Word: leinsdorf
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...style. The recordings which he made with the Halle during his decades of association with it are some of the finest in the literature. The Mahler First Symphony which he did with them for Vanguard is a definitive version, a masterpiece which puts to shame such recordings as the Leinsdorf version with the Boston Symphony, or Ormandy's frivolous attempt to incorporate the Blumine Movement into the work. His recordings of Mahler and Vaughan are all first rate, and many of them are the generally accepted standard versions. Yet, for all the accomplishments of Barbirolli later life, American critics seem...
...that have gotten into the orchestra in the past decade. Rudolf has a brilliant sense of pace and timing, and it displayed itself in this work. He skillfully constructed a great performance by avoiding most of the characteristic failings of his contemporaries. He never forced his pace, the way Leinsdorf did. He made the orchestra forget the influence of his predecessor, and got it to produce a clarity of tone, especially in the strings, which Bernstein might well have envied. The concert definitely belonged to Rudolf and the listener went away feeling that the aging conductor had made...
...Richard Lewis, and Thomas Paul-integrated with the orchestra, and he didn't. The first three movements were unsatisfactory, glossing over all the nuances of score which distinguish this work, and filled with muddy playing. The choral movement failed for lack of rehearal. The BSO recorded the Ninth with Leinsdorf only last year, and it was clearly influenced by this experience. If only he had been given an extra week of work, Bernstein could probably have produced a memorable performance. The fact that he didn't can be traced to the basic fault of this Beethoven Festival: the incredibly stupid...
Leonard Bernstein: Beethoven's Nine Symphonies (8 disks; $35.98; Columbia). A great many complete sets of the Nine already exist: Klemperer, Karajan, Leinsdorf, Ormandy, Toscanini, Walter. But Bernstein's is the newest, and as a Beethoven interpreter he is both fiery and energetic, qualities highly necessary to this music. Calmer moments (as in the "Pastoral") now and then take on a tense, leashed-down quality that make a listener unnecessarily impatient for the storm to come. Particularly recommended to those who see Beethoven as a man with thunder in his eyes and lightning flashing from his fingertips...
...second half of the complete Mozart symphonies (the rest are scheduled for release in May) can be bettered on individual recordings by conductors like Szell, Davis or Walter. But apart from Böhm, the only first-rank conductor to produce a marathon Mozart is Erich Leinsdorf, whose performance of the symphonies (Westminster, 1967) is badly handicapped by a brassy, unresonant recording. By contrast DGG's sound is sumptuous. Though Böhm's conducting is eminently musical, the final effect is earthbound even where the music most demands seraphic sounds...