Where is classical music headed?
- Thread starter rojo
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Ouled Nails
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Janny wrote:
"What made Furtwangler and Toscanini great conductors? Don't you think there are any great ones today? Any Russians? Gergiev has made a lot of media. Do you think he's real or hype?"
I personally do not think that a conductor is "great" forever and in interpreting every composer. There is no such being as a great Toscanini whatever he performs (In fact, Shostakovich made a lot of fun of him, basically viewing him as a complete failure with respect to modern music). You ask "Any Russians?" Oh, yeah, lots and lots of them who could show Italian or American conductors a few things about Russian/Soviet music. This notion that conductors are great/not great is so simplistic that it's not worth pursuing. A Bernstein could be great at a given point in his life or with certain kind of works, but not so great elsewhere. Indeed, if you just take Mahler's symphonies, it's mighty difficult to find a first-rate, top, beat-them-all conductor for all nine (or ten) symphonies.
My grain of salt.....
"What made Furtwangler and Toscanini great conductors? Don't you think there are any great ones today? Any Russians? Gergiev has made a lot of media. Do you think he's real or hype?"
I personally do not think that a conductor is "great" forever and in interpreting every composer. There is no such being as a great Toscanini whatever he performs (In fact, Shostakovich made a lot of fun of him, basically viewing him as a complete failure with respect to modern music). You ask "Any Russians?" Oh, yeah, lots and lots of them who could show Italian or American conductors a few things about Russian/Soviet music. This notion that conductors are great/not great is so simplistic that it's not worth pursuing. A Bernstein could be great at a given point in his life or with certain kind of works, but not so great elsewhere. Indeed, if you just take Mahler's symphonies, it's mighty difficult to find a first-rate, top, beat-them-all conductor for all nine (or ten) symphonies.
My grain of salt.....
janny108
New member
Music8
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Music as time goes by, evolve and new styles and techniques will be discovered. New forms will come out. Musicians are creative and are always looking for something different to make their piece more interesting, new, and unique. They have different personalities and tastes of their own music. More so, they have their own way of expression and technique. With their own music and expression, they broke rules and develop new forms, which evidently give birth to contemporary music. I think that time will come when composers will no longer follow any rules and their feelings will be the base of composing. Feelings with their music, reflects their personalities freely to what their hearts desire. Music is free, and is free for everyone.
Kromme
New member
Jan,
In my opinion Furtwaengler and Toscanini are the greatest representatives of two main approach to the music.Furtwaengler was the conductor of sublime inspiration and incredibly personal and passionate readings.However Toscanini tried to make music just as the composer intended.They were very different but they were the most acclaimed of their style.
Well now,there are good ones but not great ones.Abbado,Haitink,Muti, Jansons all are very good conductors technically but just not great emotionally.They all lack the inner fire most of the time.They are occasionally great and when i mean occasion i do not talk about repertoire.I talk about the performances.For example Jansons and his Oslo Tchaikovsky cycle masterly first 3,an incredible 6th,outstanding 5th,out-of-this-world 4th but an awful Manfred.Or his Shostakovich cycle:Russian and bitter 4th as it should be,a real great account of this great symphony but the 5th which should be as bitter and as Russian is free of any Russian taste but sweet and warm and Viennese.His Shostakovich 7th with Leningrad is a magnificent epic account however his other account with Concertgebouw is awful trying to find some lyric and melodic beauty in that banal 20 minute-long march.Same with Haitink's two recordings of Bruckner's 8th or Muti's two recordings of Verdi's Requiem.I agree with Ouled Nails when he says conductors are great in some repertoires and they are not so great at the others.Furtwaengler was not a great Tchaikovsky conductor maybe,but whenever he did Beethoven or whenever Böhm did Mozart or whenever Tennstedt did Mahler it was out of this earth.But todays conductors lack this consistency.
About Gergiev:I think a conductors quality can be judged best at a live perfomance.I have not watched Gergiev live yet but as far as my experience with his recordings goes (Tchaikovsky,Shostakovich,Prokofiev) he's closer to being hype than being real.I heard nothing special in any of his recodings but especially his Shostakovich's Symphony No.7,Verdi's Requiem and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.4 are awful.
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janny108
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How do you get the musical note for your avatar? How many posts do you have to have?
Jan
Jan,
You may upload your own custom avatar from a website (entering the url) or from your computer. Maximum size of your custom image is 80 by 80 pixels, or 146.5 KB, whichever is smaller. From any page in the forum, click on "User Control Panel" found at the top left - a drop down menu appears, then select "Edit Avatar". Good luck :grin:
Ouled Nails
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When people attempt to describe greatness in words, I kind of wonder why these superlatives only apply to a single individual. This is how Toscanini's biographer, Sachs, described the maestro's greatest qualities:
He was renowned for his brilliant intensity, his restless perfectionism, his phenomenal ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory which gave him extraordinary command over a vast repertoire of orchestral and operatic works, and allowed him to correct errors in orchestral parts unnoticed by his colleagues for decades.
Great qualities, to be sure, but unique to Toscanini?! The "photographic memory" part is important particularly with the romantic repertoire. For his time, Toscanini was outstanding in his Beethoven, Brahms, numerous Italian composers, Dvorak's ninth, Mendelsohn, Wagner, Richard Strauss ... When he turned his attention to the modern repertoire, however, the result was not always that great or one can easily find equally great performances by several other conductors.