Re: Reply to Barry Guerrero


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Posted by B.G. on November 10, 2002 at 15:15:09:

In Reply to: Reply to Barry Guerrero posted by Tim on November 10, 2002 at 13:41:57:

Thanks for your reply. First off, I agree that the Ashkenazy/RPO Shostakovich cycle is quite good - underrated even. However, I've become a big fan of the Rudolf Barshai/Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra Shostakovich box that's out on Brilliant Classics (they liscenced it from the WDR - West German Radio). I also think that the Cologne R.S.O. is excellent throughout Gary Bertini's Mahler cycle on German EMI. Check out their Mahler 8th someday, if you can ever find it! You can get their really fine "das Lied von der Erde" from the Musical Heritage Society for a very cheap price. Ben Heppner and Marjana Lipovsek are both great on it, and the playing of the Cologne R.S.O. is incredibly disciplined. I'm straying.

As for the RPO Mahler 5th, I heard it performed just about the same time as you did, but in S.F.'s Davies Hall. I've heard many different orchestras from all over the world in Davies Hall, and I have to say that the RPO was, for my taste, not one of the more impressive ones. I've also heard the Mahler 5th performed in there at least three or four times. I do have lots of complaints about the RPO's percussion section (I'm also a hack amateur percussionist), but that's whole 'nother chapter. I have no complaints about Gatti's conducting - he did a pretty good job. I didn't note the tubaist's name, but he did use his B&H EEb. I want to stress that he managed to play the part just fine! My comments were simply about the choice of using an Eefer in that context. I wouldn't want to do that, and I've owned Eefers for a very long time now. Just to give one example, when they got to the very short tuba solo in the first movement's funeral procession, he really blasted it out there. But rather than it sounding big and/or enveloping, it sounded forced and strained to my mind's ears. Also, the Eefer is just too small to make all of those bottom register, fast runs in the middle movement scherzo, easily heard. I can't imagine how he dealt with the fork fingerings for all that, but he did.

But to get back to more general comments, I didn't want to imply that tubaists in London are poorer musicians in any way. I'm sure that wouldn't be even the slightly bit accurate! What I am saying, is that in many recent recordings that I've heard with the Philharmonia, and somewhat with the LPO (but even less so with the LSO), I have trouble hearing the tuba parts clearly. For whatever the reason, I've noticed that London orchestras, in general, tend to be very middle and top heavy (excellent horns, usually), while being rather light in the low end of the orchestra. While this may work well in composers that are more their bread & butter (V.W.; Walton; Elgar), where the scoring is often times almost very wind band-like, I don't think that it always works so well in Austro-German music, where the bass lines are very independent, and very, very important to the harmonic structure of the music. Just to give one example, I believe that performances of J.S. Bach; Haydn; Mozart, etc, where you can't hear the bass lines clearly, are completely bogus! While this may sound like I'm beating up on the English for some reason, I've noticed that even "original instrument" bands from Germany and Holland (Concentus Musicus Wien, for example) tend to have stronger emphasis on the bass line than those from England (Academy of Ancient Music, etc.). I believe that this may be a philosophical difference, and I believe that this difference spreads right on up into the big boys! If you think that there's any credibility to my observations, which are based purely upon listening (and nothing against English people, believe me), then perhaps you can explain that to me. In Austro/German music, my preference is for the low end of the orcherstra to be quite audible.

Now, to bring this back around to "Fletch", let me say this much: I notice that there's STILL a big difference between many recordings from London (certainly not all!) that have Fletch in the line-up, and those that don't. That may or may-not be a good thing, but my preference is often times still for those LSO recordings that had John Fletcher in the orchestra. Make of that what you will, but that's my personal preference.

Barry Guerrero


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