Review: Neville Marriner's (Mostly) Been There, Heard That Warner Box
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Do you really need 80 CDs of stuff, much of which Marriner recorded previously for Philips/Decca? If you already own the earlier recordings, the answer is "no." If you don't, then you have a decision to make.
After this, I'm not exactly counting on us getting a complete Sir Colin Davis Philips recordings box anytime soon.
Listening to your run-through, it seems to me you think his batting average is about .900. He is perhaps not a great power hitter, but boy does he get on base a lot. And that, to me, is very impressive.
Marriner always makes me think of that New Yorker cartoon. Radio announcer: "...played now by the ASMF..." Parrot 🦜 in the cage pipes up, "Neville Marriner conducting."
I love when you pull the original jackets out of the box, because I can quickly scroll through things visually when I’m at a CD store and find one of the albums, and want to hear what you have say about it on video. Sadly, I can’t use the transcript feature to pick out key words on mobile.
I enjoy seeing all the original jackets myself in the videos rather than off the box even though it might be a bit of a pain getting them out of the box
This seems like a good value proposition, especially since there's no guarantee of a complete Universal box, & even if one came to pass, it would be so enormous as to be awfully expensive.
Speaking of conductors who did the "major label trot," I'll make one last plug for you to review the Sony/BMG and Warner Ozawa boxes. They're both still available, & the Sony is less than a year old. Of the 51 discs in the Sony box, only 5 are reviewed on the CT website. Of the 25 discs in the Warner box, only 1 has been reviewed on CT. And they'll be better boxes than the big Rattle one!
The Sony box does not have international distribution (yet). It seem to have been a Japan special edition. Warner I will think about.
Sony released a "Ozawa and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra" box some years ago, which is still avaiable - that's only a handful of discs, though. Wouldn't the best Ozawa recordings be in the "Philips Years" box and the DG box - both of those are long oop, I think. The former contains his Boston Mahler cycle, of which DH thinks highly. How did he appear on so many labels?!
@@wappingbpy I'm making my way through the Sony/RCA box. Many very fine recordings in there. I will confess that I find his DG output to be my favorite stuff, especially the Boston recordings.
I feel like the big but far from complete ASMF bix covered that base. Only Universal knows if it sold fast enough for them to feel there is market for a mega box-and so much duplicated via the 60Cd set it feels unlikely
''Isn't this exciting'' LOL I know Marriner could be very good, but ''exciting' is not the first word that comes to my mind to describe his interpretations.
I loved your repeated use of the word "sensible" to describe Marriner's conducting. That's how I've always heard him, too; he wasn't the sort of conductor who could storm the heavens but you could always be assured of a quality performance from him. Also, I thought the "Toy Symphony" was three movements from a Cassation in G by Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang's dad).
Dave, there is a classical saxophone album I would love to see you review on this channel. Please consider. The soloist is John-Edward Kelley with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra on the Arte Nova label. On the album is the Ibert Concertino da camera, Frank Martin Ballade for alto saxophone and orchestra, and the Lars-Erik Larsson Concerto for alto saxophone and string orchestra.
As far as Marriner's lack of competence with Romantic repertoire, was it because he didn't like it, and was just "forced" to do it for the sake of selling music, or did he just not have an understanding of how that period of music was supposed to have been played?
I cannot possibly speculate. People who worked with him always say he was a good guy. But in the romantic repertoire you need to have a more impulsive personality than he (or me) have. I mean Christopher Hogwood did some great neoclassical 20th century stuff, he really did, including Martinů. But expect he couldn’t have done Liszt or Tchaikovsky or even Schumann very well.
Oops...it appears that Warner missed the Respighi Ancient Airs and Dances disc with the LACO.
Yes, they did.
And, it seems, they've also missed the Virgil Thomson film scores with the LACO. So, yet another "almost complete" mega box.
I think it was Duncan Pirnie of WQXR (sigh) who would announce "....with Sir Neville Marriner at the helm." (1970s or 1980s)
GOOD OLE DUNCAN. Liked him between 5 & 6 pm weekdays with AROUND THE TOWN where he could let his hair down and come up with some off the wall jokes along with some splendid lighter music.
@@FREDGARRISON Who called him "Drunken Pirnie"? What a great voice.
A Marriner boxed set of his Phillips/London/Decca content would be my preference. Has one ever been released?
No.
@@fred6904thanks
The Kurt Masur box by Warner has the same cumbersome packaging. I imagine most of their current big boxes are like this.
Surprisingly, that is the most muscular performance of Charpentier's Te Deum I've heard, with a big old whack on the timpani at The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee for some reason, immensely satisfying
I saw Marriner conduct the NY Philharmonic in a concert that included Haydn's symphony 104. I was shocked how wooden his baton technique was and how earthbound the interpretation was. That said, I do like some of his recordings.
For me one of the great mysteries of the Classical Industry is the ubiquity of Marriner on record from the early '70s through to the '90s. A pleasant fellow by all accounts. Uninspiring musician, though.
Yes, safe, neat, and he had the entire British classical music press behind him.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I remember a glowing Gramophone cover article when he hit 700 recordings and said he hoped to live long enough to hit 1000.
@@richardmohr8604 Well, did he? Anyone? The man lived into his nineties, but I am not sure at what point in time the 700-occasion took place. :) The fun stories about conductors chivalrously refusing to lay down their baton include the likes of Stokovsky, but also less notoriously - Pierre Monteux signing contracts in old age that would have run past their 100th anniversary, had they been honored by the Reaper.