Beethoven: Symphonies 5 & 7
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Conductor: Gustavo DudamelOrchestra: Simon Bolivar Sym. Orch. of Venezuela
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-08-08
Music Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Soundtracks:
- Allegro Con Brio
- Andante Con Moto
- Allegro
- Allegro
- Poco Sostenuto - Vivace
- Allegretto
- Presto
- Allegro Con Brio
Music reviews of Beethoven: Symphonies 5 & 7
Music Review: Gimme a Break! Now Conductors Are Hyped Like Over-Priced Start-Up Wines
Rating: 2 Stars
I have four friends who, like most of you, loved this CD and thought my criticism was off base. My friends had all heard Dudamel in concert and raved. So, out of both fairness and idle curiousity we all agreed to a blind comparison against the same symphonies recorded by a couple other conductors (another friend acting as impartial referee chose two other conductors unbeknownst to us - Pierre Monteux and Carlos Keliber.) As a wine person I tend to enjoy seeing how blind tastings turn out - though I make my fair share of mistakes and sometimes wince when the bags are uncovered.
The result? Three of us preferred the Keliber recording of the 5th, two the Monteux. All had the Dudamel dead last. Before the names were uncovered one lady was absolutely sure the Kleiber 5th was the Dudamel performance. The two biggest Dudamel fans unknowingly dished the Dudamel 7th, one going so far as to call its slow movement "completely impossible." When the actual CDs were exposed to the light of day two listeners had chosen the Monteux, two the Kleiber, and one, who obviously spends too much time at the fights, had it even. Once again Dudamel was DEAD LAST on all five scorecards. That's a clean ten out of ten.
I thought the sound of the Dudamel CD and some of his tempos would give him away, but it didn't turn out that way - a credit perhaps to my friends' efforts at impartiality. Now such a small sampling doesn't prove much, but it does raise a few doubts, as it certainly did with the local Dudamel fan club. Dudamel is quite good, and will soon be a household name, if his publicity machine has any say. And I grant my review my score is harsh; but sometimes when we listen WITHOUT PRECONCEIVED OPINIONS we make a more informed judgement. The best part of all this was I gained an added appreciation for Monteux's skills as a Beethoven conductor; I knew he was very good, but I didn't realize just how good. You might give him a listen. Here I found my own Germanic prejudices showing! We all gain when we listen before we make up our minds.
Referring sarcastically to the marketing schemes of new wineries who, without any track record, set stratospheric prices for their brand new wines, one of my closest and wisest friends points out that wine is the only product you can fool all the people about all the time. His point being not that the newest wines are not very good, but rather maybe they should wait awhile before they begin comparing themselves to the likes of Cheval Blanc and La Tache. This comparison crossed my mind as I was reading all these ecstatic reviews of this CD. I was stunned - had any of these reviewers ever heard Kleiber or Furtwangler - or any number of other great Beethoven conductors? If so wise readers will do well to discount any future comments by these Dudamel bandwagoners. Perhaps it's time to add the classical music world to this P.T. Barnum update. Certainly young stars of the musical firmament generate buzz, it's only human, and has been going on for centuries. Yet things seem even more accelerated these days than ever: in the Age of the Internet popularity can be manufactured in a heck of a hurry. And such sudden idolatry is never a good thing when it comes to critical balance.
Listening to these two performances showcases a contagious enthusiasm, but also some less attractive tendencies. Without going on at length there seems to be one fundamental difficulty - For Gustavo Beethoven's myriad tacit architectural elements are an undiscovered country. (An unkinder friend snidely derided the last movement of the Seventh as a musical beached jellyfish; not really fair criticism of an overmatched youth orchestra and not the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, but it really is musical mush.) Of course nobody cares anymore, it's all hype, hype, hype, with reviewers from LA who apparently now believe their last wunderkind wasn't young enough. Excuse me, but is anyone actually listening? Just as one doesn't plant a Sequoia for a little shade, so too one doesn't tackle one of the most challenging works in all the creative arts to showcase a youth orchestra. The tempo for the last movement of the A major was more Looney Tunes than Beethoven. And that's not a knock on the Warner's musicians - I like the Looney Tunes music; more than this rushed out musical schizogenesis. Why record major Beethoven symphonies with musical youngsters? Couldn't DG instead have used them to record one of their native composers, who could use the money and exposure far more than Beethoven? That would have been far more appropriate, but apparently not nearly as commerically splashy, especially if you as a record company have your sights set on the main chance - redoing the entire major symphonic repetorie with a new and hopefully crossover conductor.
Although the best musicians are inevitably precocious enough, and Gustavo - I just can't call him by his last name, sorry - has plenty of bold 'Gusto' to go along with his indisputable talents, the truth is that there are a dozen young conductors - even some Americans! - who may be as good, and might even turn out better in the long run. But we'll never know. Gustavo shines at the Mahler competition and the die is cast. He's the one! He's instantly tapped as the musical savior, and the publicity machine launches into full court press. You might as well try to hold back the tides as speak out against the hagiography once a person is transformed into a vested commercial interest.
As I don't like to criticize without offering an alternative you might go back in time and listen instead to the young Guido Cantelli; he displayed a fine command of the intellectual issues required in leading a major Beethoven symphony. (And having steered you to Cantelli as an alternative I find that the bean counters at EMI have now seen fit to delete the outsanding 2CD Cantelli set with his sensational readings of the Beethoven 7th symphony, the Franck symphony, and Mozart's symphony 29. Keep an eye out for used copies.)
Description of Beethoven: Symphonies 5 & 7
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