I couldn't agree more strongly with Théo . As Colin Davis said when he took over at the LSO, what the orchestra needed was to play a great deal of Mozart and Haydn, string tone often having been the Achilles heel of London orchestras. Davis has also said that, of works he would most still like to record he would most like to record, he would choose the St Matthew Passion, but noted that, alas, the 'specialists' would never allow that. As our good host points out, the present situation would have been incomprehensible to great conductors of the past, whether Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, or Furtwängler. How is one to hear the Bach in Mahler, let alone the Mahler in Bach, if one does not know Bach - and know him intimately? Even if one were to take the ayatollah-like view that Bach and Handel were and could only be chamber music, it would be necessary to play them for that reason alone. Those would confine Bach, Mozart, Monteverdi, or anyone else, to a (generally grossly mis...
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But on the EMI business, I just wanted to say that I got a real shock the morning I clicked on my link to the Naxos Music Library and found myself reading a notice that Naxos would henceforth be distributing the EMI catalogue: All of it, from Beatrice Harrison to Leif Ove Andnes. They estimate it will take them three months to add the whole lot to the Library. The Boult recordings added thus far have been enough to keep me occupied for a while, and some I never thought to hear, as also recordings of others. And, I must add, they are now also the distibutor for Virgin. There's significance in here somewhere, though I've not yet fathomed it Perhaps I'm too busy avidly listening.