Tchaikovsky's 6th is simply one of the greatest artistic creations in human history. No exaggeration to say this. Beethoven's 9th is another one, for example. It's one of those pieces that is life changing when you hear it for the first time - and the last movement is simply heart wrenching. Pure genius.
I like this choice to begin the series. This piece has a strange power about it--it takes control of its performers, including the conductor, and insists on its very direct message. If the performers start to stray, the amazing melodies and devastating climaxes shock them back into attention. Pieces that are less visceral are easier to screw up.
In 1933, music critic and future record producer Walter Legge wrote, “There is in the last works of nearly every great artist a strangely luminous quality, as if the creative mind had already seen the world beyond death and were conscious of things infinitely greater than the emotional experiences of this world.” The works he cited were Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Mozart's "The Magic Flute," Beethoven's late string quartets, Wagner's "Parsifal" and Brahms' "Four Serious Songs." I think you could add the "Pathétique" to the list because it was Tchaikovsky's last composition. I first heard the "Pathétique" as a boy on Toscanini's NBC recording on five 45-rpm discs, and I just grew to accept the breaks between the main themes in the first movement as the moments where you changed the discs.
Thank you, Dave, for another fabulous video. I have loved the 6th most of my life, but never more so than when I was a teenager. I think what you described as the hysteria, frenzy, and neuroses of the work resonated with how I felt it was to be a teenager -- somewhat adrift, not quite sure of myself, not fitting in, and a feeling of being overwhelmed. I take it to be a healthy sign that I don't listen to the 6th as often as I did then!!!! But you're so right: nothing expresses Angst better than the Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. Thanks as always. Wesley
This is a fabulous new series! I am looking forward enormously to lots of more episodes. I would like to propose Bruckner Symphony no 5, Beethoven Symphony no 7 Brahms Symphony no 4 Mahler Symphony no 9 Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
Hi Dave. Tam tam story here: I am timpanist with the Singapore Symphony, for some reason new to your videos, which I have enjoyed immensely recently (as The Utke on my phone). I was a percussionist/timpanist with the Danish National SO before, and my old colleague there told me about a concert eons ago, where he was playing the tam tam. At the beginning of the 4th movement he noticed, to his horror, that the string/wire, whatever, that held the tam tam had begun to unravel. He now had to decide whether to play at all, observing the 'ad libitum' in the part, or take the chance. He did, playing what he described as the softest, almost inaudible, tam tam stroke you never heard, being ready to catch the thing should it fall. It' was all good in the end, but as a percussionist, I am sure you can appreciate his predicament! Anyway, we just played the symphony here in S'pore last week with my good friend Andrew Litton, who always make me change/add notes in my part, which I usually don't like, and don't always do. I was wondering if you ever noticed that on his recordings? I was pleased to see he made it to your top 10 living conductors. He's so much fun to play with, apart from the regrettable changes he wants. Anyway, cheers! Keep on talking!
Thanks for your stories. I honestly can't remember if Litton fiddled with the timpani part in his Virgin Classics recording of the 6th (I don't have it anymore), but I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not bothered by a little tinkering here and there if it makes musical sense.
Elgar's Enigma Variations is one work that comes to mind for me. Even Bernstein's controversial super slow version had the effect of highlighting many of its strengths in terms of harmony and orchestration.
At a performance a few years ago in St. Petersburg, a lot of people in the audience applauded at the end of the third movement, as if they thought this was the end of the symphony. Instead of waiting for the hoopla to subside, the conductor turned toward us briefly, as if in a show of annoyance, then quickly pivoted back to the orchestra and plunged into the finale. This was probably as unplanned as unrehearsed, but I think it intensified the shock effect. The transition between these movements is as discontinuous--albeit dramatically effective--as the transition from exposition to development in the first movement. For all my curiosity about the personal lives of artists, I have boundless distrust for assumptions about how that's reflected in their work. For processing the finale, I start with clues from the music, especially how much the opening subject resembles Lensky's aria from "Evgeny Onegin." Yes, it's a song about dying in a duel, ,written by Pushkin, who would himself get killed in a duel. Pushkin wants you to feel sad about Lensky, but he also was to let him come across as a stand-up guy. What this means about Tchaikovsky's finale is that he's goes into the gloom, but not too gently. Despair is not to be confused with defeat. My strangest encounter with the finale was after visiting enormous look-alike mass graves in St. Petersburg for victims of the siege of Leningrad, which converts death into a monument of hulking and interchangeable anonymity. As we were leaving the site, a man in a uniform approached us with cassette player. In motions that looked almost procedural, he pressed a button and the player started the finale to the 6th. My wife explained that he wanted some money, since he probably wasn't paid very much--something I found very believable. In short, my lesson about loss: the feeling of grief, the statistical multiplicity (in Stalin's famous words), and how it's left to be managed by people who are underpaid.
The Monteux/Boston Pathetique on Victrola was one of the first two classical albums I ever bought (alongside Ormandy’s Pictures at an Exhibition). I was turned on to the work by the Nice’s version of the third movement.
I'd say Dvorak's 9th always comes off well. There are challenging parts in it, but I've always gotten the sense that these parts are always obviously challenging and musicians know where to focus their attention.
Schubert's 5th is the piece that immediately jumps to the top of my mind when I think of pieces that are "unkillable". Some other suggestions: 1) Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 2) Dvorak's 8th 3) Dvorak's 9th 4) Schubert 8th (Unfinished) 5) Bruckner's 1st 6) Messiaen Turangalila 7) Mahler’s 9th 8) Shostakovich’s 1st 9) Mendelssohn’s 4th
@@DavesClassicalGuide Interesting. Hopefully the one you agree with will show up soon. In any event, looking forward to seeing which works appear as further entries in this new series.
I've certainly heard dull performances of the Mozart, in fact I don't find it a very interesting piece as it's so hackneyed. Schubert 5 and Mendelssohn's Italian I would agree with, you would really have to work hard to destroy those and make them dull.
I heard a performance in Seattle once, SSO, with a concertmaster who shall remain nameless but was subsequently rightly dismissed, that was a near catastrophe.
There is a way to do that bassoon run, without shifting to bass clarinet! A silk handkerchief in the bassoon bell gets is mellowed down to a purr. It really works!
Dave: You can’t wreck it! Celibidache: Hold my beer. (Kidding. I haven’t heard a recording of Celi and Tchaikovsky 6. But if anyone can stretch it out ad nauseam…)
As fun as it is to make fun of Celi nuts, there's room in my collection and in my life for some extreme alternatives once in awhile. Vive la differance!
I'm guilty of engaging in a major musical taboo: messing around with what the composer intended. The reason for this, is because the Parhetique has always struck me as a piece that needed a little more fine tuning. So I recorded the first section of the first movement. Then completely cut the rest of it. With the development sounding like Tchaikovsky was grasping at straw or going off the rails. Instead of the waltz as the second movement, I replaced it with the march-like third. The finale, one of two ways: use the development in the first movement to open the 4th then lead into the waltz. Or use the opening of the 4th to flow into the waltz. Keeping with Tchaikovsky's idea of ending on a melancholic note, I chose the latter. Surprisingly, it made a more convincing case for the symphony. I firmly believe, had our dear Peter Illyich gone down that route, it would have been more warmly received at its premiere. Again this was just for fun and a what if exercise.
There's a reason why the end of the Scherzo sounds like a finale (complete with audience applause) and the word "Finale" is written over the least finale-like movement ever written to that time, and perhaps ever. This was not the work of a man who wanted a popular success; it is the work of somebody who just couldn't go on anymore. I understand feeling unsatisfied with the symphony's musical content (by itself, apart from anything extramusical), but it is nevertheless structured perfectly for its purpose.
Señor Hurwitz. Ya que tocó el tema de la patética de Tchaikovsky, Tenia curiosidad de cual es la mejor versión de "La forza del destino" de Verdi, bajo su punto de vista. Gracias
It is interesting to note how after his death and for 50 years or so his music was, critically speaking, rather relegated to the 'second tier' of composers. Surely never in the 'serious' class of a Brahms or Mahler! But this work was always an exception and now is in the vanguard of his overall genius and appreciation.
Your timing is uncanny sometimes. I hadn't listened to the 6th in a few years and yesterday found a copy of Abbado's Vienna 1972 recording at a thrift store for 25 cents and played it last night. Definitely unkillable; an energetic reading though I can't say it's one of my faves. Not bad for a quarter though. Romeo & Juliet Overture Fantasy on there too (DG Musikfest).
@@WMAlbers1 Looks like you like 3rds! They are all great pieces but I have heard them killed, including a weird performance of Brahms 3 at the Proms in the 1980s where several of us just looked at each other afterwards and raised our eyebrows or rolled our eyeballs. Seemed to be the conductor rather than the orchestra.
Good to hear the classic Tovey quote, especially as Tovey was generally no fan of Tchaikovsky - he was critical of the Fifth, and particularly the finale (not without reason; even Tchaikovsky seemed to have doubts about it later). Some conductors seem unlikely to have sympathy with Tchaikovsky, but they simply haven't recorded the 6th (or his other symphonies). Interesting contrast with Sibelius where, as previously mentioned by Dave, some modern conductors do a complete symphony cycle but struggle with the more Tchaikovskian 1st/2nd.
Yes, but he later qualified it by contrasting Tchaikovsky's solution to that of the truly "great," classical composers (sigh). It was Tovey's Achilles' heel--excessive reverence for the classics.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Yes, although Tovey's analyses of pure classical works like Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms are very insightful, he had a complete blind spot with some composers or works that used different forms. He totally failed to appreciate Dvorak's 8th, and Rachmaninov doesn't seem to feature anywhere in his essays, but not surprisingly he did spot the genius of Sibelius.
May I propose Handel’s Messiah? For me, the piece is as near bomb proof as as it is possible to get. And I have listened to a range of performances- both professional and (very) amateur.
Actually I can think of a fair number of anaemic "authentic" performances that almost kill it stone dead. I have a definite soft spot for the Huddersfield Choral Society or a good large amateur choir singing it with gusto and giving it their all.
I hope that you will bet to Gounod's "Faust" in this series. That is the foremost opera that claims to be unwreckable, and, y'know, I think that's so! I prefer the full-out grand opera approach (Walpurgisnacht ballet and all) to it, but it still works in the opéra-comique version or in any kind of cobbling together of the two very different versions. Singers cannot wreck it. Conductors cannot wreck it. It's "the real deal".
Mr Hurwitz, I hear you often use the term “form” when talking about music in your videos and that word has always eluded me. Would you make a little video explaining it, perhaps including some examples? Your videos are invaluable to me.
Well, in any concert performance I've heard audiences inevitably burst into applause after the (mock?) triumphant 3rd movement, which leads to a battle of wills with the conductor who responds by launching into the 4th movement more or less attaca. Are audiences wrong or did Tchaikovsky get the structure wrong?
Conductors are wrong. They should simply wait until the applause dies down and then start the finale. There's no reason not to applaud when something is applause-worthy. That's just a stupid convention.
“Stupid convention”, amen! Perhaps if orchestras stopped treating concerts as if they were museum exhibitions and loosened up a little, they might attract a larger audience, or at least a more engaged audience. I’m sure there are some works (Sibelius’ 4th?) where dead silence until the end would be appropriate. But did Mozart compose symphonies with the expectation that audiences would sit on their hands for the full 30 minutes? I remember once many years ago, in the 80s, I went to an outdoor concert in Saratoga where Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was performed. After the 4th movement March ended, the audience started to applaud, and why not? It’s exciting music, yes? The conductor (can’t remember who) angrily held up his hand to quiet the audience, which they immediately did. It was VERY awkward, and I’m sure there were people unfamiliar with the work and unfamiliar with concert-going conventions who were baffled at what just happened. Sorry for the tangent.
@DavesClassicalGuide Olin Downes told Toscanini as much when Toscanini got angry when the audience applauded after the third movement. The conductor did want to launch immediately into the last movement for maximum contrast---like a hammer blow, a slap in the face. Downes rebuked him, not for that interpretive desire, but for resenting the audience's sincere reaction of pent-up excitement. (I confess to having applauded after that mvt in the privacy of my own home if it was a scorching performance.
Lucky you. I've seen it slaughtered in maaaany concerts. The first movement especially is very complicated and its heavy counterpoint is either too transparent or too glutinous and it doesn't show (or, it's simply played poorly, without the right phrasing etc.). Formally, I agree, it's very clear and difficult to screw up, but the character and the passion often is not there.
I once saw Alan Gilbert conduct the NYPO in the Pathétique... in a concert in Central Park. Really, is there a piece *less* suited to an open-air concert, with its slow, ever-fading, suicidal last movement than the Pathétique? Crowds of people who likely don't know anything about classical on blankets, kids running around, and the most depressing music that by the end you can't even hear when played outdoors? One of the worst programming choices I've ever seen. Do The Pines or Pictures or something fun. I would say that they didn't kill it (but who could tell by the end?), but it killed the show. I realized that this is a niche example, by the way. Speaking of Pictures at an Exhibition, it's pretty hard to kill.
Yes, and you can also have fun with Pictures with all the different orchestrations. I loved Slatkin's "mix'n'match" performances 20-30 years back, which also help you appreciate the Ravel afresh. Saw a nice quote that there are "many different colourings of Mussorgsky's black-and-white piano original".
Tchaikovsky's 6th is simply one of the greatest artistic creations in human history. No exaggeration to say this. Beethoven's 9th is another one, for example. It's one of those pieces that is life changing when you hear it for the first time - and the last movement is simply heart wrenching. Pure genius.
This is a great idea as a series...the perfect companion to the works that almost never come off right...looking forward to more!
I like this choice to begin the series. This piece has a strange power about it--it takes control of its performers, including the conductor, and insists on its very direct message. If the performers start to stray, the amazing melodies and devastating climaxes shock them back into attention. Pieces that are less visceral are easier to screw up.
In 1933, music critic and future record producer Walter Legge wrote, “There is in the last works of nearly every great artist a strangely luminous quality, as if the creative mind had already seen the world beyond death and were conscious of things infinitely greater than the emotional experiences of this world.” The works he cited were Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Mozart's "The Magic Flute," Beethoven's late string quartets, Wagner's "Parsifal" and Brahms' "Four Serious Songs." I think you could add the "Pathétique" to the list because it was Tchaikovsky's last composition. I first heard the "Pathétique" as a boy on Toscanini's NBC recording on five 45-rpm discs, and I just grew to accept the breaks between the main themes in the first movement as the moments where you changed the discs.
Absolute masterpiece. That final movement needs to be played as dark and tragically as possible.
Thank you, Dave, for another fabulous video. I have loved the 6th most of my life, but never more so than when I was a teenager. I think what you described as the hysteria, frenzy, and neuroses of the work resonated with how I felt it was to be a teenager -- somewhat adrift, not quite sure of myself, not fitting in, and a feeling of being overwhelmed. I take it to be a healthy sign that I don't listen to the 6th as often as I did then!!!! But you're so right: nothing expresses Angst better than the Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. Thanks as always. Wesley
This is a fabulous new series!
I am looking forward enormously to lots of more episodes. I would like to propose Bruckner Symphony no 5, Beethoven Symphony no 7 Brahms Symphony no 4 Mahler Symphony no 9
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
As a community orchestra player, I’m watching this series with interest! Played this one in March! 😂
Myung-Whun Chung killed it in Boston some years ago and hasn’t been invited since. He bulldozed the thing, playing the final movement like a scherzo.
Hi Dave. Tam tam story here: I am timpanist with the Singapore Symphony, for some reason new to your videos, which I have enjoyed immensely recently (as The Utke on my phone). I was a percussionist/timpanist with the Danish National SO before, and my old colleague there told me about a concert eons ago, where he was playing the tam tam. At the beginning of the 4th movement he noticed, to his horror, that the string/wire, whatever, that held the tam tam had begun to unravel. He now had to decide whether to play at all, observing the 'ad libitum' in the part, or take the chance. He did, playing what he described as the softest, almost inaudible, tam tam stroke you never heard, being ready to catch the thing should it fall. It' was all good in the end, but as a percussionist, I am sure you can appreciate his predicament! Anyway, we just played the symphony here in S'pore last week with my good friend Andrew Litton, who always make me change/add notes in my part, which I usually don't like, and don't always do. I was wondering if you ever noticed that on his recordings? I was pleased to see he made it to your top 10 living conductors. He's so much fun to play with, apart from the regrettable changes he wants. Anyway, cheers! Keep on talking!
Thanks for your stories. I honestly can't remember if Litton fiddled with the timpani part in his Virgin Classics recording of the 6th (I don't have it anymore), but I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not bothered by a little tinkering here and there if it makes musical sense.
Elgar's Enigma Variations is one work that comes to mind for me. Even Bernstein's controversial super slow version had the effect of highlighting many of its strengths in terms of harmony and orchestration.
At a performance a few years ago in St. Petersburg, a lot of people in the audience applauded at the end of the third movement, as if they thought this was the end of the symphony. Instead of waiting for the hoopla to subside, the conductor turned toward us briefly, as if in a show of annoyance, then quickly pivoted back to the orchestra and plunged into the finale. This was probably as unplanned as unrehearsed, but I think it intensified the shock effect. The transition between these movements is as discontinuous--albeit dramatically effective--as the transition from exposition to development in the first movement.
For all my curiosity about the personal lives of artists, I have boundless distrust for assumptions about how that's reflected in their work. For processing the finale, I start with clues from the music, especially how much the opening subject resembles Lensky's aria from "Evgeny Onegin." Yes, it's a song about dying in a duel, ,written by Pushkin, who would himself get killed in a duel. Pushkin wants you to feel sad about Lensky, but he also was to let him come across as a stand-up guy. What this means about Tchaikovsky's finale is that he's goes into the gloom, but not too gently. Despair is not to be confused with defeat.
My strangest encounter with the finale was after visiting enormous look-alike mass graves in St. Petersburg for victims of the siege of Leningrad, which converts death into a monument of hulking and interchangeable anonymity. As we were leaving the site, a man in a uniform approached us with cassette player. In motions that looked almost procedural, he pressed a button and the player started the finale to the 6th. My wife explained that he wanted some money, since he probably wasn't paid very much--something I found very believable. In short, my lesson about loss: the feeling of grief, the statistical multiplicity (in Stalin's famous words), and how it's left to be managed by people who are underpaid.
The Monteux/Boston Pathetique on Victrola was one of the first two classical albums I ever bought (alongside Ormandy’s Pictures at an Exhibition). I was turned on to the work by the Nice’s version of the third movement.
I'd say Dvorak's 9th always comes off well. There are challenging parts in it, but I've always gotten the sense that these parts are always obviously challenging and musicians know where to focus their attention.
Schubert's 5th is the piece that immediately jumps to the top of my mind when I think of pieces that are "unkillable".
Some other suggestions:
1) Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
2) Dvorak's 8th
3) Dvorak's 9th
4) Schubert 8th (Unfinished)
5) Bruckner's 1st
6) Messiaen Turangalila
7) Mahler’s 9th
8) Shostakovich’s 1st
9) Mendelssohn’s 4th
I disagree with all of those except for one (I won't say which).
@@DavesClassicalGuide Interesting. Hopefully the one you agree with will show up soon. In any event, looking forward to seeing which works appear as further entries in this new series.
@@DavesClassicalGuideDvorak 8th. This piece is quite simple for playing and listening to.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I'll take a guess: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Well, I have heard dull inelegant performances of it.
I've certainly heard dull performances of the Mozart, in fact I don't find it a very interesting piece as it's so hackneyed. Schubert 5 and Mendelssohn's Italian I would agree with, you would really have to work hard to destroy those and make them dull.
Rimsky's Scheherazade is difficult to destroy.
I heard a performance in Seattle once, SSO, with a concertmaster who shall remain nameless but was subsequently rightly dismissed, that was a near catastrophe.
I would think Rachmaninoff’s Piano concerto # 2 is one of those perfect works that never fails.
It fails all the time.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Please do share more. Thirsty for the details 😀by writing or in a new video
Yeah, Tchaikovsky's 6th is next-level. Awesome.
There is a way to do that bassoon run, without shifting to bass clarinet! A silk handkerchief in the bassoon bell gets is mellowed down to a purr. It really works!
*it*
Dave: You can’t wreck it!
Celibidache: Hold my beer.
(Kidding. I haven’t heard a recording of Celi and Tchaikovsky 6. But if anyone can stretch it out ad nauseam…)
Lol!...good one!...I might add Norrington to that 'don't ever count on me' list too!
As fun as it is to make fun of Celi nuts, there's room in my collection and in my life for some extreme alternatives once in awhile. Vive la differance!
Even he doesn't kill it (although he tries)... unkillable 🙂
I'm guilty of engaging in a major musical taboo: messing around with what the composer intended. The reason for this, is because the Parhetique has always struck me as a piece that needed a little more fine tuning. So I recorded the first section of the first movement. Then completely cut the rest of it. With the development sounding like Tchaikovsky was grasping at straw or going off the rails. Instead of the waltz as the second movement, I replaced it with the march-like third. The finale, one of two ways: use the development in the first movement to open the 4th then lead into the waltz. Or use the opening of the 4th to flow into the waltz. Keeping with Tchaikovsky's idea of ending on a melancholic note, I chose the latter. Surprisingly, it made a more convincing case for the symphony. I firmly believe, had our dear Peter Illyich gone down that route, it would have been more warmly received at its premiere. Again this was just for fun and a what if exercise.
It seems the symphony has been pretty warmly received by just about everyone as it is, although it's fun to play around and make your own version.
Aaaaargh!
There's a reason why the end of the Scherzo sounds like a finale (complete with audience applause) and the word "Finale" is written over the least finale-like movement ever written to that time, and perhaps ever. This was not the work of a man who wanted a popular success; it is the work of somebody who just couldn't go on anymore. I understand feeling unsatisfied with the symphony's musical content (by itself, apart from anything extramusical), but it is nevertheless structured perfectly for its purpose.
to me Mahler 1st is also kinda bulletproof. Tempi and character are crystal clear.
Señor Hurwitz. Ya que tocó el tema de la patética de Tchaikovsky, Tenia curiosidad de cual es la mejor versión de "La forza del destino" de Verdi, bajo su punto de vista. Gracias
It is interesting to note how after his death and for 50 years or so his music was, critically speaking, rather relegated to the 'second tier' of composers. Surely never in the 'serious' class of a Brahms or Mahler! But this work was always an exception and now is in the vanguard of his overall genius and appreciation.
Your timing is uncanny sometimes. I hadn't listened to the 6th in a few years and yesterday found a copy of Abbado's Vienna 1972 recording at a thrift store for 25 cents and played it last night. Definitely unkillable; an energetic reading though I can't say it's one of my faves. Not bad for a quarter though. Romeo & Juliet Overture Fantasy on there too (DG Musikfest).
Love thrift store CDs (charity shop this side of the pond!). Always remember finding the Exon Mahler 3 with Pittsburg and Honnech - I think I paid £1!
My "pieces de resistance" are still after many years Brahms' 3rd, Sibelius' 3rd and Beethoven's 3rd. Tchaikovsky's 6th I listened much in my teens.
They may never fail YOU but they die often enough both on recordings and in live performance. They are notoriously tricky pieces to get right.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Oh, I still forgot Nielsen's 3rd.
@@WMAlbers1 Looks like you like 3rds! They are all great pieces but I have heard them killed, including a weird performance of Brahms 3 at the Proms in the 1980s where several of us just looked at each other afterwards and raised our eyebrows or rolled our eyeballs. Seemed to be the conductor rather than the orchestra.
Carmina Burana just about plays itself.
Oh no it doesn't!
Hi Dave, are you going to speak on the Bernstein movie?
Not if I can help it.
Good to hear the classic Tovey quote, especially as Tovey was generally no fan of Tchaikovsky - he was critical of the Fifth, and particularly the finale (not without reason; even Tchaikovsky seemed to have doubts about it later). Some conductors seem unlikely to have sympathy with Tchaikovsky, but they simply haven't recorded the 6th (or his other symphonies). Interesting contrast with Sibelius where, as previously mentioned by Dave, some modern conductors do a complete symphony cycle but struggle with the more Tchaikovskian 1st/2nd.
Yes, but he later qualified it by contrasting Tchaikovsky's solution to that of the truly "great," classical composers (sigh). It was Tovey's Achilles' heel--excessive reverence for the classics.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Yes, although Tovey's analyses of pure classical works like Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms are very insightful, he had a complete blind spot with some composers or works that used different forms. He totally failed to appreciate Dvorak's 8th, and Rachmaninov doesn't seem to feature anywhere in his essays, but not surprisingly he did spot the genius of Sibelius.
May I propose Handel’s Messiah? For me, the piece is as near bomb proof as as it is possible to get. And I have listened to a range of performances- both professional and (very) amateur.
Actually I can think of a fair number of anaemic "authentic" performances that almost kill it stone dead. I have a definite soft spot for the Huddersfield Choral Society or a good large amateur choir singing it with gusto and giving it their all.
I hope that you will bet to Gounod's "Faust" in this series. That is the foremost opera that claims to be unwreckable, and, y'know, I think that's so! I prefer the full-out grand opera approach (Walpurgisnacht ballet and all) to it, but it still works in the opéra-comique version or in any kind of cobbling together of the two very different versions. Singers cannot wreck it. Conductors cannot wreck it. It's "the real deal".
Mr Hurwitz, I hear you often use the term “form” when talking about music in your videos and that word has always eluded me. Would you make a little video explaining it, perhaps including some examples? Your videos are invaluable to me.
I have made several. Here is one of them: th-cam.com/video/wFojDQiff_Q/w-d-xo.html
Even Teodor Currentzis was unable to screw it.
Nice idea. I’d nominate the Schubert unfinished symphony (zany period perfomances don’t count-then nothing would qualify).
Well, in any concert performance I've heard audiences inevitably burst into applause after the (mock?) triumphant 3rd movement, which leads to a battle of wills with the conductor who responds by launching into the 4th movement more or less attaca. Are audiences wrong or did Tchaikovsky get the structure wrong?
Conductors are wrong. They should simply wait until the applause dies down and then start the finale. There's no reason not to applaud when something is applause-worthy. That's just a stupid convention.
@DavesClassicalGuide thanks for the reasonable reply to my contentiously worded question! ;)
“Stupid convention”, amen! Perhaps if orchestras stopped treating concerts as if they were museum exhibitions and loosened up a little, they might attract a larger audience, or at least a more engaged audience. I’m sure there are some works (Sibelius’ 4th?) where dead silence until the end would be appropriate. But did Mozart compose symphonies with the expectation that audiences would sit on their hands for the full 30 minutes?
I remember once many years ago, in the 80s, I went to an outdoor concert in Saratoga where Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was performed. After the 4th movement March ended, the audience started to applaud, and why not? It’s exciting music, yes? The conductor (can’t remember who) angrily held up his hand to quiet the audience, which they immediately did. It was VERY awkward, and I’m sure there were people unfamiliar with the work and unfamiliar with concert-going conventions who were baffled at what just happened.
Sorry for the tangent.
The Philistines! There was some conductor - and I can't remember the name - who solved this problem by switching the order of the last two movements.
@DavesClassicalGuide Olin Downes told Toscanini as much when Toscanini got angry when the audience applauded after the third movement. The conductor did want to launch immediately into the last movement for maximum contrast---like a hammer blow, a slap in the face. Downes rebuked him, not for that interpretive desire, but for resenting the audience's sincere reaction of pent-up excitement. (I confess to having applauded after that mvt in the privacy of my own home if it was a scorching performance.
Lucky you. I've seen it slaughtered in maaaany concerts. The first movement especially is very complicated and its heavy counterpoint is either too transparent or too glutinous and it doesn't show (or, it's simply played poorly, without the right phrasing etc.).
Formally, I agree, it's very clear and difficult to screw up, but the character and the passion often is not there.
I once saw Alan Gilbert conduct the NYPO in the Pathétique... in a concert in Central Park. Really, is there a piece *less* suited to an open-air concert, with its slow, ever-fading, suicidal last movement than the Pathétique? Crowds of people who likely don't know anything about classical on blankets, kids running around, and the most depressing music that by the end you can't even hear when played outdoors? One of the worst programming choices I've ever seen. Do The Pines or Pictures or something fun. I would say that they didn't kill it (but who could tell by the end?), but it killed the show. I realized that this is a niche example, by the way.
Speaking of Pictures at an Exhibition, it's pretty hard to kill.
Yes, and you can also have fun with Pictures with all the different orchestrations. I loved Slatkin's "mix'n'match" performances 20-30 years back, which also help you appreciate the Ravel afresh. Saw a nice quote that there are "many different colourings of Mussorgsky's black-and-white piano original".
Brahms 4th for a next issue.
Brahms is one of the most failure-prone of all composers.