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Herbert Blomstedt is age 86, and do not miss him if he conducts in your town! Last year, he conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in Beethoven Symphony 7, and it was one of the most kinetic (without being rushed, cf. Chailly) performances I can recall. And a well-done Nielsen 3 (we don't hear much Nielsen here).
Last night he was back in Cleveland and led a superb performance of Tchaikovsky 6 and the Dvorak Cello Concerto (with Mark Kosower). It may show up in a broadcast at some point in the future.
With all the acclaim and media attention that MTT has gotten, I hope people haven't forgotten the many wonderful and well-recorded performances on Decca that Blomstedt led in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s, e.g., all the Nielsen symphonies, Mendelssohn 3 and 4, Schubert 8, various works of Hindemith, Brahms German Requiem, many others. And there is a fine older set of the Beethoven symphonies with Staatskapelle Dresden, decent sound, easily found at a budget price.
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I am a huge fan of his German Requiem on CD. It's so expressive and tempos are perfect. Unfortunately the recording is not as dynamic as it should be.
"In celebration of his return to the San Francisco this April, Decca presents 15 of the greatest of his SFS recordings, some of which have not been available for some time."
OK, not the entire catalog of DECCA Recordings made during the San Francisco years, but still...
Link below:
Blomstedt's Mathis der Maler on London is spectacular.
My favorite until I heard Furtwangler's explosive version.
always thought that his recording of the Sibelius 5th was pretty decent.
-
"You weren't afraid of being born--why would you be afraid of dying?" Alan Watts
Edits: 04/20/14
I can tell you that many of the older players in the SFSO remember Edo de Waart much more fondly than Blomstedt. He made some great music with them, though almost no recordings. There is a Mahler 4 on LP that I have from that era. And being a wind player myself, I love all of Edo's recordings with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. All of those great Mozart recordings are well worth seeking out if you like wind chamber music.
This is not to knock Blomstedt, just to say that the players preferred Edo by some distance.
Had to be away for a couple of days - didn't realize my post about Edo would generate so many comments! I agree that he was the one who really raised the standards of that ensemble. However, comparing it to today's SFSO under MTT is a different animal altogether - a VERY large percentage of the orchestra turned over between those two music directors. It is almost a completely different set of musicians between the end of Edo's tenure and the current group. So you can't really make a comparison between how those two worked with the same set of musicians, because they really didn't.
I've always felt that Edo de Waart was greatly underappreciated during his time in SF. The orchestra's playing improved to world-class levels under his leadership, easily paving the way for Blomstedt to take over. I fondly remember attending many wonderful concerts that he conducted, including an electrifying Rachmaninoff 2nd that will always stick in my memory. The few Philips recordings he made with the SFS were all great, including that Mahler 4th (sadly never released on CD, though it is--or was--available as a lossless download), an all-Respighi disc, Grieg Peer Gynt excerpts, Wagner's Symphony in C and a couple of overtures, Ravel's Sheherazade (with Elly Ameling), the Rachmaninoff piano concertos (with Zoltan Kocsis), and a disc of Adams and Reich works. And let's not forget the pioneering discs he made of John Adams' music for Nonesuch and ECM.
Russell
I admit that I didn't get to as many of Edo's concerts as I would have liked - for one thing I lived in LA from 1975 to 1979.....I would also agree that Davies was a beast acoustically when it first opened. Having said that, I think Edo obtained what I would call variable results from the SFS. I saw him perform Mahler's 7th once and the orchestral execution left a lot to be desired. IMO, standards improved under Blomstedt and MTT. Edo's career did seem to stall after he left San Francisco. I don't think he was in Minnesota that long, and that would be pretty much a lateral move at best.
The SFSO Adams recordings gave many of us our first opportunity to hear these works, which seemed so strange and wonderful at the time.
Happy listening,
Jim
"The passage of my life is measured out in shirts."
- Brian Eno
. . . is that I felt the Philips recordings he made with the SF Symphony were very overmiked and artificial sounding: at that time, I had a student who sang in the women's chorus of the Elly Ameling recording you cited (in Debussy's "La damoiselle élue"). I asked her how many microphones were used in that recording. "At least 30" was her answer! Same with the Kocsis Rachmaninoff piano concertos: excellent performances undone by artificial sounding engineering. Too bad.I liked Edo, and I've been surprised that he didn't land a higher profile position after he left SF. The three symphonies I've heard from his complete Mahler symphonies with the Netherlands Radio Phil suggest that it might be one of the great unknown sets of those works. OTOH, my wife didn't care for him - but I think some of this had to do with an interview she heard where she felt that Edo was not being respectful to the interviewer.
Edits: 04/20/14
Of course I was talking about the performances and not necessarily the sound quality of the recordings, which were variable at best. I remember being elated to read of the SFS's new recording contract with Philips and then being disappointed to hear that the recordings were to be done using the then-new digital process. Analog was at its height then (ca. 1980) and the first digital recordings weren't impressive at all except in their total absence of background noise (and probably other stuff as well!). I definitely remember noting that the Mahler 4th LP sounded flat and squashed (soundstage-wise) compared with the analog stuff that Philips was doing just before then. (I'm sure Davies Hall didn't help, either.) But I thought Edo's and the orchestra's performance was top-notch.
Interesting tidbit about the Mahler 4: Margaret Price, the soprano soloist, was in town for a run of 'Aida' performances at the SFO, and caught a bad cold. She had to cancel at least one Aida performance, during which another Price--Leontyne--gloriously substituted. There was some doubt as to whether she'd be able to do the Mahler, but she miraculously got better--in time for the international telecast of Aida as well as the recording of the Mahler.
Russell
during the move to Louise M. Davies Hall.
Not a fun first few years, as many felt the new hall had issues.
Including me!
Didn't he go to Minnesota after here? Decent band, that.
But I guess we've all gotten used to it over the years. ;-) (Still, I've always preferred Davies to the Opera House.)
One thing I forgot to mention was that Edo really set the tone for the improvement in the orchestra's playing, since, during his tenure, the players had to choose between playing in the symphony and playing in the opera orchestra. Since many chose the opera orchestra (some with Edo's encouragement!), Edo was in charge during the huge influx of new players into the symphony at that time, which, by all accounts, really improved the quality of the orchestra's playing and set new, higher standards for performance which continued under Blomstedt and MTT.
You're right - I had forgotten that Edo went on to Minnesota (taking the great Jorja Fleezanis with him to be concert mistress there), but then dropped more out of sight after that gig was over.
Yep, much like 'break in' of a new audio component, I long ago became accustomed to its flaws. ;-)
Great shot above. Don't know what Vanska is saying but I'm pretty sure Jorja has heard it all before!
Edits: 04/20/14 04/20/14 04/20/14
I've seen him do Bruckner 5 and Sibelius 2 in the last few years with the SFS. I am no Brucknerite but the performance seemed excellent to me, and the Sibelius was luminous. I told myself last year that I was going to catch him each year but I couldn't make it work this year. Shame.
was out of town and missed him this year. Vowed not to miss him as we
don't know how many performances we have left.
Hope he's around a bit longer.
Yeah - I like many of Blomstedt's recordings too, and I kind of remember the Blomstedt years here in SF as "the good old days", although a couple of players in the orchestra told me that when he guest-conducted here a couple of years ago, they didn't dare watch him too closely or else their ensemble unanimity would suffer! ;-)
Also, the Beethoven Ninth from that SkD set you mention used to be available in a 24-bit DVD transfer from BRO. I have it, but I don't know if it's still available. As I've also mentioned, I really like his recent SACD set of the Bruckner symphonies with the LGO.
The ensemble unity was excellent in the performance I saw this week. I don't want to run down MTT--there are some really fine performances I've watched/heard him lead (TV and disc) in SF, including Appalachian Spring, Ives Holidays Symphony, Rite of Spring.
I loved MTT's Mahler 9 here in Chicago last year. Much better than I expected.
I would love to see Blomstedt's Bruckner 9th LIve.
Haitink also is getting up in his age ( also 85) and I try to catch his performance any time I can.
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