your are a very good critic, you even say good things about interpretations, and compositions you don't like much, which shows you are very objective and rise above your own subjective tastes. I think you are very unfair to Norrington; a lot of his work will vanish into posterity but his very best is worth some respect and I have stated what I believe this to be. Not everyone will like his Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert, but quite a few people DO enjoy these works and think they have some merit; they are not the best interpretations of these works but they are worth listening to and being part of a collection. I own the 3 works I believe to be Norrington's best; and I also own Karajan's Honegger (even though I dislike Karajan in general) because it is simple a good rendition and is worth hearing.
@@elaineblackhurst1509 Thanks for your reply. I haven't heard any of Norrington's Haydn so can't comment. My favourite Haydn conductors are Dorati, Harnoncourt, a lot of the Naxos recordings and, surprisingly (for me) Klemperer. When Norrington is good then he is really interesting and makes you think differently (typified by his Beethoven cycle), when he is bad he is rather poor. At the end of the day he is not a first tier conductor, rather second tier who sometimes is very intriguing and worth listening to. I just think David is a bit unfair to him and should rethink this and offer a more considered view, hence my lengthy post. Will try and find some of Norrington's Haydn on RUclips and might come back to you.
I think a lot of Norrington’s fame came when he did a BBC series about the Beethoven Symphonies. They are what sold his playing brand to me in my teens. What I find telling is that those programs have disappeared off the map. The BBC never tried to sell them, which is most unlike the BBC. It since took me years to realise how bad his records are - and listening to your suggested reference recordings finally bludgeoned to death the spell those recordings had on me. So, thanks!
At the time, I enjoyed his Beethoven cycle, mainly because of my preference for swift pacing and sharp timpani. Plus the wind passages showed more with the anemic sounding strings. Now I see his approach is all the same, whatever is played.
Shrewd commentary! I especially appreciated the comparison with Regie theater in which a director "overwrites" the actual work with his own notions of what the plot, setting and characters should be and succeeds in obliterating it. I remember buying Norrington's Beethoven symphony cycle, intrigued by some very favorable reviews (e.g. William Malloch) but stopped when he made an absolute mess of the Ninth, espousing an obvious, grotesque misreading of the Trio of the Scherzo. In sum, he was obliterating the music. But watch out! Old wine or rather sediment and vinegar in new bottles. You may soon be reviewing an Essential Complete Norrington big box.
David, I was wondering if you have listened to any of the recordings by Apollo's Fire, a baroque ensemble based in Cleveland. It seems like their use of period instruments and techniques produce much better music than what you are describing here.
Playing Beethoven 7 this season and Norrington/London Classical Players is on the recording list. Still haven’t listened to it. Ha I will say valves vs. no valves is a pretty big deal. Natural trumpets are very different from modern trumpets.
First, I wish Mr Norrington all the best. He was born the same year as my mum and I know that life is not exactly easy at that age. Second, what defines him for me is that I saw him and the London Classical Players doing Ma vlast at the opening night of the Prague Spring Festival in 1996. It was horrible beyond imagination. For instance, in the fourth poem (Z českých luhů a hájů) the orchestra lost itself completely in the fuge. Virgin recorded that interpretation, fortunately without major lapses in the orchestra, but the recording is completely unidiomatic, just as the concert was. However, I must add that I do remember a few Norrington interpretations that I liked very much, such as a live Mendelssohn's Fifth (Reformation) with the Boston Symphony from the early 1980s (I think) that I downloaded from the Internat many moons ago. Go figure.
Well, not everything the man did was invariably horrible. Just much of it, and of course I am speaking of his recordings exclusively, not live concerts.
@@alanhowe1455 No, I believe it represents some of his best work. Whether I "like" it or not isn't always the point. I think the orchestra deserves some serious credit too.
I've learned a lot over the years from the historically informed crowd. More than anything, they got me and others to listen to music that had largely been forgotten. Some of them, like Vaclav Luks, are still out there discovering really great music - sacred and secular music by Zelenka, violin concertos by Myslivecek, etc. - and performing it really, really well. Norrington, however, has left behind an entirely toxic legacy of denial - denial of the most basic, once universally shared principles of musicianship. Under the false cover of scholarship, he is merely one more post-modern fraud, daring anyone to say out loud that his deconstruction of music is unmusical. Amazingly, huge numbers of people who know better have kept silent. Now, decades later, a whole generation of people have had their musical tastes perverted.
@@DavesClassicalGuide And if I may say so, Dave, your Haydn Crusade is VERY IMPORTANT WORK. Why? Because you are showing, one symphony at a time, how the masterpieces of our canon are great not because they are artefacts of practice of long dead societies, but because they are the products of GENIUSES. A great mind picked out the intervals, rhythms, durations, instruments, etc., the ordering and proportions, and he did so because of his insight into how the human mind works FOR ALL TIME. You write the word "sigh", and every one of us knows what it feels like. And a musical phrase as a sigh is something we know because we are human beings. We can't learn that from Quantz or any other textbook. But we can be reminded of that feeling by a musical genius, whose power to express cannot be killed utterly, not even by a paid assassin like Norrington. Music lives. It lives in you, in me, and in many other people who have not yet heard their first Haydn symphony.
Norrington think's his way was the right way...well, let's just think about this. Most of Norringtons "CD/recording " legacy is out of print - Sony rereleased all of Ormandys mono recordings with Philadelphia and everybody loves it. I think that really says it all...good performances of good music will always live on👍
I'm sure there'll be a "best of" box before you can say "heresy". The title I'd choose is also the title of a book by Victor Borge: "My Favourite Intermissions". Wouter van Doorn
Yeah, I heard him with Francesca Dego playing Mozart violin concertos on his latest recording. It was music with all the music taken out. Like decaffeinated coffee or wine with the alcohol extracted. Sorry!
Yeah, well, to keep this from becoming a "me too" pile-on, I'll stand up for Norrington. I like his Haydn, Beethoven and Berlioz. I like the odd tonalities.
Practically Norrington's entire recorded catalogue can be found in the bargain bins in charity shops across the UK. Now there's a recommendation for you.
Now that you can give up sticking pins into your Roger 'voo-do' doll, Dave (while continuing to work away at your Simon Rattle poppet), you might now like to do us all a huge favour by taking up a Thielemann doll, and this despite your desire to replace Norrington with Currentzis!
I wonder why the British musical establishment supported him so much. Probably it had nothing at all to do with his early CV. The Dragon, Westminster School, Cambridge,, Royal Academy of Music. Naturally Gramophone critics and the BBC would never allow themselves to be influenced by anything like - the old boys network.
I listened to Norrington performing Bruckner. Undoubtedly it was the worst Bruckner I have ever heard. I guess his goal was to make Bruckner sound like poorly played Mendelssohn, with underpowered, out of tune brass. His Brahms was a crime against music. I had to play Mackerass, who did Brahms somewhat historically with musicianship and taste, to clear my mind. Paul G.
I heard Brahms 4 done by the Scottish National in ‘period instrument style’. That too was a “crime against music”. I was taking a friend to the Halle to persuade him Brahms was not awful (I Iove Brahms). It didn’t work, the playing was lifeless, lacking in emotion. Most boring Brahms I’ve ever heard.
I don't completely agree- at least with Beethoven. Norrington gave us the chance to hear the differences that Thurston Dart wrote of and at least satisfied curiosity. I have a composer/conductor friend who felt that Beethoven was saved by Norrington from being merely bloated and Wagnerian (or worse). Don't worry, I also love Giulini's conducting of Beethoven, but I think what Norrington did was important.
Back in the day I was given a ticket to the Rossini Gala at Avery Fisher, presided over by Norrington and featuring a who’s who of American singers known for their Rossini: Horne, Blake, Hampson, Von Stade et al. It was sad seeing artists of that calibre adding legitimacy to Norrington’s wet dream, but singers go where the work is. I’l never forget the near-inaudible trombones in the William Tell Overture, no doubt a choice imposed by Norrington as the players of the Orchestra of St Luke’s certainly had it in them. I later heard Norrington and his London Classical Players in The Pastorale and the 8th at Tanglewood, when the heavens themselves expressed their displeasure by conjuring up a deluge that wreaked havoc on the intonation of the “original” instruments. Well, at least that was entertaining. It’s a bit stultifying to realize just how many recordings the man made over the length of his career, notably at EMI in the early digital age. I imagine there was a market for all this, but still.
I too was at that performance and the word out was that the soloists had to endure him as he was a last minute replacement--I could be wrong though! It is the only recording in my collection I have of his.
I can forgive some conductors with One Big Idea; I love Celibidache’s Bruckner although I know many don’t. I can even forgive a conductor if his One Big Idea is ahistorical nonsense like Norrington’s anti-vibrato activism. What I can’t forgive are drearily dull performances, and Sir Roger recorded far too many of those. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters, and Norrington’s music rarely matters enough to be part of the conversation. That said, I wish him a happy, healthy, and lengthy retirement.
The problem with Celibidache isn't the guy himself; you can ignore him (although I will never forgive him for the worst 9th symphony ever perpetrated on poor Dvorak). It's the fans, that throng of powdered and silk-suited imbeciles with cream interior Mercedeses that mistake saccharine sentimentality for "spirituality".
I don't have many recorded performances by this conductor. I once heard a Prague Spring concert where he and his orchestra performed Má Vlast and they also made a recording of it - about the weakest recording of the work I have heard. He also conducted some Vaughan Williams Symphonies with London Philharmonic for Decca - the orchestra played beautifully but the performances were very limp and after several poor reviews Decca never completed what was I believe originally planned as a cycle - unfortunately this has mean they have never tried again and the 1950s cycle with Boult is their only one I think. I haven't heard his recordings of Beethoven, Haydn etc.
Let's not count our blessings. There's always a risk that a label seeking a quick buck or a headline will drag him out of retirement for... 'authentic' Stravinsky or somesuch! I can proudly boast that my collection is a Norrington free zone (&, I must confess, largely an 'authentic' movement free zone). If some orchestras appointment attention seeking wackos, Opera has suffered for decades at the hands of nut job stage directors, who are almost ubiquetous. I like being challenged, don't get me wrong. But there's a point where the "shock of the new" just becomes banal.
@@andrewclarke6899 I was referring to the top post's comment "What a waste of a sword." Which has very violent connotations. Whether or not you like Sir Roger's work he doesn't need to be hurt by a sword,. Mr Williams post is plain nasty and really should be deleted.
I agree that Celibidache was idiosyncratic. He was also a holdover from the era of conducting tyrants, and his high-handed ways helped him get what he wanted for good and sometimes for bad, but also alienated people who might have otherwise been open to his ideas. But I would never, ever lump him together with Norrington, who is simply a nobody used by the UK's recording industry for its own purposes.
I really like some of Celibidache's older recordings. His newer, super-slow recordings on EMI are intolerable. I've never heard a Norrington recording I've liked.
Thank you for another very entertaining lecture. Speaking as someone who has been in the past extremely impressionable (but tries so hard not to be these days!), I wonder how many of your viewers have actually made up their own mind or have been seduced by your enthusiasm, passion and charisma to follow your opinions without question. To your credit, you do often state that listeners should make their own mind up but your issues with Norrington can sound just a little bit like Leibowitz's opinion of Sibelius (that was a great video- thanks!). A spurious but relevant example would be the question, "did Leibowitz help prejudice Boulez's opinion of Sibelius?". I don't know but if RL was an inspiring and charismatic teacher, he may have done so. I can't find any recordings of Boulez conducting Sibelius- as for concert performances, I'm not at all sure. I agree with so much of what you say in your excellent lectures but not everything. Do you think that there is a Church of David Hurwitz evolving? I doubt it but you are extremely charismatic and persuasive when passing on your thoughts. I'm more capable of being a doubting Thomas these days and am skeptical of many things and am grateful of it but I know that I'm more of a follower than a leader and even these days need often to check myself. As someone who has immersed himself in music as you have and has been to more concerts and has listened to more recorded music (where do you get the time- do you sleep?) than most of us could ever imagine and has studied and analysed music to a very high level, your opinions carry huge authority. However, please step-up your efforts to encourage your viewers to make up their own minds and to never take your opinions as the gospel truth. Sir Roger may well be an embodiment of "the emperor's new clothes" but we must come to our own informed conclusions.
But my opinions are gospel truth--indeed, they aren't opinions at all. They are facts. Objective, unquestionable facts. As such, I don't have to worry about the rise of the "Church of Dave," because there is nothing spiritual about what I do, and no place for blind faith. I deal in reality.
If your comments were political or social you would be cancelled according to contemporary mores. Thank god that you CANNOT be cancelled. Not sure I agree with every thing you say here, but what does that matter?
I strongly defend aiming to approximate the timbre of instruments that composers had at their disposal. I also strongly agree with your proposition that the musicians should primarily try to respect what most likely were the composer's intentions. Many times these aims coincide, such as Mozart played on a fortepiano, where the pianist can play in a more unrestrained way than makes sense with this music on a Steinway concert grand. Clearly in this endeavour it is possible to find those who are very misguided. If a composer has left detailed markings, it is important to play at a tempo at which these marking can be both played and heard.
I'm sure I heard some of his Wagner. Butchery might be one word to sum it up. I have enjoyed listening to some of the concerts from Stuttgart with him. Not all bad, but I've never paid much attention to any of his commercial recordings.
I must admit that I like some of the more "classical" Norrington's recordings (like some Mozart, for example). But when it comes for romantic music, his ideas sound very strange. In his Beethoven cycle, for example, more than the absence or vibrato, his strict fidelity to the metronom markings makes the music sound too fast... but not his 9th symphone, in which he adopt a slower speed... tricky...
@@DavesClassicalGuide I forgot to mention that I am talking about the London Classical Players recordings, I didn't listen with the Stuttgart orchestra.
I'm going to do a guilty sample of one of Beethoven Symphonies and the Tallis Fantasia from somewhere like Spotify (so it's free!). He's not someone I've ever had in my collection otherwise (which says something, I suspect), but I am strangely looking forward to being horrified :) It's like watching train wrecks, I guess.
Actually a disappointingly high proportion of Norrington's performances are train wrecks (Berlioz LCP Fantastique, Beethoven's 9th, Brahms (everything) the list goes on, and on) so you should have no problem there. However I always ask people to listen to his LCP version of Beethoven's 2nd and 8th and perhaps his Rossini overtures disk - I think they're witty and revelatory. Shame he really couldn't keep that going!
@@curseofmillhaven1057 I quite liked the 8th (and the 5th), in the sense that they were clean and crisp, in a detached and disengaged way. Not quite the car crash I was expecting, shall we say -but also nothing I was stirred or gob-smacked by enough to want to listen again (unlike the Markevitch 5th, which knocked me sideways). I then listened to his Tallis Fantasia with the LPO... and found that quite acceptable. There seemed to be a flexible tempo (for once) and even a hint of vibrato. A certain music critic of note has also mentioned elsewhere that his Planets might be worthwhile: I've yet to get hold of a sample, though.
@@DavesClassicalGuide That's a very fine PDF! Nicely documented, neatly argued. I also like your characterisation of Norrington there: "From a purely note‐ accurate point of view, [Norrington's] is better played [than Bruno Walter's recording]" (referring to Norrington's Mahler 9). Having just listened to samples of his Beethoven 5th and 8th, with the London Classical Players, I think I would concur: note-accurate (ish), but played much like a MIDI file would be: metronomically and with all the expression that a computer could muster. They were actually 'cool' (in the emotionally-distant sense), which I personally didn't mind too much. But the race through the notes without any sense of love for a single one of them was pretty bad.
I am one of those so-called victims who own Norrington recordings: Rossini, Wagner, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann. Except - I don't consider myself a victim. And I also don't consider Roger Norrington some sort of Antichrist or diabolus in musica. To me, Norrington is simply another performance practice-based conductor with a different view on interpretation. And I'm glad that I had the opportunity to choose something different to compare my other recordings with. Wouldn't it be incredibly dull, if only Herbert von Karajan recordings were available? Long live musical diversity!
@@reneblom2160 Yes, it would be dull, but it's not because there has always been plenty of diversity, so that's not an issue. And you know perfectly well and I would never argue against diversity. I argue against crap. Norrington isn't the antichrist, he's a fraud, and that's a very different matter. Diversity is lovetly, but diversity for its own sake is meaningless, especially when people have so many options, limited funds, and can do so much better than Norrington in all of the music that he conducts. THAT, my friend, is where I come in, and I make no apologies for it. If you like his stuff, great, but you can enjoy just as much diversity and have a much finer collection of music in the process if you disregard him.
Hello David, I enjoy your videos and informative opinion. But I wish you did not call others 'crazy' and 'wacko' just for not playing music to your taste.... I watched 2 videos in the last couple days and at least 3 people were called that way: Celi (here), Goebel (reviewing his box set), and some more in this video....You are a very good reviewer, and in my view, do not need to 'personalize yourself' in this fashion :) Best regards.
Taste has nothing to do with it! I call them what they are. I'm sorry if that disturbs you, but the bad behavior isn't mine. It's theirs. They abuse the courtesy and politesse to which they feel entitled, and I'm not going to let that pass unmentioned.
your recordings of the handel organ concertos were what got me interested into music on historical instruments. i still think they're the best recordings of these works.
There is an unspoken rule in the business, I have noticed, that performers will not criticize each other (save on very rare occasions). That's perfectly fine and quite understandable. Got to keep everyone working. That's one small reason why critics are necessary.
@@DavesClassicalGuide there’s an Eroica with Scottish Nat from a year ago which just went up on RUclips where he propagates the old big lies for the public all over again.. very sad
Apart from anything else he's another example of those conductors who start their careers conducting choirs and never really make a successful transition to leading orchestral forces, We Brits seem to specialise in them.
IMHO, Roger Norrington is the musical equivalent of a snake oil salesman. He claims to be selling you an authentic or miracle product, but he's really picking your pockets.
For me the best aspect of the original instrument movement is the restoration of Baroque ornamentation. Playing on original instruments is kind of silly, I think. Why bother with a forte piano when you have a pianoforte? For some reason, I have kept my copies of Norrington's Ninth and Symphony Fantastique that I got from the Columbia record club. But these interpretations make no sense whatsoever. It seems as if Norrington had quirky answers to minor issues of interpretation, but he missed the point of both works. The Symphony Fantastique should sound like a bad LSD trip. The Ode to Joy should sound like a goddamned ode to joy. Why is that hard? Joyless Norrington conducted the ode to the machine, instead. He was trying to make romantic music as cold, disciplined, and pointless as he possibly could. It seems as if his only objective was to intimidate the audience.
Norrington, Gardiner, Marriner--all cut from the same cloth--the technically brilliant but stultifyingly boring school of strictly-by-the-book musical interpretation. How these gentlemen destroyed Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven etc is no joke. These are some of the most snooze inducing interpretations ever performed. However they were kept alive by the establishment which did nothing but praise them as the best thing since sliced bread.
@@tommynielsen7163 yup. I know i'm a heathen for saying it. I have three cd's of him with the academy of st martin in the fields which i bought long ago based on glowing reviews in the trade publications and they just bore me to tears. I know he has a lot of fans though, so i know im in the minority. That light, airy, and quick approach he prefers does nothing for me. It's beautiful at first and then as you listen more you find out there's only one setting to the gear box. It gets old quickly.
My favourite conductors are not the ones who want to stamp their own personality on the music. They are the ones who go out of their way to find old and new music that is unfamiliar, which sometimes turns out to be terrific.
David, I have to confess you make me chuckle... I too feel delighted Mr. Norrington has retired... you express your distaste for his conducting much better than I.
I'm a big fan of Norrington, but I still highly enjoy your thoughts, interesting talk and thank you!!
What good news, thanks for sharing it!
Spot on, Dave! Two comments about wacko conductors: I saw Norrington conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in the early 2000s. I never felt such obvious distain from an orchestra towards a conductor as I did on that concert. Also I recently saw a rehearsal in Vienna with Theodore Currentsis and Musica Aeterna.. They were playing Mahler 5. The entire orchestra - minus the cellos -played standing up! I did not see the concert, but I believe they did on the concert, too. Either way, as you would say, balderdash!
Can't say much about Norrington since I'm more familiar with other period instrument people but in general, historically informed performance is cool and good. Whether their approach works for Romantic music is up for debate but for Classical and Baroque music I think it sounds a lot better, fresher and more colorful. I'm definitely not the only one who thinks this. Nowadays, even if the orchestra is using modern instruments, they will almost always incorporate some elements of the period instrument approach when playing music from these periods.
Yes, I agree. It wasn't all bad at all--only when used to promote people with no talent and no ideas.
To be historically informed was crucial to perform early music like Monteverdi. Simply, because Basso continuo means, there are notes to be played, that are not written down. But it's quite ironic to apply to romantic music, what you learned about early music, and still call it "historically informed".
@@Sulsfort Isn't it though?
@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, then experts on Ancient Egypt can also perform historically informed.
@@Sulsfort I was agreeing with you.
In the 1970s I sang music by Schütz in the Schütz Choir conducted by Norrington. The experience was thrilling musically and he paid no attention to our singers’ natural vibrato - very different from string vibrato of course but still something that can be modified. Performances went down well as did our recording of the Schütz Christmas Story (what views if you know it?). He was unacceptably rude, but not as cruel as JE Gardiner (for whom I sang Monteverdi in his Monteverdi Choir).
Decades later I heard him conduct vibrato-free Brahms in London - yuk.
And a few years ago he returned to Trinity Oxford (where his father was President) to conduct a group of alumni - even more offensively rude and got nowhere with the music.
Thank you Dave for always being objective and fair - as you say, colleagues who may work together can’t speak the truth as you do.
Not a big Norrington fan, but I did like sound of wood tip mallets on the tympani.
I completely agree with this assessment, based on hearing his performances of Romantic works on the radio over the years. Truly wretched. But imagine my surprise when I bought a job lot of CDs on eBay recently, and in it came two CDs of Mozart symphonies with the Stuttgart forces. I have to admit that some were pretty enjoyable, though you could exactly hear when he felt the need to interject his affectations, and then it was ruined. But without those, surprisingly palatable. Perhaps he was just having a "bad day" and managed paradoxically to produce something lovely, despite himself, as it were.
What blows my mind is this: the first time Norrington played Elgar without vibrato and called it "authentic", did nobody point at all the Elgar recordings conducting his own music with plenty of vibrato?
Curious, isn't it?
Norrington has said Elgar was influenced by the technology and started doing it for the recordings. As if there is no evidence for vibrato before 1914.
There are several recordings of Elgar conducting his own music with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra with no vibrato.
@@BenPalmerconductor The first recording of the Starlight Express has vibrato right from the start. An appropriate amount of portamento as well. Unless there is a different set of recordings than what I've heard? There is plenty of evidence for vibrato from that era and before.
@@Equality-7-2521 There are plenty of (later) recordings of Elgar conducting orchestras with continuous vibrato. But the earlier ones have none, or almost none, and lots of portamento, of course.
I agree completely on Norrington and on Germans being obsessed with (and prone to) ideology. Sir Roger's Bruckner for one Is an emetic cataplasm to the ear and to the soul.
I still enjoy Norrington's EMI Beethoven set from the 80s - the London Classical Players (like the English Concert under Pinnock) were always wonderful on their (presumably) rather cranky but colorful instruments, and Norrington didn't bother me
in Beethoven, except for that odd 9th. Enjoyed some of his Schubert, too, but anything deeper into the 19th century, with the LCP or Stuttgart, only revealed his kapellmeister-ish drabness of imagination. Gosh, I'm glad I never heard his Bruckner!
Complain all you want about Norrington, but he did accomplish something significant: he made us reconsider and really think about music performances. He really added to the conversation. Great conductor? Maybe not. But that Berlioz Symphonie fantastique with real ophicleides was surely an ear-opening recording. Then there was that Brahms 2 which he somehow found a way to make it dull. How long before we get the Complete Norrington EMI box?
He did make me more careful before buying recordings, I'll give him that.
‘Real Ophicleides’ sound like a wasp in a bottle which is why they got replaced!
That is true. He stimulated conversation, and perhaps even got some people listening who would not have otherwise. I give him that, on the theory that "there is not such thing as bad publicity." It's just a shame that he had to do it under such false pretenses.
A giant Norrington-EMI box would be the last nail in the coffin of musical good taste. The last thing we need right now.
@@marccikes3429 But it would be fun to review.
welcome to Stuttgart, David. I was lucky enough to largely miss Norrington in my adopted city (although I still like a small handful of his early Beethoven recordings and enjoyed his 5th live a time long ago when this was all relatively novel) and have been repaid by getting Currentzis who at least has the merit of wild unpredictability in his over-inflated ego which means that there are are elements of genius there. Genius is not something I would associate with Roger N. But no, he is not the worst conductor ever in an answer to another video of yours. Ever more, it's the superstar conductors of some of our leading orchestras who are more interested in creating an artificial effect than trying to reproduce the music in a sincere and honest way. A sign of the times, I guess...
Best news in the music world I’ve heard in a long time. Heard him destroy my beloved Berlioz so I’ve avoided him ever since.
For me the best of Norrington is his Mozart 38-41, the Beethoven cycle (in particular the earlier works) and his Schubert's 4-6. None should be the sole representatives of these works within a collection, but they do add (to use your word) a "different" interpretation which is both important and worth hearing.
The 60s, 70s and early 80s classical music scene was dominated by big bands, playing with large amounts of vibrato; as a result the various musical layers got hidden, wind instruments suffered particularly badly. Also orchestras were not always tight, and hence cloudy, and hid that failing behind the string "fuzz" (Scimone's Clementi is a example of this). Karajan was the most extreme example of the big string approach (but the BP were tight) - all the layers were obliterated and his interpretations sounded like they had more to do with Led Zeppelin's heavy rock riff approach than anything else. Further, Karajan had one other similarity to Led Zep, both parties would quieten down the rock riff long enough so that one could hear either a violin or lead guitar play vibrato soulfully (ie like Bambi being strangled at birth) to add "pathos", and both parties referred to this unsubtle commonly used schema as the "light and dark" or chiaroscuro (you will appreciate I like neither Karajan nor Led Zeppelin).
Yes Karajan is great at playing Honegger, because the composition favours that style of playing, but his Scheherazade amounts to cultural vandalism and his Mozart is unlistenable (to me anyway).
Norrington was part of a movement that questioned that style and it has changed both playing and listening habits to a very large extent and led to bands "tightening up" a lot providing more clarity in performance, the vibrato heavy Bambi approach to violin solo playing has quietened down too. His Classical (ie 18th Cent) and early romantic (ie Schubert) might or might not be "authentic" (I doubt that is fully "authentic" but it may "approach" authenticity a little) but it is certainly authentic 70s/80s rebellion against the big bands and that alone gives it some historical credibility because of the changes he helped bring about.
Norringtons late romantic interpretations are not so great, his Brahms is dour (I fail to understand why he even went there, these works are best left to modern orchestras); even his late early-romantic works (ie Schumann) are at best acceptable. But his Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are not just historically, but also aesthetically, worth hearing - as part of a wider, more embracing collection.
Your are a very good critic, you even say good things about interpretations, and compositions you don't like much, which shows you are very objective and rise above your own subjective tastes. I think you are very unfair to Norrington; a lot of his work will vanish into posterity but his very best is worth some respect and I have stated what I believe this to be. Not everyone will like his Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert, but quite a few people DO enjoy these works and think they have some merit; they are not the best interpretations of these works but they are worth listening to and being part of a collection.
I own the 3 works I believe to be Norrington's best; and I also own Karajan's Honegger (even though I dislike Karajan in general) because it is simple a good rendition and is worth hearing.
@@elaineblackhurst1509 Thanks for your reply.
I haven't heard any of Norrington's Haydn so can't comment. My favourite Haydn conductors are Dorati, Harnoncourt, a lot of the Naxos recordings and, surprisingly (for me) Klemperer.
When Norrington is good then he is really interesting and makes you think differently (typified by his Beethoven cycle), when he is bad he is rather poor. At the end of the day he is not a first tier conductor, rather second tier who sometimes is very intriguing and worth listening to.
I just think David is a bit unfair to him and should rethink this and offer a more considered view, hence my lengthy post.
Will try and find some of Norrington's Haydn on RUclips and might come back to you.
+1 for such entertaining comments! Cheers, Sir John.
I think a lot of Norrington’s fame came when he did a BBC series about the Beethoven Symphonies. They are what sold his playing brand to me in my teens. What I find telling is that those programs have disappeared off the map. The BBC never tried to sell them, which is most unlike the BBC. It since took me years to realise how bad his records are - and listening to your suggested reference recordings finally bludgeoned to death the spell those recordings had on me. So, thanks!
At the time, I enjoyed his Beethoven cycle, mainly because of my preference for swift pacing and sharp timpani. Plus the wind passages showed more with the anemic sounding strings. Now I see his approach is all the same, whatever is played.
Shrewd commentary! I especially appreciated the comparison with Regie theater in which a director "overwrites" the actual work with his own notions of what the plot, setting and characters should be and succeeds in obliterating it. I remember buying Norrington's Beethoven symphony cycle, intrigued by some very favorable reviews (e.g. William Malloch) but stopped when he made an absolute mess of the Ninth, espousing an obvious, grotesque misreading of the Trio of the Scherzo. In sum, he was obliterating the music.
But watch out! Old wine or rather sediment and vinegar in new bottles. You may soon be reviewing an Essential Complete Norrington big box.
David, I was wondering if you have listened to any of the recordings by Apollo's Fire, a baroque ensemble based in Cleveland.
It seems like their use of period instruments and techniques produce much better music than what you are describing here.
See reviews at classicstoday.com. Their Mozart was grotesque.
Playing Beethoven 7 this season and Norrington/London Classical Players is on the recording list.
Still haven’t listened to it. Ha
I will say valves vs. no valves is a pretty big deal. Natural trumpets are very different from modern trumpets.
From the player's perspective, sure, but from the listener's--they still sound like trumpets, albeit sometimes out of tune trumpets.
Harnoncourt sounds different compare to many other great names, but he sounds honest to my ears🎶
First, I wish Mr Norrington all the best. He was born the same year as my mum and I know that life is not exactly easy at that age.
Second, what defines him for me is that I saw him and the London Classical Players doing Ma vlast at the opening night of the Prague Spring Festival in 1996. It was horrible beyond imagination. For instance, in the fourth poem (Z českých luhů a hájů) the orchestra lost itself completely in the fuge. Virgin recorded that interpretation, fortunately without major lapses in the orchestra, but the recording is completely unidiomatic, just as the concert was. However, I must add that I do remember a few Norrington interpretations that I liked very much, such as a live Mendelssohn's Fifth (Reformation) with the Boston Symphony from the early 1980s (I think) that I downloaded from the Internat many moons ago. Go figure.
Well, not everything the man did was invariably horrible. Just much of it, and of course I am speaking of his recordings exclusively, not live concerts.
@@alanhowe1455 I "appreciated it."
@@alanhowe1455 No, I believe it represents some of his best work. Whether I "like" it or not isn't always the point. I think the orchestra deserves some serious credit too.
Horrible beyond imagination it was! It was so bad I can still remember how bad it was, after so many years... and that is something...
I've learned a lot over the years from the historically informed crowd. More than anything, they got me and others to listen to music that had largely been forgotten. Some of them, like Vaclav Luks, are still out there discovering really great music - sacred and secular music by Zelenka, violin concertos by Myslivecek, etc. - and performing it really, really well.
Norrington, however, has left behind an entirely toxic legacy of denial - denial of the most basic, once universally shared principles of musicianship. Under the false cover of scholarship, he is merely one more post-modern fraud, daring anyone to say out loud that his deconstruction of music is unmusical. Amazingly, huge numbers of people who know better have kept silent. Now, decades later, a whole generation of people have had their musical tastes perverted.
Sigh.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Chin up, brother. Western music survived this long. The last chapter has not been written.
@@DavesClassicalGuide And if I may say so, Dave, your Haydn Crusade is VERY IMPORTANT WORK. Why? Because you are showing, one symphony at a time, how the masterpieces of our canon are great not because they are artefacts of practice of long dead societies, but because they are the products of GENIUSES. A great mind picked out the intervals, rhythms, durations, instruments, etc., the ordering and proportions, and he did so because of his insight into how the human mind works FOR ALL TIME.
You write the word "sigh", and every one of us knows what it feels like. And a musical phrase as a sigh is something we know because we are human beings. We can't learn that from Quantz or any other textbook. But we can be reminded of that feeling by a musical genius, whose power to express cannot be killed utterly, not even by a paid assassin like Norrington. Music lives. It lives in you, in me, and in many other people who have not yet heard their first Haydn symphony.
@@marknewkirk4322 Thank you!
Norrington think's his way was the right way...well, let's just think about this.
Most of Norringtons "CD/recording " legacy is out of print - Sony rereleased all of Ormandys mono recordings with Philadelphia and everybody loves it.
I think that really says it all...good performances of good music will always live on👍
I'm sure there'll be a "best of" box before you can say "heresy". The title I'd choose is also the title of a book by Victor Borge: "My Favourite Intermissions".
Wouter van Doorn
I look forward to reviewing it.
Yeah, I heard him with Francesca Dego playing Mozart violin concertos on his latest recording. It was music with all the music taken out. Like decaffeinated coffee or wine with the alcohol extracted. Sorry!
Yeah, well, to keep this from becoming a "me too" pile-on, I'll stand up for Norrington. I like his Haydn, Beethoven and Berlioz. I like the odd tonalities.
@@elaineblackhurst1509 Wow. Have you purged your collection of these "wretchedly awful" recordings? Just thought I'd ask.
Practically Norrington's entire recorded catalogue can be found in the bargain bins in charity shops across the UK. Now there's a recommendation for you.
I don't know about the UK but I don't think any of his recordings are in print in the US.
Now that you can give up sticking pins into your Roger 'voo-do' doll, Dave (while continuing to work away at your Simon Rattle poppet), you might now like to do us all a huge favour by taking up a Thielemann doll, and this despite your desire to replace Norrington with Currentzis!
I wonder why the British musical establishment supported him so much. Probably it had nothing at all to do with his early CV. The Dragon, Westminster School, Cambridge,, Royal Academy of Music. Naturally Gramophone critics and the BBC would never allow themselves to be influenced by anything like - the old boys network.
Probably very significant
Like the music
It’s all in the accent
Hilarious video:: “They made it their business to find wackos.”
I listened to Norrington performing Bruckner. Undoubtedly it was the worst Bruckner I have ever heard. I guess his goal was to make Bruckner sound like poorly played Mendelssohn, with underpowered, out of tune brass. His Brahms was a crime against music. I had to play Mackerass, who did Brahms somewhat historically with musicianship and taste, to clear my mind.
Paul G.
I heard Brahms 4 done by the Scottish National in ‘period instrument style’.
That too was a “crime against music”.
I was taking a friend to the Halle to persuade him Brahms was not awful (I Iove Brahms). It didn’t work, the playing was lifeless, lacking in emotion.
Most boring Brahms I’ve ever heard.
Or as we affectionately refer to him - Roger Snorrington...
Classic joke: Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardner, and Christopher Hogwood were all in a plane crash.
Who survived?
Beethoven.
LOL!
😂😂😂
Hahaha. Fabulous!
I haven't heard a single recording by this man. Which of his renditions will shock me the most? I'm in for a laugh.
Try Mahler 9. If you dare.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I can't wait, thanks!
@@DavesClassicalGuide: That falls under the category of “Cruel and unusual punishment” don’t you think? 🙉
@@DavesClassicalGuide Tchaikovsky 6 for me. Yuck!
@@danielhornby5581 Oh yeah!
I was interested enough to go to "Slipped Disc" after I watched this video. Sentiment is running about 50/50.
That in itself is pretty remarkable.
I don't completely agree- at least with Beethoven. Norrington gave us the chance to hear the differences that Thurston Dart wrote of and at least satisfied curiosity. I have a composer/conductor friend who felt that Beethoven was saved by Norrington from being merely bloated and Wagnerian (or worse). Don't worry, I also love Giulini's conducting of Beethoven, but I think what Norrington did was important.
Others did it better, and I have a lot of respect, actually, for his Stuttgart Beethoven cycle.
Back in the day I was given a ticket to the Rossini Gala at Avery Fisher, presided over by Norrington and featuring a who’s who of American singers known for their Rossini: Horne, Blake, Hampson, Von Stade et al. It was sad seeing artists of that calibre adding legitimacy to Norrington’s wet dream, but singers go where the work is. I’l never forget the near-inaudible trombones in the William Tell Overture, no doubt a choice imposed by Norrington as the players of the Orchestra of St Luke’s certainly had it in them.
I later heard Norrington and his London Classical Players in The Pastorale and the 8th at Tanglewood, when the heavens themselves expressed their displeasure by conjuring up a deluge that wreaked havoc on the intonation of the “original” instruments. Well, at least that was entertaining.
It’s a bit stultifying to realize just how many recordings the man made over the length of his career, notably at EMI in the early digital age. I imagine there was a market for all this, but still.
I too was at that performance and the word out was that the soloists had to endure him as he was a last minute replacement--I could be wrong though! It is the only recording in my collection I have of his.
37 Norrington sycophants have given thumbs down to this presentation!
I don't blame them.
I can forgive some conductors with One Big Idea; I love Celibidache’s Bruckner although I know many don’t. I can even forgive a conductor if his One Big Idea is ahistorical nonsense like Norrington’s anti-vibrato activism. What I can’t forgive are drearily dull performances, and Sir Roger recorded far too many of those. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters, and Norrington’s music rarely matters enough to be part of the conversation. That said, I wish him a happy, healthy, and lengthy retirement.
The problem with Celibidache isn't the guy himself; you can ignore him (although I will never forgive him for the worst 9th symphony ever perpetrated on poor Dvorak). It's the fans, that throng of powdered and silk-suited imbeciles with cream interior Mercedeses that mistake saccharine sentimentality for "spirituality".
@@bomcabedal is Celibidache even saccharine?
I thought he was just plain slow.
I love Celi's Bruckner...but he has a cult following on RUclips dissing better conductors like Karajan.
I don't have many recorded performances by this conductor. I once heard a Prague Spring concert where he and his orchestra performed Má Vlast and they also made a recording of it - about the weakest recording of the work I have heard. He also conducted some Vaughan Williams Symphonies with London Philharmonic for Decca - the orchestra played beautifully but the performances were very limp and after several poor reviews Decca never completed what was I believe originally planned as a cycle - unfortunately this has mean they have never tried again and the 1950s cycle with Boult is their only one I think. I haven't heard his recordings of Beethoven, Haydn etc.
Let's not count our blessings. There's always a risk that a label seeking a quick buck or a headline will drag him out of retirement for... 'authentic' Stravinsky or somesuch! I can proudly boast that my collection is a Norrington free zone (&, I must confess, largely an 'authentic' movement free zone). If some orchestras appointment attention seeking wackos, Opera has suffered for decades at the hands of nut job stage directors, who are almost ubiquetous. I like being challenged, don't get me wrong. But there's a point where the "shock of the new" just becomes banal.
Roger Norrington became knighted and insisted on being addressed as SIR Roger Norrington. What a waste of a sword !!!
I don't care if you dislike his music but this is kinda nasty.
@@patrickstaples95 agreed.
@@andrewclarke6899 I was referring to the top post's comment "What a waste of a sword." Which has very violent connotations. Whether or not you like Sir Roger's work he doesn't need to be hurt by a sword,. Mr Williams post is plain nasty and really should be deleted.
@@patrickstaples95 I don't think that's what they meant
I agree that Celibidache was idiosyncratic. He was also a holdover from the era of conducting tyrants, and his high-handed ways helped him get what he wanted for good and sometimes for bad, but also alienated people who might have otherwise been open to his ideas.
But I would never, ever lump him together with Norrington, who is simply a nobody used by the UK's recording industry for its own purposes.
I really like some of Celibidache's older recordings. His newer, super-slow recordings on EMI are intolerable. I've never heard a Norrington recording I've liked.
Thank you for another very entertaining lecture. Speaking as someone who has been in the past extremely impressionable (but tries so hard not to be these days!), I wonder how many of your viewers have actually made up their own mind or have been seduced by your enthusiasm, passion and charisma to follow your opinions without question. To your credit, you do often state that listeners should make their own mind up but your issues with Norrington can sound just a little bit like Leibowitz's opinion of Sibelius (that was a great video- thanks!). A spurious but relevant example would be the question, "did Leibowitz help prejudice Boulez's opinion of Sibelius?". I don't know but if RL was an inspiring and charismatic teacher, he may have done so. I can't find any recordings of Boulez conducting Sibelius- as for concert performances, I'm not at all sure. I agree with so much of what you say in your excellent lectures but not everything. Do you think that there is a Church of David Hurwitz evolving? I doubt it but you are extremely charismatic and persuasive when passing on your thoughts. I'm more capable of being a doubting Thomas these days and am skeptical of many things and am grateful of it but I know that I'm more of a follower than a leader and even these days need often to check myself. As someone who has immersed himself in music as you have and has been to more concerts and has listened to more recorded music (where do you get the time- do you sleep?) than most of us could ever imagine and has studied and analysed music to a very high level, your opinions carry huge authority. However, please step-up your efforts to encourage your viewers to make up their own minds and to never take your opinions as the gospel truth. Sir Roger may well be an embodiment of "the emperor's new clothes" but we must come to our own informed conclusions.
But my opinions are gospel truth--indeed, they aren't opinions at all. They are facts. Objective, unquestionable facts. As such, I don't have to worry about the rise of the "Church of Dave," because there is nothing spiritual about what I do, and no place for blind faith. I deal in reality.
Sorry, couldn't resist that one.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Ho ho! Thanks.
If your comments were political or social you would be cancelled according to contemporary mores. Thank god that you CANNOT be cancelled. Not sure I agree with every thing you say here, but what does that matter?
I strongly defend aiming to approximate the timbre of instruments that composers had at their disposal. I also strongly agree with your proposition that the musicians should primarily try to respect what most likely were the composer's intentions. Many times these aims coincide, such as Mozart played on a fortepiano, where the pianist can play in a more unrestrained way than makes sense with this music on a Steinway concert grand.
Clearly in this endeavour it is possible to find those who are very misguided. If a composer has left detailed markings, it is important to play at a tempo at which these marking can be both played and heard.
I remember RN describing the prelude to Tristan und Isolde as requiring a 2 in the bar barcarolle beat. Humph.
I'm sure I heard some of his Wagner. Butchery might be one word to sum it up. I have enjoyed listening to some of the concerts from Stuttgart with him. Not all bad, but I've never paid much attention to any of his commercial recordings.
I must admit that I like some of the more "classical" Norrington's recordings (like some Mozart, for example). But when it comes for romantic music, his ideas sound very strange. In his Beethoven cycle, for example, more than the absence or vibrato, his strict fidelity to the metronom markings makes the music sound too fast... but not his 9th symphone, in which he adopt a slower speed... tricky...
He's not faithful to the metronome markings. Often, he's fast or (as you note) slower.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I forgot to mention that I am talking about the London Classical Players recordings, I didn't listen with the Stuttgart orchestra.
I'm going to do a guilty sample of one of Beethoven Symphonies and the Tallis Fantasia from somewhere like Spotify (so it's free!). He's not someone I've ever had in my collection otherwise (which says something, I suspect), but I am strangely looking forward to being horrified :) It's like watching train wrecks, I guess.
Actually a disappointingly high proportion of Norrington's performances are train wrecks (Berlioz LCP Fantastique, Beethoven's 9th, Brahms (everything) the list goes on, and on) so you should have no problem there. However I always ask people to listen to his LCP version of Beethoven's 2nd and 8th and perhaps his Rossini overtures disk - I think they're witty and revelatory. Shame he really couldn't keep that going!
@@curseofmillhaven1057 I quite liked the 8th (and the 5th), in the sense that they were clean and crisp, in a detached and disengaged way. Not quite the car crash I was expecting, shall we say -but also nothing I was stirred or gob-smacked by enough to want to listen again (unlike the Markevitch 5th, which knocked me sideways). I then listened to his Tallis Fantasia with the LPO... and found that quite acceptable. There seemed to be a flexible tempo (for once) and even a hint of vibrato. A certain music critic of note has also mentioned elsewhere that his Planets might be worthwhile: I've yet to get hold of a sample, though.
I love Norrington and he is truly a gem of a person.
He may be delightful as a human being, but he's an abomination as a musician (mostly).
Surprised you've never mentioned Norrington's Mahler 9 with SWR. His approach to the adagio is so appalling it sounds like he's mocking the music.
Oh, I've mentioned it, believe me. www.classicstoday.com/features/ClassicToday-NorringtonMahlerNinth.pdf
@@DavesClassicalGuide That's a very fine PDF! Nicely documented, neatly argued. I also like your characterisation of Norrington there: "From a purely note‐
accurate point of view, [Norrington's] is better played [than Bruno Walter's recording]" (referring to Norrington's Mahler 9). Having just listened to samples of his Beethoven 5th and 8th, with the London Classical Players, I think I would concur: note-accurate (ish), but played much like a MIDI file would be: metronomically and with all the expression that a computer could muster. They were actually 'cool' (in the emotionally-distant sense), which I personally didn't mind too much. But the race through the notes without any sense of love for a single one of them was pretty bad.
*THAT* Mahler 9th. I still have nightmares. I felt so sorry for the orchestra.
@@DavesClassicalGuide My mistake! Should be more diligent.
There will be collectors out there who own all Norrington recordings. Think about that for a minute.
They aren't collectors. They are victims.
I am one of those so-called victims who own Norrington recordings: Rossini, Wagner, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann. Except - I don't consider myself a victim. And I also don't consider Roger Norrington some sort of Antichrist or diabolus in musica. To me, Norrington is simply another performance practice-based conductor with a different view on interpretation. And I'm glad that I had the opportunity to choose something different to compare my other recordings with. Wouldn't it be incredibly dull, if only Herbert von Karajan recordings were available? Long live musical diversity!
@@reneblom2160 Yes, it would be dull, but it's not because there has always been plenty of diversity, so that's not an issue. And you know perfectly well and I would never argue against diversity. I argue against crap. Norrington isn't the antichrist, he's a fraud, and that's a very different matter. Diversity is lovetly, but diversity for its own sake is meaningless, especially when people have so many options, limited funds, and can do so much better than Norrington in all of the music that he conducts. THAT, my friend, is where I come in, and I make no apologies for it. If you like his stuff, great, but you can enjoy just as much diversity and have a much finer collection of music in the process if you disregard him.
Hello David, I enjoy your videos and informative opinion. But I wish you did not call others 'crazy' and 'wacko' just for not playing music to your taste.... I watched 2 videos in the last couple days and at least 3 people were called that way: Celi (here), Goebel (reviewing his box set), and some more in this video....You are a very good reviewer, and in my view, do not need to 'personalize yourself' in this fashion :)
Best regards.
Taste has nothing to do with it! I call them what they are. I'm sorry if that disturbs you, but the bad behavior isn't mine. It's theirs. They abuse the courtesy and politesse to which they feel entitled, and I'm not going to let that pass unmentioned.
Ouch… 😶🥂
your recordings of the handel organ concertos were what got me interested into music on historical instruments. i still think they're the best recordings of these works.
There is an unspoken rule in the business, I have noticed, that performers will not criticize each other (save on very rare occasions). That's perfectly fine and quite understandable. Got to keep everyone working. That's one small reason why critics are necessary.
@@DavesClassicalGuide would love to have a martini evening with you sometime... it would be real fun. Best R🍸
@@richardegarr1441 Well, I don't drink, but I'd love the conversation.
@@DavesClassicalGuide there’s an Eroica with Scottish Nat from a year ago which just went up on RUclips where he propagates the old big lies for the public all over again.. very sad
Apart from anything else he's another example of those conductors who start their careers conducting choirs and never really make a successful transition to leading orchestral forces, We Brits seem to specialise in them.
lol
Fully agree. He was an insignificant conductor
IMHO, Roger Norrington is the musical equivalent of a snake oil salesman. He claims to be selling you an authentic or miracle product, but he's really picking your pockets.
Now if we can get John Eliot Gardiner to retire, the world will be well.
For me the best aspect of the original instrument movement is the restoration of Baroque ornamentation. Playing on original instruments is kind of silly, I think. Why bother with a forte piano when you have a pianoforte?
For some reason, I have kept my copies of Norrington's Ninth and Symphony Fantastique that I got from the Columbia record club. But these interpretations make no sense whatsoever. It seems as if Norrington had quirky answers to minor issues of interpretation, but he missed the point of both works. The Symphony Fantastique should sound like a bad LSD trip. The Ode to Joy should sound like a goddamned ode to joy. Why is that hard? Joyless Norrington conducted the ode to the machine, instead. He was trying to make romantic music as cold, disciplined, and pointless as he possibly could. It seems as if his only objective was to intimidate the audience.
I agree with you about the restoration of ornamentation. It has brought so much early music back to life.
@@DavesClassicalGuide You the man, Hurwitz.
The poor chap... Oh my my... Maybe now - after reading this - he'll belatedly launch his real designated role as The Man from Lamancha
You wish him well?! 😂
Norrington, Gardiner, Marriner--all cut from the same cloth--the technically brilliant but stultifyingly boring school of strictly-by-the-book musical interpretation. How these gentlemen destroyed Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven etc is no joke. These are some of the most snooze inducing interpretations ever performed. However they were kept alive by the establishment which did nothing but praise them as the best thing since sliced bread.
Marriner?
@@tommynielsen7163 yup. I know i'm a heathen for saying it. I have three cd's of him with the academy of st martin in the fields which i bought long ago based on glowing reviews in the trade publications and they just bore me to tears. I know he has a lot of fans though, so i know im in the minority. That light, airy, and quick approach he prefers does nothing for me. It's beautiful at first and then as you listen more you find out there's only one setting to the gear box. It gets old quickly.
@@bluestripetiger Mr Hurwitz gave his Dvorak Wind serenade a top review. But another conductor who I pay no attention to.
One conductor down, many more to go.
My favourite conductors are not the ones who want to stamp their own personality on the music. They are the ones who go out of their way to find old and new music that is unfamiliar, which sometimes turns out to be terrific.