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Nov. 19th, 2004 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2When I first started getting into classical music, 10-12 years ago I think, I at first knew practically nothing about it. I bought a book for beginners and read through it, and bought cds it reccomended, then expanded into books that covered the subject in more depth. At some point I had decided that I liked Dvorak's symphonic works, and I had heard a passable version of his 7th symphony, and I liked it a great deal, and I decided that what I really wanted was a really, really good version to listen to.
It was at this point that, based on the reccomendation of one of the books I was reading, I picked up a version of the 7th conducted by Neemi Jarvi. It was, in a word, awful. I may not be an expert on music, but I know what sounds good. Jarvi's recording of the 7th, contrary to what I'd read, was very bad.
It was so unbelievably bad that I had to get rid of it immediately. And if you know me, you know that I almost never get rid of cds.
This became something of a litmus test for me. If I found a book that claimed to give honest reviews on classical music cds, I would see if it had anything to say about Neemi Jarvi's recording of the Dvorak 7th.
And so I came to Jim Svejda's Record Shelf Guide to Classical CDs and Cassettes. In the section on Dvorak's 7th, he correctly states that this is the conductor's "greatest symphony -- and some would argue, his greatest work", and then laments the fact that so few really good recordings of it exist... "Compared to more than fifty recordings of the New World Symphony, the Seventh's total remains approximately a dozen and a half -- and some of those (by Jarvi, Levine, and Maazel) run the scintillating gamut from ho to hum."
Jim Svejda has been my #1 source for information on classical cds ever since. He is, as the book cover suggests, "Irreverent, Selective, and Highly Opinionated" and I've found that these qualities are what make his reviews so useful. He tells you what to avoid at all costs, and what you absolutely have to own. And I've found that anything he considers the best performance of a given work is, if not actually the best available, at least very good.
So for the last few weeks on NPR they've been doing a series on the life of Leonard Berenstein. Berenstein is one of those conductors that Svejda likes very much (as opposed to, say Herbert Von Karajan, whom Svedja generally despises). Listening to this series, I heard some music that I really liked that I didn't own. One piece was part of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Other pieces were from Mahler's Symphonies. I of course own Beethoven's 5th and 9th, and a couple of others that I got for very cheep from symphonies and composers I knew nothing about. But in general I'm only familiar with the 5th and 9th. As for Mahler, I had nothing of his work.
This is kind of funny in a way because my favorite music has been symphonic works from the Romantic era, and Beethoven pretty much ushered in that era, and Mahler pretty much brought it to a close. I have a lot of the works that you can find in between them, but the two composers who bookend that era, I haven't really explored.
So I dug up my Svejda book and began researching again, and yesterday I stopped at Half Price Books and picked up Mahler's 2nd and 4th symphonies, conducted by Berenstein. Niether of them are on Svejda's list of essential recordings of those works, but in general Berenstein is considered an excellent Mahler conductor. So I'm off to a good start, I think.
I also located a copy of Beethoven's 7th in my collection. Probably not a great version (I bought it for $2.50 at some point long ago) but it's a place to start.
It was at this point that, based on the reccomendation of one of the books I was reading, I picked up a version of the 7th conducted by Neemi Jarvi. It was, in a word, awful. I may not be an expert on music, but I know what sounds good. Jarvi's recording of the 7th, contrary to what I'd read, was very bad.
It was so unbelievably bad that I had to get rid of it immediately. And if you know me, you know that I almost never get rid of cds.
This became something of a litmus test for me. If I found a book that claimed to give honest reviews on classical music cds, I would see if it had anything to say about Neemi Jarvi's recording of the Dvorak 7th.
And so I came to Jim Svejda's Record Shelf Guide to Classical CDs and Cassettes. In the section on Dvorak's 7th, he correctly states that this is the conductor's "greatest symphony -- and some would argue, his greatest work", and then laments the fact that so few really good recordings of it exist... "Compared to more than fifty recordings of the New World Symphony, the Seventh's total remains approximately a dozen and a half -- and some of those (by Jarvi, Levine, and Maazel) run the scintillating gamut from ho to hum."
Jim Svejda has been my #1 source for information on classical cds ever since. He is, as the book cover suggests, "Irreverent, Selective, and Highly Opinionated" and I've found that these qualities are what make his reviews so useful. He tells you what to avoid at all costs, and what you absolutely have to own. And I've found that anything he considers the best performance of a given work is, if not actually the best available, at least very good.
So for the last few weeks on NPR they've been doing a series on the life of Leonard Berenstein. Berenstein is one of those conductors that Svejda likes very much (as opposed to, say Herbert Von Karajan, whom Svedja generally despises). Listening to this series, I heard some music that I really liked that I didn't own. One piece was part of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Other pieces were from Mahler's Symphonies. I of course own Beethoven's 5th and 9th, and a couple of others that I got for very cheep from symphonies and composers I knew nothing about. But in general I'm only familiar with the 5th and 9th. As for Mahler, I had nothing of his work.
This is kind of funny in a way because my favorite music has been symphonic works from the Romantic era, and Beethoven pretty much ushered in that era, and Mahler pretty much brought it to a close. I have a lot of the works that you can find in between them, but the two composers who bookend that era, I haven't really explored.
So I dug up my Svejda book and began researching again, and yesterday I stopped at Half Price Books and picked up Mahler's 2nd and 4th symphonies, conducted by Berenstein. Niether of them are on Svejda's list of essential recordings of those works, but in general Berenstein is considered an excellent Mahler conductor. So I'm off to a good start, I think.
I also located a copy of Beethoven's 7th in my collection. Probably not a great version (I bought it for $2.50 at some point long ago) but it's a place to start.
