It’s finally subjective and googling reveals a lot of different, negatively touched as well as overwhelming reviews from GB.
I’m mainly with this one out of the following link:
“ I found his albums by dumb luck and have spent hundreds of hours listening to them. They accompany me everywhere. There are no other recordings where I know, just absolutely know, that this is how the composer himself would have heard it while he was writing it down. It’s as if Currentzis has found a wormhole and tunnelled back in time into Mozart’s mind. Everything about his approach is groundbreaking. The attack of the strings, the unbelievable presence of the sound – you feel as if you’re sitting right in the middle of the orchestra as melody after melody sweeps through your ears, the quality of the singing, the sheer, visceral, driving energy, the humour, pathos, romance, verve, face-punching force of it all is overwhelming.”
I mostly read the Gramophone reviews, also the Guardian and The Financial Times. The Mozart was consistently mediocre and somewhat misconceived. The Beethoven to which you refer is very highly regarded. Kolesnikov’s Goldberg’s are extraordinarily fresh, conceived as dance music, to be performed on stage with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (dancing). Our visit was cancelled due to Covid, but we heard him play them at a recital. The recording is top notch.
The Magic Flute was not entirely second string, the sublime Elsa Dreisig as Pamina. Vito Priante behind her, right.
It’s fun to research a bit…I found the various Guardian reviews quite raving about him and the various Grammophone reviews quite desolate….that’s critique finally.
…and then there’s certainly Paul”s short positive review from 30 seconds up in this video, I think he even mentioned it another time n Paul’s posts
Well, Gramophone are old pipe-smokers and Guardian left-wing radicals.
The article you posted is obviously by a Currentzis acolyte, rather than the regular review, which was 4-star. They are no doubt a fine orchestra.
The singer to look out for is Lisette Oropesa. I went to her opening nights at Covent Garden in 2017 in Lucia and last September in Rigoletto (a new production and the first opera performance post-Covid). Both were sensational and historic. She’s recorded virtually nothing for audio.
For both Lucia and Gilda she ends up covered in blood. The shaky picture is because the audience went wild and the floor was shaking.
Mine is possibly the Mobile Fidelity LP of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” that was gifted to me about 11 years ago by a fellow audiophile. It’s hardly been played. I still have the mono Capitol copy my Dad brought back from the US to me in Swaziland in '69 or so, still playable. I’m not a big Beatles fan since I discovered jazz about that time.
Here are my top two. The first one is unopened and I plan to keep it that way. The second one is a limited numbered pressing from RSD a few years ago that sounds awesome.
Yes, for me the whole cycle. Get the record box if you can find it!
That’s what the three I mentioned (everything of Currentzis, the Järvi Beethoven cycle and the Vivaldi I mentioned have in common imo).
It’s a level of energy, transparency, freshness, courage, timely approach, that makes most other interpretations sound shopworn and unsophisticated.
Those here come into my mind in a similar way (no vinyl available here):
After listening to the Jarvi #3, I thought I’d listen to an earlier attempt at authenticity, which I originally had on CD, the John Eliot Gardiner version recorded at Snape in the early 1990s. Similar tempos, but the larger string section rather swamps the fabulous interplay you get with woodwind and horns on Jarvi, where the strings often seem to have solo voices.
If the box set were available on vinyl, it would be several thousand dollars. I’ll leave that to the collectors.
I have some excellent recordings by Pinnock with the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble. Will have to revisit.
