Those of you who DO NOT like Maazel & Muti...

[Sylph]

... are there any recordings which you consider great, excellent, in top 3 or 5 for that particular work?

What are some of their greatest recordings?

(I don't like them, that's a known fact, but irrelevant for this particular thread.)

[stenka razin]

Sylph, for Maazel, I would recommend the 8 CD DG Original Masters box containing very early and vital Maazel recordings, Complete Early Berlin Philharmonic Recordings, 1957-1962. That might convince you. 8
For Muti, listen to his idiomatic and quite lovely performances of complete Verdi operas. May I suggest some selected examples, Aida (EMI), Don Carlo (EMI), Ernani (EMI), La Forza Del Destino (EMI), La Traviata (EMI), Macbeth (EMI), Nabucco (EMI), Rigoletto (EMI) and Un Ballo In Maschera (EMI). Muti conducts these performances so lovingly, that you will be won over by his expertise, mate.
Happy listening.

[Wallingford]

... are there any recordings which you consider great, excellent, in top 3 or 5 for that particular work?

What are some of their greatest recordings?

(I don't like them, that's a known fact, but irrelevant for this particular thread.)

Among Maazel's, there's his late-70s Pines Of Rome & Roman Festivals.

Muti?......you'll hafta give me a few more weeks to rack my brain. (I am hoping to catch some internet broadcast of this week's NYP concert of Schubert's Ninth, and with Uchida doing Ravel's Concerto in G).

[Wallingford]

And actually, I'd better suspend judgement on Maazel till I start playing this stack of his later Cleveland performances (from the digital-LP era). Had it lying around for years...of his Pictures At An Exhibition, Tchaikovsky Fifth and Ein Heldenleben.

[Chalkperson]

Sylph, for Maazel, I would recommend the 8 CD DG Original Masters box containing very early and vital Maazel recordings, Complete Early Berlin Philharmonic Recordings, 1957-1962. That might convince you.

They convinced me that in the begining he was actually quite a good Conductor, unfortunately, he went downhill from 1963 onwards...

[dirkronk]

Among Maazel's, there's his late-70s Pines Of Rome & Roman Festivals.

Agreed. Very good. Some of his early Sibelius symphonies are impressive, too. But I'd personally put Maazel/Cleveland's Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet ahead of any of those...definitely my recommendation.

Muti....uh...I'll join Wallingford and ask for more time on that one. IIRC, his Beethoven 9th doesn't suck, but it doesn't make my top list either, so that can't be a ringing endorsement. Frankly, he's just never been on my "listen to" list.

FWIW.

Dirk

[Wallingford]

Sylph, for Maazel, I would recommend the 8 CD DG Original Masters box containing very early and vital Maazel recordings, Complete Early Berlin Philharmonic Recordings, 1957-1962. That might convince you. 8

I recommend, from around this period, his renderings of Ravel's two operas, L'heure espagnol and L'enfant et les sortileges. Deservedly praised critically for their day (though in my book they still take a back seat to Ansermet's).

[RebLem]

I am not a big fan of either. but for Maazel, there is this good Ravel album:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Dri ... p_id=37964

And for Muti, the Scriabin Symphonies with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/alb ... _id=124796

[John F]

I recommend, from around this period, his renderings of Ravel's two operas, L'heure espagnol and L'enfant et les sortileges. Deservedly praised critically for their day (though in my book they still take a back seat to Ansermet's).

Second the motion - and he still gives outstanding performances of "L'Enfant," which he's programmed twice with the New York Philharmonic. The best of Maazel, at least that I've heard, has been in opera, and his note-complete recording of "Porgy and Bess" with the Cleveland Orchestra is an outstanding achievement.

Muti? Sorry, can't help with him, haven't heard many of his recordings.

[Jack Kelso]

Muti was in top form when he recorded the complete Schumann symphonies. With Schubert I like his 2nd and 4th best, less for the two "big ones". His Mendelssohn 5th ("Reformation") deserves to be rated one of the best available.

Maazel's early Strauss tone poems (Vienna Phil. on London) back in the early 60's---especially "Don Juan" and "Tod und Verklärung"---have never been done better, IMHO.

Also, Maazel's Tschaikowsky, especially the 4th, 5th and 6th---are tops in my book. But I like Mravinsky, too....but he's not quite as steady.

Tschüß!
Jack

[Ken]

Jack, I had a once-over of Muti's Schumann set (thank you, public library!) a couple of years ago and was somewhat unimpressed with it, feeling as though the whole operation was far too heavy-feeling and that there were some misplaced tempo adjustments. I seem to recall the fourth being carried out fairly well, though.

What are the distinguishing characteristics of this set? I wouldn't mind hunting it down and giving it another whirl.

[Jack Kelso]

Jack, I had a once-over of Muti's Schumann set (thank you, public library!) a couple of years ago and was somewhat unimpressed with it, feeling as though the whole operation was far too heavy-feeling and that there were some misplaced tempo adjustments. I seem to recall the fourth being carried out fairly well, though.

What are the distinguishing characteristics of this set? I wouldn't mind hunting it down and giving it another whirl.

Yes, Ken---the Fourth might be the standout recording, but his Third is also very fine (he doesn't take the Feierlich movement too quickly, as many conductors tend to do). I'll have to take a listen again to the 1st and 2nd and get back to this subject....

Tschüß!
Jack

[gfweis]

What a nice idea to invite people to say appropriately good things about generally unappreciated conductors.

I'm certainly an un-appreciator of Maazel, but there is one recording of his that I think is excellent. His late-'70's Cleveland Orchestra Beethoven 9th (CBS), which has great pace, clarity (he really x-rays the score), and drama. He has Popp, Obraztsova, Vickers, and Talvela (all superb here), an excellent choir, and everything is well-caught by engineers Edward T. Graham and Mike Ross-Trevor (it's one of the best of the early digital recordings), except that the soloists are perhaps a bit close-miked and will be loud for some tastes. This is an exciting 9th from start to finish, with Maazel creating a constant feeling of anticipation, each phrase leaning into the next.

Muti is a finer conductor than Maazel, IMHO, even though he's not a favorite of mine. The best thing I ever heard Muti do was his Scriabin Symphony No. 1 (a work worth hearing if you don't know it) with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mine is on an EMI Angel digital lp. Muti also has a very good Philadelphia Brahms 3rd, the best of his four Brahms symphonies in the Philips box.

[Sylph]

I was listening to Maazel’s Respighi and here is what Gramophone had to say (review from 1997 by Michael Oliver):

This is such an exceptionally fine recording that in praising it to the skies I risk understating Maazel’s affectionate as well as brilliant performances. But then, as a note from the recording producer points out, the technique he has used would only work with the combination of an outstanding orchestra, a fine acoustic and a conductor in total control of the orchestral balancing. Only two microphones were used (supplemented, of course, by others for the separately recorded organ and the off-stage brass) and only two tape tracks, making it quite impossible to ‘improve’ the balance later. The gains, to one who has always been dubious about ‘multi-miking’ anyway, are immediately obvious and I would have said unanswerable. The orchestral sound is perfectly natural and perfectly believable; the acoustic is both perceptible and credible; Respighi’s textures are satisfyingly rich but always comprehensible; instruments are in the right perspective, and when a solo line is prominent there is no sense that it has been artificially spotlit or moved forward.

The sound is genuinely realistic, in short: just what you hope to hear from a good seat in a better than average concert-hall. Once you’ve got over the pleasurable relief of hearing such a sound again, you notice of course what a splendid orchestra this is: in Pines alone, what wonderfully velvety strings to evoke the shadows of the pines near a catacomb, what sensitive woodwind soloists as companions to the nightingale (poetically distant but beautifully clear) on the moonlit Janiculum! And then, trusting the balances as Maazel’s own and not half-wondering whether your compliments ought not to be awarded to the engineers, you enjoy not only the fine control of his big crescendos in the second and fourth movements, but the fact that you don’t have to fiddle with the volume controls to appreciate both the quiet and the loud ends of those crescendos. His ear for shadings and contrasts of colour is sharp; so is his realization of how much of the drama of this music is dependent on a sense of orchestral space: the solo horn audibly behind the hushed strings in “L’Ottobrata”, the orchestra a sort of spatial analogue for the Colosseum in “Circenses” (Nos. 3 and 1 of Festivals respectively). Sony’s booklet, artfully, is in monochrome; the sound is not only in full colour but in three-dimensional relief. It is quite stunning, and under its immediate impact I can’t think of any modern recording of Respighi’s Roman pictures (not even that of Jansons) that approaches it.

[nut-job]

This is indeed very fine. Another beautiful set of recordings from Maazel is the series of Sibelius Symphonies with Pittsburgh on Sony. I much prefer that set to the more often mentioned Maazel/VPO set.

The Maazel/Cleveland Romeo and Juliette is beautiful, and I would love to hear the Brahms Cycle Maazel recorded with Cleveland on CD.

[Istvan]

I consider Maazel a brilliant musician and far more interesting than the "neutral" middle-aged so-called stars inflicted on us at present. Examples of outstanding recordings:

1) Sibelius and Tchaikovsky sets with the VPO.
2) "Romeo and Juliette" (Prokofiev)
3) "Porgy and Bess".
4) Mahler 1st and 4th with VPO.
5) "Harold in Italy" (Berlioz) with the BPO.
6) "L'Enfant et les Sortilèges".

[Barry]

I'm on record as not being a big Muti fan, although I do think he's better now than he was during his Philly days.

However, while I think the majority of his Philly recordings were relatively dull, there were some exceptions:

Beethoven symphonies 4, 7, 9
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Stravinsky Rite of Spring
The Ravel Orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition (the one on EMI)


Still, I'm not sure I'd put any of those among my top three recordings for those pieces.
The one thing by him that really blew me away was a live Bruckner 6th with the NY Phil from a season or two ago, which I heard on-line. If that had been a commercial release, I'd probably rate it behind only the Celibidache recording.

[stenka razin]

When is someone going to comment on Riccardo Muti's major discographic contribution to music. Not his symphonic recordings, but his enormous and outstanding legacy of complete Opera recordings? I mentioned his many outstanding Verdi CD sets above and no other CMGers have either agreed or disagreed about my enthusiasm for maestro Muti's great contributions to recorded opera. Well?

[EarlyCuyler]

This is indeed very fine. Another beautiful set of recordings from Maazel is the series of Sibelius Symphonies with Pittsburgh on Sony. I much prefer that set to the more often mentioned Maazel/VPO set.

The Maazel/Cleveland Romeo and Juliette is beautiful, and I would love to hear the Brahms Cycle Maazel recorded with Cleveland on CD.

I very much agree with this recommendation. Its an absolutely fantastic recording. In spite of Maazel...