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Brahms: Sym. # 1: Alsop/ LPO - SACD

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Brahms: Sym. # 1: Alsop/ LPO - SACD

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Featuring: Alsop - Lpo

Special Features: , SuperAudioCD, Hybrid

Composer: Brahms

Genre: Classical

Rating: NOT RATED

Studio: Naxos

Street Date: February 22, 2005

SKU:	74731310776
Weight:	0.25
Regular Price: $14.98 On Sale For: $11.98

Product Rating:

(4.00) # of Ratings: 1 (Only registered customers can rate)

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Showing comments 1-10 of 1

1. Dan on 9/14/2007, said:

Auspicious start to the Marin Alsop Brahms Cycle ... BUT. I have been listening to this new hybrid CD/SACD disc of the first Brahms symphony for a while now, and I am very, very, very frustrated. I am a Marin Alsop fan, and I can also support the level of thoughtfulness that typically goes into at least some of the Naxos releases. My nomination for singular glory of the Naxos catalogue by the way is the superb recording of the sadly neglected Dvorak Piano Concerto by Jeno Jando, Antoni Wit, & the Polish Radio. Just a perfect gem, that actually makes a tremendous case for the Dvorak being as great as the Schumann. But back to Ms. Alsop and the London Philharmonic in this disc of Brahms. I have to say that Ms. Alsop is finding her own approach to playing Brahms, and although she infuses plenty of romantic fire and drama into the maestoso opening, overall she rather reveals Brahms the humanist to us instead of Brahms the gruff, shy, painfully reserved composer of say, works like the Alto Rhapsody. The London Philharmonic have a great, long Brahms tradition, and they are backing Ms. Alsop every step of the way so far as I can tell. So far so good. But the dreadful and frustrating thing to me is that the venue largely sabotages all the insight and musical effort. The Watford Colosseum is just a horrid, circular sounding open space that gathers the music up into a cotton candy pillar of Elvis-fan pink hair, and then keeps it spinning round. The bass frequencies are accentuated, and the rest of the frequency spectrum is rendered faint by de-emphasis. The directional cues which would ordinarily place woodwinds and brass and strings in a coherent acoustic are simply almost completely garbled here by the Watford mess. A listener could actually be forgiven for thinking that this album has been multitracked, particularly in multi-channel SuperAudio resolution, with different sections of the orchestra being recorded at different times in different venues, so egregious is the damage that this awful acoustic does. Strings could have been recorded in site A, on Monday; woodwinds and soft to mezzoforte brass at site B on Tuesday; then of course when woodwinds or brass play louder, that sounds like it was recorded at site C on Wednesday; and on it goes. Now please understand me. The artifice and imbalance of this awful venue are perfectly listenable in a generic, elevator music sort of way. But this performance is actually so interesting, as it seems to be trying to give us a slightly different view of Brahms that would be really nice if you could hear it as it was probably intended. The moment you listen closely to this disc, trying to grasp the overall concept, you hear the many subtle ways in which this particular venue simply lets all go loopy and blends, blends, blends, except when it comes to making the orchestra sections seem like they are playing in the same acoustic; and then goes on to distort the frequency spectrum consistently, highlighting the lack of locating acoustic in the first place. If Brahms were simply a chord-based classical pop composer this probably would little matter, but the fact is that part of Brahms' genius was his uncanny ability to write music that at first hearing sounds like chordal harmony and only later reveals its polyphonic depth and subtlety with close listening and greater familiarity. Having to suffer through all this mess in the high resolution of multi-channel Super Audio only adds insult to the embarrassment of putting a performance like this in the Watford Colosseum. I am so upset for Ms. Alsop, the London Philharmonic, and even for Naxos. Surely somebody really dropped the ball on planning insofar as they settled for the Watford Colosseum as the recording studio. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Still, five starts for Ms. Alsop, the London Philharmonic, and of course for Brahms. Message to Naxos, now: Fire the ninny who booked Watford (or at least re-educate that person by making them listen ten times in a row to comparative recording venues, so that he/she can tell the difference.) Get into a real music hall for the remaining three symphonies. Otherwise we can surely expect that continued use of the Watford Colosseum will simply continue to Cuisinart those performances, too. Why or why did the folks at Naxos trip over their own feet like this? They have made enough good to outstanding recordings over the years, in a variety of venues; and they simply should have known better.
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