Music Chat: The Stupidest Recording Ever
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- Join me on a trip down memory lane, to that magical moment iin 1993 when Sony Classical released the stupidest production in the history of the classical recording industry. Curious? Wondering how the so-called "major" labels got where they are today? Have a look, and see if you don't agree.
Your comment “Their disaster is our good fortune” reminded me of a Yiddish-language billboard on the Lower East Side many years ago advertising a hernia truss. In Yiddish it read “דיינער קילע איז אונדזער גאדילע” (pronounced “Deiner killeh iz unzer gedilleh”). Eventually the English translation was posted: “Your rupture is our rapture.”
I'd love it if David would go into a little more details and do a video where he ranks his personal 10 favorite recordings of Il viaggio a Reims with Claudio Abbado.
In the multiverse there are even more.
LOL! You are joking!
😂😂😂
A great talk! Of course, von Karajan was playing dg off emi as far back as 1970, not to mention recording his entire repertoire many times over.
The seeds of the end of the industry go way back. A very strange business.
I just remember buying this box around 93/94. I was only 21 years old, before the Internet, and just starting my classical record collection. I’d read about this opera and all of Abbado’s praise on the press for it, so when I've saw it on the shelves, i didn't hesitate. It was quite expensive tough, around €50 on the present currency for two compact discs, more than half of my student allowance back then. I was young and inexperienced about record labels, editions and industry, so I bought it believing it was the real deal. To my surprise and dismay, some weeks later, I saw at the record store the original DG box. Now I have both, and both are great recordings, but this second one was utterly unnecessary and stupid as David rightly points out.
I guess they sound not much different
Wow. What a fascinating look inside the recording industry. Clearly Sony adopted the business model found in one of the old Three Stooges routines, The Department of Redundancy Department.
I nominate Dohnanyi's aborted Ring cycle with the Clevelan dorchestra.
Claudio Abbado, bless him, clearly never listened to or even remembered what he had recorded. I think he listened to Beethoven string quartets, other chamber, and lieder. Anything else probably would have felt like work!! In a Berlin Phil. Digital Concert Hall interview he speaks about performing Mahler, and he states that he had never performed the Eighth Symphony. To which Maurizio Pollini quickly corrected him and said he had heard it and had the recording. 'Aah, right' responded Abbado.
Wow. Good video, Dave. I actually attended the live performances of both Viaggio and Boris Godunov at the Philharmonie while living in Berlin between January 1992 and August 1994. Each of them are firmly embedded in my memory, and, of course, I happen to own the recordings of both (ah, Memory Lane...). I must be one of only 500 who bought them.
Around the same time, I can't remember exactly when, I was visiting relatives in Vienna. They succeded in securing some tickets for 'Aida': a high-up side box, which we shared with a nice Viennese couple. We couldn't see much of the stage, but had a good view into the pit. When we cot into chatting I told them I lived in Berlin, and they responded: "O! Herr Abbado was really good here, but he just did a bit too much of Rossini." Then the lights dimmed, and Giuseppe Sinopoli entered the put. What a memorable (unrecorded) 'Aida' that was...
I really admire your chutzpah and humor. Can't say it enough!
How about an episode with the most cringe-worthy CD cover photos? Lots of CD have photos of deadly serious artists staring mournfully at their instruments, or string quartets out in a forest somewhere or a conductor, in profile, wistfully starring into the infinite contemplating their need for an urgent bowel movement (looking at you Simon Rattle on your recent Mahler 2). Some of these are a scream
Already done at least two. Have a look.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I should have know :-) Looking now
I started reading Stereo Review in 1965, trying to figure out what record to buy, went to countless record stores, and shopped online since 1996. This video explains why it it was so hard to find the music I wanted. But, there is good news, right? Good recordings are now readily available. Now we need to figure out how to pay the artists, engineers, and support people who make them. Send the business executives into space and leave them there.
"they ran out of money faster." Boy, I do love these quirks of yours. You make it sound like compliments :-)
I laughed a lot and now look at my Abbado's with new insight :-)
Mhmm, the heavy metal band Apocalyptica were formed in 1993.
@@emiljung1276 Heavy metal CELLO band, yeah!
Well done! You might in this connection have a look at the reign in the early '90s of Guenter Hensler, after his supposedly successful reorganization of Polygram, at RCA/Bertelsman and his notion of which artists and repertoire would sell like crazy. It was great for me, providing interviews, attending recording sessions and writing liner notes, but another death-knell for the classical recording industry.
Dave, I saw this when it came out and although I don’t have either recording, I thought it was stupid even then.. So many other worthy Rossini opera options available to Sony / Abbado than that (as we know because of the rather splendid record of Naxos in recent years churning out piles of Rossini where we don’t have abbado and we have perfectly good but not so starry casts). Even had he don’t the Comte d’ory (which he didn’t record) off the back of the viaggio, that would have made some marketing sense and been more interesting…
Thanks for the video David. Insightful as always. Your video begs the question: is there any way back for the major labels? I mean, they must run out of inventive ways to re-issue existing recordings eventually, don't you think? And a reliance on cross-overs, or house artists playing the same repertoire, must eventually pall? Perhaps, then, the only way left is for the independents to pull clear?
Independents and self-publishing, I think. I can't imagine it costs that much to arrange and put together big collectors box sets (pretty much the only thing the big labels are good for now, apart from the odd superstar soloist) from back catalog work. I certainly do like buying the stuff the Seattle Symphony puts out for instance, as it's supporting a local orchestra directly.
David, you’re a marketing genius.
The Pesaro recording is live (DGG, 1984) and the Berlin one is studio (gah, live as well, my bad) (Sony, 1992) so I guess it looked valid on paper at least. Rossini fans can enjoy both.
I said that, but it's not the point.
@@hmhparis1904 you are right of course, I stand corrected.
As an aside to the Abbado story, i used to own a cassette tape version (!!) of the Mahler Adagio recording Dave mentions--- i must have bought it in South Korea--- and enjoyed it thoroughly...
These videos are so interesting, thank you!!
If SONY wanted to confront DG Abbado opera catalogue, they should have done Simone Boccanegra with new singers. I think it was difficult to beat DG singers, but it was worth challenging. By the way I bought Abbado’s Boris because it was a gold disc set.
I love Abbado's Boris. Such a good performance.
Carlos Kleiber allegedly refused in the end to approve his Deutsche Grammophon “Tristan und Isolde”, but the company declined, as they'd obviously spent too much money on it to do that. It is said to have soured the relationship between conductor & company.
Utube automatic caption transcribes
Abbado as "a bottle".
and "Claudio Abbado" as "Cloudy Rubato", "Boris Godunov" as "Boris gluten off", "Viaggio a Reims" as "Viagra Rams"...James Joyce had nothing on the AI captioning programs.
On another video Saint Saens became " Samsung".
Stupidest? Well, maybe, judged as a business decision. It's certainly one of the "most unnecessary", if I can put it that way. I can remember being mystified at the time.
My idea of a stupid recording is one which is made even though the lead performer is clearly inadequate - not meaning past their best but just obviously wrong. For example, the complete operas which feature Andrea Bocelli. I quite like his voice, but in complete Tosca, Trovatore, Andrea Chenier, Carmen - oh dear! Still, they seemed to sell quite well, so what do I know.
Well, business is what I was talking about...
@@DavesClassicalGuide of course, but they must have thought it would sell well enough... or wear the loss, for the sake of keeping Abbado happy. I think EMI did a bit of that with Klemperer, in his later years.
Would be seriously interesting to know what your take is with why so many CD recordings are so expensive today (Amazon) sometimes not even approachable for a reasonable person anymore.
I have no clue what is going on. It's totally insane.
@@DavesClassicalGuide my guess is they became collectible items - like baseball or mtg cards. Certainly a better investment than moronic nft 'art'
Very interesting about how bad recording end up being made
Just want to point out: The Leinsdorf/BSO Lohengrin would have been a block bluster if it had been made as originally intended.
It was to have starred not only Konya and Gorr the eternally bankable Leontyne Price!!!
I cannot say categorically what happened but, whether due to illness, not learning the part or realizing it was beyond her abilities Price cancelled and if I remember correctly that included a performance at Tanglewood the summer before the recording. She and Leinsdorf continued to work with each other in subsequent recording including Aida, and Cosi Fan Tutti so I doubt she left in a huff. Also the usually great Rita Gorr was terribly out of voice. A great voice and artist with a faulty technique that started to fail her. Notice she had no more major recording after this though continued to sing for decades in smaller roles.
Let it be said that Lucine Amara, who replaced Ms. Price, is actually very fine in the role and was a valorous and underappreciated MET artist who saved many a show and in her own new productions (Peter Grimes and Eugene Onegin) shown brightly but in a generation of velvet voiced sopranos she was never a star. Today that might be a different story.
I've mused on who else might have stepped in for Price and taking into account who was under contract for RCA and who could have sung the role who was not already contracted with DECCA or EMI Ms. Amara a good choice. Another better choice becasue she was not under contract with any company and would have made this legendary was Leonie Rysanek a truly great Elsa. The others, though under contract with DECCA would have been Regine Crespin and Renata Tebalid who would not sing in any language but her own. All great in the role. Missed opportunities and grist for the mill, but something to think about.
Pilar Lorengar had just sung Elsa at the Met in 1964 including a broadcast and would have been very fine if only RCA could have borrowed her from EMI. They borrowed Tucker from rival Columbia a number of times. Bottom line is that Amara's name, unlike Leontyne's, was going to sell zero records and without Price they should have canceled the project. Gorr had a bad cold but soldiered on. Konya is magnificent but the only other really first rate contribution among the men is Calvin Marsh's Herald, though neither name or role was going to be a selling point.
I was told by a friend that one of his friends took some opera sets backstage after a concert for Leinsdorf to autograph. Leinsdorf went through them signing them commenting. "This one is good...ah yes, this very good"; he came to the Lohengrin, paused, and said gravely, "This one has problems."
The Lohengrin recording with Leinsdorf commenced days after the live performance at Tanglewood. Leinsdorf had heard Gorr a few months before in Europe and reported to Mohr about the state of Gorrs voice but Mohr insisted they go ahead. Price cancelled months ahead and rightly so. She realized the part was centered too low for het which means that Mohr had a long time to find s replacement. How about Arroyo who actually sang it and a perfect voice for it. Certainly better than Amara who gave it all she had but you cant have Micaela singing Elsa. Leinsdorf wanted to cancel. At that time it was the most expensive opera recording ever made due to the stateside location
@@jaykauffman4775 Well, actually you can have Micaela singing Elsa. The greatest postwar Elsa, Elisabeth Grümmer sang both, even recording a querschnitt lp under Jochum, and so did one of the most famous "Golden Age" Elsas, Emma Eames: at the Met 47 Elsas and 21 Micaelas. The problem is Amara never had the individuality and star quality to bring it off in a major label and very expensive recording project. If we'd been at Tanglewood for the performances we'd probably think we had a good evening (was it broadcast?) But nobody ever bought a recording because Amara was in it. Though today she'd probably live up to the old cliche that now she'd be a much bigger star. I'd even say that despite her vocal problems, Gorr does have the temperment and oomph for Ortrud--the definitive Ludwig aside, most modern Ortruds are boring as hell which Gorr at least is not--but that creates another problem for Dooley's outclassed Telramund.
You're certainly right, young Arroyo would have been much better than Amara; and I'd bet that Mohr could have inveigled Lorengar out of EMI.
@@bbailey7818 yes but the voices of Grummer and Amara were totally different. Not only did Grummers voice have more color, body and depth but her dramatic instincts were sharper. Amaras voice was insistently of one color, weak
Amaras voice was weak at the bottom with no ability to play with color or lend any variety to the role. Just not enough intensity or substance to her singing
Wasn’t there a DG set of Beethoven symphonies by Abbado that had been withdrawn from the market and replaced with another one that the conductor preferred? What about the people who bought the initial one? Did they get a replacement?
Yes, and no! Another scandal. Everyone knew the first one was terrible.
The recording industry is an unfathomable, cosmic mystery isn’t it? Next up: Concerto Grosso for Coughers between the First and Second Movement with Herbert Von Karajan for the twelfth time.
Dear David Hurwitz, I would like to disagree as far as Abbado's Boris Gudonov recording is concerned. Indeed, there were some rivals in the 1990s. But Abbado's recording is the most accurate in terms of what Mussorgsky really COMPOSED. Only with this recording (and with no other available at that time and afterwards) can one compare and decide between the original version and the later favored (in a sense, Meyerbeeresque) version. Plus: The recordings you mention as competitors are all based on Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral (and structural) retouchings - they seem, especially next to the original version, like a soft-focus photograph of a drawing by Dürer.
So it might have been stupid in an economical perspective, but even today there is absolutely no excuse for not having (and prefering) Abbado's Boris...
Thanks for your wonderful videos! Best Regards!
Same comment as before...irrelevant. I said it was a great Boris. It doesn't matter. I was speaking from the economic perspective of the label. I said listeners got the benefit of the industry's foolishness. We don't disagree, but that's not the issue.
When in doubt … re-record. Didn’t forward looking label’s sometimes release a CD recording with a corresponding VHS or DVD? Optics help sell operas, no?
This is just chump change for Sony. I realize this post is a few years old, but it just came up on my feed. Sony Music just paid 750 million dollars for Michael Jackson's catalog, and they paid 500 million for Bruce Springsteen's. They aren't hurting for cash. I once read a story in the NY Times [It's been some years so I'm going from memory] that Sony once paid a cool million for an unknown pop singer who they thought showed promise. They set her up in an apartment in NY and got her voice lessons and dance lessons, recorded her and heavily promoted her. When they released her CD they sold all of 50 copies. Then they cut her loose. They have so much money it's nothing for them.
man, this is besides the point, but who was behind those hideous Sony opera reissue cover art? i actually like some budget reissue template art (like the current Essential Classics line) but the Sony stuff is maybe the worst I've seen for a long time.
Yes, it's pretty bad--cheapo stuff.
I was one of the three you mentioned who bought the RCA Lohengrin by Erich Leinsdorf. LOL! I thought it was fantastic (except for Rita Gorr, who was awful. I'm sure she was a great singer, just not on this recording.) The choruses were particularly great. At the time I was not very familiar with Wagner except for a few of the famous overtures, and this completely blew me away.
If they had the chance to play with the Berliner Phil it would have been a much better option to record some of the more ambitious yet almost unheard Grand Operas of Rossini that almost never are cast nor reccorded. Rossini himself thought that aside Guillaume Tell his most achieved operas were Tancredi, Zelmira and Mosés ( In Italian), and these operas are barely never performed nor played. It would have been a much better option for Sony to unleash.
Can you explain where the label "LaserLight" came from? It was a super cheap label that came out in the late 80's.
It was another sub-label of Delta music, which also owned Capriccio.
4 people bought Leinsdorf’s Lohengrin. I bought one
There is 5, I bought one.
It was my first Lohengrin and my 2nd Wagner opera, decades ago now, and I heard it a lot, falling in love with Wagner. But it was a library lp copy so I never paid a nickel for it. Later I heard the great Kempe EMI and realized how much better that was, except for Konya. Though I now also own the RCA.
I bought it and have no regrets whatsoever. Konya’s Lohengrin is solid.
I don't know, If there exists a recording with Cages 4'33" on it, that would have to take the cake am I right?
No. My cat recorded the best 4'33" and there's a video.
On a more positive note, would you consider a chat about remakes that were totally justified? It will be great to do comparisons where a conductor's contrasting interpretations came out equally well, or simply a conductor's view evolving over time.
Interesting idea. I'll think about it!
Are you going to do a best Boris Godunov? I don't see it in your playlist
Some year.
As soon as David finishes Bach's Cantata Schlep.
Peter: As soon as Dave has time to listen to the Abbado recording. Ha, ha, ha!
So where's Naxos fit into all this. They're churning out quite a few recordings every month.
Not opera.
Will there be any cds in the future ? If there are any issued of rare works they will be very limited edition. I am buying up rare stuff German French and Lou Harrison.
Um. If you've ever had the bad luck to work for the likes of global conglomerates such as SONY, you might know that this or that Division may be the special "creative accounting" workhorse as to tax losses.
They don't care about making money, they care about losing money. Who would question losses at Classical? Everyone knows that Classical loses money!
Hate to be a cynic, but I'm very skeptical about being anything else.