Review: Decca's Charles Dutoit "How The Mighty Have Fallen" Collection
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2023
- I always wondered what the fate of this box, issued a decade or so ago when Dutoit was still in good standing with Decca (and the universe at large), would be. It was only available for about ten minutes or so, but now seems like a good time to look back and take stock of Dutoit's achievements as a Decca artist.
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Saw him twice in Montreal during his heyday. It was the high quality of orchestral playing that impressed me most. He had the privilege of driving a magnificent Maserati of an ensemble. Stunning playing.
A few years after seeing CD with Philly in Miami (while a student at Tanglewood Festival)
He was walking around backstage among me(tuba)and 40 other brass players waiting to go on stage and play 3 numbers with John Williams.
CD was very nice, friendly, and pleasant.
He remarked that he had never been so close to so many brass players at one time. He told some "brass" jokes, so maybe he did play Trombone at one time.
Several of us got photos with him & autographs, as as the line moved I realized at one point I was standing next to him & John Williams...Good Times 👍
Montreal had great trombones, for sure. I must also speak up for the fabulous trumpet section. James Thompson and his section set the standard for exciting trumpet playing with a certain flair that was difficult to find elsewhere. The Daphnis and Chloe release was remarkable in many ways. I have to agree with Mr. Coalwell. Dutoit was driving a sport sedan in that orchestra.
@5:50 believe it or not you can clearly hear that organ pedal entry in Toscanini’s NBC “Pines”; although it’s 70 years old, it’s still a thrilling moment.
Visceral I know but his Three-Cornered Hat has always been my favorite just because he has that bass drum and the trombones at the beginning of the final dance, I suppose I listen to the whole thing just in anticipation of that satisfying smack.
A sad story in many ways. However, despite reservations, Dutoit did put Montreal on the map. Their elevated world status helped get a fabulous new concert hall constructed. And there are more good records than bad in my view. Great comments about The Planets and the excellent trombone section in the orchestra - Gustav Holst's own instrument.
Another invaluable summary of late Decca output for me to look out for as most of the ones that came out on vinyl are cheap as chips. I’ve picked up quite a lot of Dutoit and I do feel part of that lush consistent sound quality comes from his long working association with the Decca recording engineer John Dunkerley who brilliantly transposed the sonic excellence of the great Kenneth Wilkinson into the digital age.
Dave, votre français n'est pas trop mal!!!
Aussi, votre critique des CD de Dutoit et de l'OSM est intéressante et je la partage.
Cheers from Montréal!
The very first CD I ever bought was Dutoit's Planets from BMG Music Club when I was like 14 or 15. I didn't know what it was, but I liked the cover. I was blown away. Dutoit basically introduced me to classical music. Because he was one of the big things in the early CD era, there were lots of discs out there. Again, I didn't know what any of it was, but I knew I could rely on Dutoit to record music that I'd find interesting. And it worked! It was only over the course of many, many years that I let go of my nostalgic loyalty & realized that much of what he recorded could be found in better interpretations. But some of these are still wonderful, especially Daphnis, Planets, & Roman Trilogy. I've only seen him live twice, both times conducting the NYPO. Once doing The Planets (& I think Debussy Nocturnes), and once doing the Respighi trilogy. Both were unbelievably amazing experiences.
Universal should eventually do a complete Dutoit. There's a lot of non-Montréal stuff he did (Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky, Dompierre (!), Mendelssohn, Poulenc, et al.), some of which is really good.
Have read that Dutoit had studied the trombone in his youth, so that he had a good trombone section is not altogether surprising.
I borrowed Dutoit's Planets recording from a friend for test purposes when buying speakers in the late 1980s. Specifically, the amazing organ entry at the end of Uranus - the ultimate bass note! But the rest was great too.
As a Berlioz fan I think his “Les Troyens” is the best conducted of any I’ve heard. The playing of the orchestra is magnificent. Additionally his live performance of “The Pines of Rome” in London (RAH) some years ago produced literally a cathedral of sound, absolutely astonishing. I don’t care about his personal side, he remains one of the finest conductors of the past 40 years.
"it may be because the Planets does not need any emotional depth" LOL But, I agree with you 100%: he's a swift cool-ish conductor. I don't even think I have any Dutoit CD's anymore. I am anticipating your John Elliot Gardiner chat!
Amazon has The Art of Charles Dutoit 6-CD set, plus several single CDs.
I agree with your 'best of' choices in this box, especially Daphnis et Chloe, the Ibert collection, and the Planets. Also Petrushka, which is the best of his Stravinsky ballets. As you would know, he made a good DG recording of it prior to his Montreal post, with (I think) the LPO. Petrushka was already in Dutoit's repertoire, and it makes me wonder whether some of the less successful performances were new to him when these recordings were made.
The other thing worth mentioning about that planets is the sound. Absolutely the best sounding planets out there, a huge bravo to those engineers.
Agreed about the Faure requiem, one of the best ones recorded.
There’s a LOT missing all with Montreal. Pélléas et Melissande, Les Troyens, Shostakovich 5&9, L’enfance du Christ…..
Curious what the point of this box was…is it just from certain years?
No, just a random selection.
Loved his Daphnis and Chloe recording but the CD in those days had no tracks so I returned it.
So basically it was one lump of 55 minutes ravishing music instead of 21 tracks. Sometimes you want to skip to a certain track.
This performance was included in the complete RAVEL box and tracks included which I bought 30 years later 😊
Every subsequent issue of this CD had tracks on it, but yes, that first release. 🤦♂️
Does anyone know why this is? What was it about 1980s CDs that made engineers apparently unaware of gapless playback? Dave recommended another CD from this era-Previn/Vienna's 1990 Alpensinfonie. Same exact thing. 48 minutes and 18 seconds on one track, with an "index" of all of the minute-second combinations for each discrete section on the back cover. But still. One. Track. 😬
@@saginawdavis I can forgive engineers when tracking one of the earliest CDs. It's a but harder to justify it in 1990. Telarc tried *really* hard to make indexing stick (or IN:DEX, as they kept styling it). But most CD players I had couldn't read indexes. But how's this for idiotic? Pentatonic made their recording of Zarathustra with Jurowski all one track. In 2017!! Absolutely moronic.
@@robhaynes4410 I just looked it up. This Daphnis & Chloe is from '81. Certainly an early date! 1990, less so. Funny to hear that Telarc thought calling it "IN:DEX" would make everyone hyped up about this idea. I still can't fathom why they wouldn't just use the gapless playback capability built into the CD format.
I have a 2007 recording of Mehta/Israel doing Zarathustra as one track!
He did some great recordings in London - his Saint Saens recording of miscellaneous orchestral pieces is wonderful (splendid Danse Macabre and Phaëton lives up to it's epic Greek legend story). He also did an earlier Petrushka for DG
with the LSO and Tamás Vásáry playing the piano part, which is no slouch.
I agree about the Saint-Saens CD> Have it for years and played it recently terrific performances.
Also have as a download for when i am away from home. Disagree with David somewhat about the organ symphony recording though. The orchestral playing and tempos are fine - the problem is the organ of the St. Joseph Oratory which is not totally suitable for French organ music it is a German made Rieger. Furthermore the organist Peter Hurford (who should have known better) does not employ enough reed sounds to give the organ that extra oomph so to speak.
Like I said, it's horrible.
Thank you for reviewing this box set that I got when it came out, although I had a few records from this box set on lp. I live in Montreal, and for several years I have attended dozens osm concert with dutoit.....i know you don't like when we talk about an artist in concert, but one that i remember is this concert where we heard the 2nd concerto for brahms piano with andré watts and dutoit conducting, and of which I have very good memories. I have of course followed the evolution of dutoit's recordings on decca, which have always seemed interesting to me....and even if his contract with the osm ended in fishtail, in 2003, he will have at least put the orchestra on “the map” as they say
My experience with classical music started with Dutoits Fauré and Holst, when a friend gave me this two CDs. Today I prefere other recordings, but these two were a very good dooropener.
Heard Dutoit live several times and he was even better than on the recordings - even more energized. Heard him in Montreal at the old Place des Arts (horrible hall - glad they ghot a new one!)
doing the Rimsky Scheherazade and Shostakovich
concerto for trumpet and strings - on the edge of my seat. In Carnegie Hall NYC heard him conduct the Britten War Requiem and in Lincoln Center Berlioz Damnation de Faust - better than the recording.
25 years or so with the one orchestra is not a bad innings! Eventually something's gotta give. Interesting to note the engineer (and maybe producer?) for The Planets was not the regular one, and voila! - they got the best sound of the whole set!
It's too bad Dutoit was cancelled in Philly. Did I hear you mention his Kodaly? I'm not sure if you did, but it's one of my favorites.
I bought this set as well, now maybe I'll get it out and listen to it!
The ONLY Dutoit recordings I like are his Tchaikovsky ballets. Which is extremely surprising, considering how cool and reticent he usually was. I think "shallow" is the perfect way to describe him. And I'm amazed he did a great Shostakovich 8th. I can't imagine him doing that piece at all, nevermind well. 😄
Never had a lot of time for Dutoit, but I like his Honegger set on Erato/Warner. Energised but not romanticised is how that music should be played, IMO.
Yes...I almost totally agree with this appraisal...perhaps controversially, considering its near universal approval, I don't like his Planets recording. The bloom of the church I feel works against the immediacy of sound necessary to create the impact required for the big pieces. The church worked really well for the Ravel, Debussy, Faure etc but all those discs you nayed i feel the venue was partly to blame, as well as the interpretation of course.
You're not alone -- maybe I'm just shallow (or have a tin ear), but I didn't find anything that particularly distinguished Dutoit's performance (for something more visceral, I usually reach for William Steinberg/Boston Symphony).
Happy to have gotten this box before Dutoit got cancelled. He conducted in Singapore several times, having made his home here, and also popped up occasionally to hear his friends like Argerich and Ashkenazy perform. Dutoit sightings here became a sort of activity for musical trainspotters and nerds.
Your description of Dutoit with the MSO kind of echoes my impression of Karajan with the Berlin Phil, i.e., extremely polished but only occasionally inspired and that usually in repertoire that he's not normally associated with.
Karajan 'only occasionally inspired'? Very debatable claim.
Evidently, Dutoit's Prokofiev is not in this boxset. The Romeo and Juliet selections is a great disc.
There is a lot that is missing. His Shostakovich, his Symanowski, the marvelous Boutique Fantasque, the Lizst piano concertos with Thibaudet, all the Berlioz choral music and Les Troyens , the remake of the Zravel piano concertos with Thibaudet ,and more that I can't think of at the moment
@@muzluv33 That's right! I actually have the La Boutique disc and it's fabulous! For being such a large box already why not include all of his Decca Montreal recordings?
@@muzluv33 Decca released an entire box of his Berlioz recordings, 17 CDs, in a "Collectors edition", in 2013. No doubt this is no longer available either, but there's some great and rare stuff there.
I guess he just got bored of waving his arms in thin air - wanted to feel something for a change! Conductors lol!
I've always enjoyed my Dutoit version of the Saint-Saens 3rd, especially compared to the versions I have( Pretre and Ormandy: I never could get my hands on the RCA Munch one) so it's kind of heart breaking to hear it descibed as" horrible, absolutely horrible" but then I'm no expert.
If you get a chance, try some of the great ones.
Very much like the Ansermet recordings, Decca engineers found a real sweet spot in that Montreal church. Dutoit cultivated a very transparent and colorful sound from the orchestra (just like Ansermet) which lended itself very well to French repertoire (just like Ansermet). Dutoit never really "got" the Russian repertoire (UNLIKE Ansermet). Dutoit's Falla is fine, but still....the stereo Ansermet really has never truly been matched.
Concerning his troubles in Philly....so many men fall victim to their impulses. So very many. (Levine, anyone?). This is not to excuse them. We must always think first of their victims. Those women deserve to be taken on their musical merits, not their sexuality.
In the end, Dutoit was and is a very fine conductor and a very flawed person. I will always enjoy his best recordings.
He used a sythesizer in the climax of the 1812. Why?!
Yes, it was horrible. He said the engineers put it in in post-production.
the box is far from complete, even considering only Montreal.and of course there will never be another box with other bands. All of the French music *Poulenc, Chausson) with the National de France is very good, for example. Among the worst omissions are the very few last recordings he made for Decca, with the Suisse Romande orchestra. The canceling was already happening, and they did not have great circulation to begin with. In particular , I have and treasure the Saint-Saens piano concertos 2 and 5 with Thibaudet...brilliant, especially the Egyptian.
That box is by no means all of Dutoit's Montreal recordings. I have all of them separately before Dutoit was cancelled as the other comment said. Sure, some performances were better than others as to be found in such a big discography but one could have done a whole lot worse. Even Dutoit's worst recordings were better than what we see nowadays. I heard him live bnoth in Montreal and NYC where I live. I must say that those live performances had an extra frisson or energy if you will. So hope Decca comes up with a truly complete survey. Sad that his career took a plunge the way it did but should not erase what he did prior.
There was a separate box with all his Berlioz recordings - a more interesting box than this one I think.
No "Carnival of Animals"? I though that was one of Dutoit's better discs.
That was with the London Philharmonic - David was reviewing Montreal discs.
@@muzluv33I have the Carnival -- it's the London Sinfonietta in the notes (bearable, but not great).