Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Reginald Goodall – the holy fool

I have just listened to the recording of Mastersin...

2009-03-08T23:37:00.000Z

I have just listened to the recording of Mastersingers. Empirically, it might be on the slow side but it feels right and just and you can sense the performances unfolding. It is music drama. Goodall conducts it as if it is a symphony, looking for the long-term structural links and the performaces he elicits from alberto remedios and co are truloy remarkable.

While I can understand Goodall being a total idiot...

2007-05-10T05:04:32.503+01:00

While I can understand Goodall being a total idiot politically, what I can't fogive is his tempi in Wagner. I struggled through his Tristan and it's absurd how slow he takes the music. At a couple points, it simply unravels because of the fascist nutter's tempi. Awful, rivalled only by the appalling Bernstein recording. I strongly suspect that in Goodall's case, it's "the Gramophone effect" i.e. hype from British critics.

I hope he enjoys his stay for eternity in hell for his comment about Bergen-Belsen, however.

Your bios of semi-obscure musical characters are a...

2007-05-08T21:59:16.380+01:00

Your bios of semi-obscure musical characters are astonishing, Pliable. Though I'm not much of a Wagner "Ring" fan, I remember hearing the Goodall recording of "Das Rheingold" decades ago and thinking, "Oh, that's how it's supposed to sound. Got it!"

As for political naivete, it's much easier to see who's on the right and wrong side of history after enough time has elapsed. I wonder how the many supporters of Bush and Blair and their grotesque Invasion of Iraq are going to look like years down the road. For instance, the following is a recent quote from an article praising the election of Sarkozy in France by Martin Peretz, the editor of "The New Republic" magazine in the United States:

"The third [change he is looking forward to seeing] will be the initial experiment among the western powers in dethroning the cult of multiculturalism. Majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories. They have a right to define the qualifications for membership in and even admission to their societies. This will be the struggle of the 21st century. And not just in France."

Goodall may have been naive, but others like Peretz don't even have that particular excuse.

And the stories about Goodall and Britten are fascinating. Charles Mackerras went through something similar. I wish somebody would finally write a great biography of Britten to replace that inadequate tome by Humphrey Carpenter. How about you, Monsieur Pliable?