Ernest Ansermet Conducts Everything NOT French or Russian (Preview: Ansermet's 10 Best Recordings)
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- Decca has already released three large boxes containing 30+ CDs each, featuring Ansermet's recordings of French music, Russian music, and "The European Tradition." The first two have already been reviewed for ClassicsToday Insider, and I discuss the "Everything Else" box in this video as a preview to ClassicsToday's "10 Best" feature. If you aren't' yet an Insider subscriber, please consider signing up using this link: www.classicstoday.com/classic...
Additionally, here are links for Insider members to reviews of the other Ansermet boxes and some of the recordings in this box as well:
www.classicstoday.com/review/...
www.classicstoday.com/review/...
www.classicstoday.com/review/... 
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I love this anecdote about Ansermet. He was conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and in rehearsal he was getting a rather rough ride from the orchestra. In the end, he stormed, "You think I know f**k nothing, but you're all wrong, I know F**K ALL! There were gales of laughter! Wonderful conductor!
The fun of putting aggressive words in wrong place of sentence.😁
I grew up in Geneva and came of musical age in the early 70's, a few years after his death. I would go see the OSR once a week, including Wednesdays' live performances from the Radio Studio, for the price of 50 Swiss Centimes. Now I understand why when they starting performing Mahler for the first time around 1972 or 73 it created such a frisson. We do owe Ansermet one thing: Without that one single performance of Magnard's Third Symphony, his last recording and the only recording of his Magnard's music available for years, who knows if he would have been saved from oblivion
I have all three of these sets and cherish them - as always, I learn something from each and every one of your talks - thank you for that!
As a kid , I grew up in a home where my parents encouraged our music listening.
At that time , ' London Records ' , issued the ' Richmond ' series , which were low priced LP's with works by the great composers , conducted by famous directors.
I recall Debussy's " La Mer " , and Ravel's " Ma mere l'oye " , conducted by the Maestro and l'OSR.
I would add Stravinsky's " Rite of spring " , that came in another album.
Manuel de Falla , was another of my favorites , where the Maestro directed " El Amor Brujo " & " El Sombrero de tres picos ".
My all favorite , was Ravel's " Valses Nobles et Sentimentales " & " Le tombeau de Couperin " , which were orchestral versions , directed by the Maestro & l'OSR.
I'm so happy , to find all these videos on the Maestro , nowadays.
Thank you so much for your video.
PS. I still have those venerable LP's.
Ansermet WAS an interpretative genius. The problem was that he could not lift the Orchestre Suisse-Romande to the level of EvB's Concertgebouworkest, Reiner's Chicago, Szell's Cleveland, or any others in that exalted league. The sour wind playing at the start of Waltz of the Flowers in his complete NUTCRACKER is an unsightly pothole on an otherwise beautiful pavement. (When I first heard it, I couldn't believe that time wasn't taken for a re-take - but maybe that WAS the re-take.) But his final recording, the complete FIREBIRD, with the New Philharmonia (November 1968), shows what he could do with a better orchestra.
I bought his Faust back in the day my senior year of high school. I still really like and enjoy it. The recorded sound is fantastic.
The stereo version of Falla's El sombrero de tres picos is not included in these Italian Decca boxes. Only the mono version is in the 'European Tradition' box. A couple of other recordings were left out of these boxes as well.
I bought a used set of the Haydn “Paris” symphonies in the 80s, and I treasured it. It cemented my lifelong fandom of Papa Haydn.
I have not heard a number of these recordings and need to search them out! However, I treasure the Berlioz and Ravel songs. Listen to them frequently. Thank you!
When I started collecting Classical music I’d buy from the bargain bin. And it was before I was able to distinguish between conductors, etc. . One of my earliest purchases was Ansermet’s Sibelius 4th. I haven’t listened to it in ages, but I recall enjoying it.
Longinotti was principal trumpet in the L'Orchestra de la Suisse Romande. I have his etudes book that I play from at times.
Regarding "Hunnenschlacht", I read it had been inspired by a grand painting Liszt saw during one of his receptions in respectable palaces in Germany, and just "transcribed" the visual into music in his head. A true "synesthetic" masterpiece. :) And, of course, the Christians win as the mighty organ sounds.
when you have 14 years old in 1972 and you start to buy classical records ,you d,ont want to pay higth price....my first first records i buy,is the 5th symphony of beethoven with ansermet and after i buy the 9th( and all beethoven symphonies)...and however my records collection start with ansermet ( schereazade,pacific 231,ravel debussy,haydn,etc....) i thing i make the good choice for beginning in classical.....at 3.99$ canadian, each lp ( london ace of diamond,london treasury series etc)....i enjoy to listen and discover beautiful music with ansermet,and other musicians of course...!....the haydn paris symphonies is my best with ansermet...today...and i still have my first ansermet lp....today
I recently bought the Scribendum 45CDs Stereo Ansermet box at a fairly low price with well packed CDs. Do you think it would still be worth to invest in the new stereo Decca box? I already know I am missing the Bach cantatas but the essential seems already here.
I have no idea. That is for you to decide for yourself.
Does the Scribendum box have the same recrordings?
David, I'm very curious what you, as a timpanist, think of its sound in the Brahms 4 Mvt-I coda, banging out those 8ths just before the final chord (I only know the stereo version, dunno whether he did it earlier). I always found his handling of that movement satisfying and that timpani, played rather forcefully, quite the thing. I am curious about its timbre, What do you think?
...I also very much appreciate Ansermet not indulging an egregious ritardando in the coda that almost everybody does. Despicable.
Sorry, I meant "...banging out those 4th's" (it's in 2/2 time)
"Incompetence is a transcendental virtue" haha! Can I use that on some of my students, please?!
Sure. Feel free.
I certainly learnt a few things about the Swiss conductor that I didn't know before - and perhaps still wished I didn't!. I have those Haydn "Paris" symphonies and think they're awful. However, his Falla was superb. My favourite recording is LXT2502; his mono "Petrushka". Exceptional.
Regarding Haydn's great symphony number 90, it may be comparatively unknown in this country,, but in the UK they appreciate 90, 91 and 92 so include them in the cycle of London symphonies, and regard them also as equally masterful.
Really? Who are "they?"
Culshaw's memoirs, ok, to be taken with grains of salt, suggest that Ansermet's desire to record the LvB 9 was a cross they had to bear to get the rep they really wanted. True or not, the NINTH seems never to have been released except crammed onto a single lp--and some of us will remember that Woodstock quasi summer of love photo and packaging.
Permit me to suggest the noteworthy Ansermet/Royal Opera House Orchestra/RCA Living Presence recording of numerous ballet scores and suites available on CD or on numerous vinyl re-pressings. The performances are consistently pretty solid and the recording (actually a DECCA Wilkinson Kingsway job done for RCA) is truly seductive. Admittedly, an "audiophile favorite".
I mentioned it. It is in the Decca set.
Dave: I own all three of the Decca Ansermet boxes, but I keep coming back for more from the "Everything Else" box that you've discussed. I never thought anyone would seriously review it, hardly anyone has; and yet in my opinion it's good stuff, even if the Haydn isn't what it once was. My question to you is why was Ansermet so popular back in the days of earlier, especially stereo recordings? Was it his talent, a reliable "Brand Name", Decca Records, what? To my mind, back then he really was huge, almost Karajan like in cult status and everyone had a least a few of his records. And now hardly anyone know the name, that is unless you're well into your dotage. :) What made him once so special only to fade away into an undeserved obscurity?
I think it was a combination of the advent of stereo, the Decca label, the interesting French and Russian repertoire (and Stravinsky, that kept the hard core contemporary music commentariat happy), the genuine qualities of the interpretations, and the far smaller catalogue back then.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Good point, and it makes perfect sense. I only hope that one day in the future Ansermet's star will again burn brightly. Thank you for your reply.
Can you tell me...do the CDs in these 3 Ansermet boxes have the original Decca covers or are they generic covers?
Thanks!
@@IsothermeMusic No, they're generic stock photos of the theme within the three box sets; Paris for the French Music Box, Moscow for the Russian Music box, etc. Sorry. :(
An absolutely wonderful maestro - except for that whole irrational anti-Semitic wack job thing. Made a lot of fantastic music despite never transforming his band into an A+ ensemble. Can’t wait to hop over and see the 10 best recordings.
Ansermet doesn't get much respect, but I have some fine records. I think it was his Suisse romand orchestra that wasn't great.
Thanks for taking on Ansermet in advance of the two new boxes to be released in the not too distant future. Since I have all three volumes of Decca's previous Ansermet gambit--more recordings than I will get around to auditioning in whatever time I have left on this earth--I shan't be investing in the new edition. My admiration for the conductor took a hit, however, by leaning from you that he was an anti-Semite. I naively assumed that, being Swiss and not German, he would have escaped that disastrous bias. But of course I still admire the work of Mengelberg, Gieseking, Böhm and Clemens Krauss knowing that both were Nazi sympathizers. I do feel guilty sometimes for loving the music of Wagner too much, given his antisemitism and just plain nastiness. All of which prompts me to remark that you owe us a discourse on so-called "cancel culture" as it applies to classical composers and performers. How far should we revise our estimation of "great but vicious" artists who colluded with evil without suffering appropriate censure? And then there's the question of "cultural appropriation," which, if applied to classical music, might convince some to "cancel" the orientalisms of Das Lied von der Erde, to say nothing of the stereotyping in the characteristic dances of the Nutcracker. Too much to take on in one or your talks, but it would be interesting to get your take on these timely and controversial matters.
Be careful what you wish for...
Stravinsky wasn't Jewish (didn't Ansermet know this?). In fact Stravinsky was not considered a philosemite -yet he associated with Jewish artists.
I think David said they broke over Schoenberg and HIS theories.
Yes. Stravinsky also had a strong anti-Semitic streak, but "used" whoever he needed to.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Viz Wagner. Was gibt's Neues?
On the philosophic anti-semite angle, it's bizarre that he conducted and recorded Schelomo, "a Hebraic Rhapsody". There's little point in asking for consistency from these idiots, but from an armchair psychiatrist perspective I'd be curious to know his tangled reasoning for this!
Like many Jewish people still adore the music of Wagner (despite his toxic anti-semitism), there are anti-semites who still find beauty in Jewish art.
Huge fan of Ansermet. This was the first I've heard of him being an anti-semite. Disappointing to say the least.
Yes. It seemed even more pointlessly gratuitous and mean than usual.
I discovered your channel three weeks ago. I have watched about 30 videos and yes, they are entertaining and generally informative. But I've had enough of you already Mr Hurwitz. I'm glad that you have many fans but I'm not one of them. I'm done with you. Your manner and language are too crude and vulgar for my taste. Nevertheless, I wish you continued success with your channel.
Well, you can't please everyone. I'm sure you'll find other sources of information that are more to your taste, and I wish you the best.