# How does this happen?



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I have mentioned before, the BSO was my childhood orchestra - end of the Munch years and most of Leinsdorf's. So, as I was learning the standard repertoire, I loyally possessed a lot of BSO recordings.

One of Leinsdorf's first BSO records was a Brahms d-minor concerto with Van Cliburn. Not perfect, but intense, incisive -- altogether a fine recording for a first encounter, even though I've since gone on to other performances.

A few years later, for whatever reason -- maybe a contractual thing with the pianist -- the same forces (orchestra, conductor, venue, engineer, producer) recorded the same work with Arthur Rubinstein. I got it, put it on, and found it stupefyingly dull. I was too ignorant then to be able to judge Rubinstein's pianism, but the orchestral playing was interpretively so lackluster that it was hard to believe it was the same piece. Maybe there were interpretive differences between conductor and soloist (or Rubinstein's wife, who I hear was a terror in the control room). But repeated listenings years ago confirmed my impression and I don't quite get how anyone could have signed off on it. (For comparison, AR's Schumann Concerto with the CSO and Giulini was a triumph.)

Anyone guess how something like this can happen?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

You mention that it was your ‘impression’ that the Rubinstein recording was dull. I think there would have to be a general consensus that the performance was dull before trying to figure out why it was.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I can't find a recording of Rubenstein performing the Brahms D minor with Boston under Munch. There's Reiner with Chicago, and Mehta with Israel, but no Boston under Munch.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> Anyone guess how something like this can happen?


After such a long time, very dangerous.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

There is a Brahms 1 under Leinsdorf which is not issued on CD as far as I know. It is difficult to know the reason sometimes why these recordings just don’t catch fire. I have a Schumann piano concerto with Kempff and Kubelik which should be great but sounds like autopilot.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> I have mentioned before, the BSO was my childhood orchestra - end of the Munch years and most of Leinsdorf's. So, as I was learning the standard repertoire, I loyally possessed a lot of BSO recordings.
> 
> One of Leinsdorf's first BSO records was a Brahms d-minor concerto with Van Cliburn. Not perfect, but intense, incisive -- altogether a fine recording for a first encounter, even though I've since gone on to other performances.
> 
> ...


I think the most likely answer is in _you_ rather than in the musicians. That's to say, probably your experience of the first recording created expectations about what the music should be like, expectations which were confounded in the second, and being a creative of habit you were unable to appreciate the good things in the one with Rubinstein.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

MarkW said:


> I have mentioned before, the BSO was my childhood orchestra - end of the Munch years and most of Leinsdorf's. So, as I was learning the standard repertoire, I loyally possessed a lot of BSO recordings.
> 
> One of Leinsdorf's first BSO records was a Brahms d-minor concerto with Van Cliburn. Not perfect, but intense, incisive -- altogether a fine recording for a first encounter, even though I've since gone on to other performances.
> 
> ...


Maybe it's silly of me to comment since I haven't heard the recordings you're talking about, but I'm an obsessive collector myself of classical music (maybe the title of this web site should be called Obsessive Classical Music Collectors Anonymous or "OCMCA"; the only difference being that unlike other self-help groups we DON'T want to be cured! At least I don't want the cure!).

Anyway, lots of other posters mentioned some reasons having to do with imprinting, maybe not "getting" another recording when the first one has grown on you so much. I might also add that even classical music geniuses have their off days, and some are mismatched when two very powerful musical giants comes together, the conductor and the soloist, and each have a vision that collides with the other. Take, for examples, Glenn Gould's recordings of the Schuman and Brahms chamber works that he made with the Julliard and Montreal Quartets respectively, and these wonderful musicians are so disconnected that it almost sounds as if Gould and the strings were recorded separately and dubbed together through technology.

It therefore, makes sense, that in the famous recording that Bernstein made with Gould of the Brahms _PC#1_ that Bernstein publicly stated that he placed his own musical vision of the Brahms _PC#1_ aside, because his and Gould's ideas were so different regarding tempo and dynamics. Though he didn't agree with Gould, he respected Gould's genius and commitment to the music THAT much, and too bad the only recording of that performance is marred by audience coughing and sniffling in the slow movement, and Dr. Fauci wouldn't have liked it either.

Lastly, record companies might be out to make a quick buck, and maybe they know that if they have something with a couple of big names on it, a "final recording", a "final concert"; they can put something together without having to pay musicians and studio engineers who are among the living. There are collectors like me who might be bothered if we don't have the complete recordings of Bernstein, Karajan, Gould, etc. I think in Rock/Pop music it's even worse where a box set of Bob Dylan's "unreleased" material featured an authorized "bootlegged" track where he was singing over the phone, and I guess if a recording was found of Bob Dylan reading passages from _Webster's Dictionary _people would buy it.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> I can't find a recording of Rubenstein performing the Brahms D minor with Boston under Munch. There's Reiner with Chicago, and Mehta with Israel, but no Boston under Munch.


Not Munch. Leinsdorf.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Sometimes in concerts and the studio, and even in rehearsals, things just click and the result is magical. But it's ephemeral and hard to recapture, no matter how hard one tries. There are countless examples of remakes of the same music with the same conductor and even the same orchestra where the second go around just wasn't as special. I have five different recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique with Charles Munch - they're so different, all exciting. He was like that - hot one day, cooler the next. Very mercurial. And sometimes the soloist and conductor just don't work well together. Munch had his favorites and I don't think Van Cliburn was one of them.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

MarkW said:


> Not Munch. Leinsdorf.


Ah, yes, I see now in the OP. It has made it to CD as part of the Rubenstein Collection, Vol. 59 (it's on Spotify). I'm listening to it now, but I'm no expert in these works. While I like Brahms, I really only listen to his chamber music and some solo piano.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

It's likely the chemistry, or lack of same, between Leinsdorf and the BSO musicians...this was not a happy union....
The BSO had fallen on rough times by the late 50s, Munch could be inspiring, but he didn't like to rehearse, and orchestral discipline had really deteriorated. there were several real "maverick" players in principal positions, ensemble unity and unified concept of sound were virtually non-existent.
The BSO management brought in Leinsdorf, hoping he could set things straight - they really needed a Reiner or Monteux to rebuild the orchestra, but they were otherwise occupied, and late in their careers...A perennial journeyman-level conductor, Leinsdorf did ok as a guest conductor, but he simply wasn't the man for the job....He tried to make some changes, but the musicians and the union resisted....quality did not improve, and morale deteriorated further. 
I heard them frequently during the 60s, and the quality of playing simply was not comparable to what one heard with Ormandy/Phila, Bernstein/NYPO, Szell/ClOrch, even Steinberg/PittsSO....Solti/CSO?? - forget it - different universe....
These were difficult years for the BSO.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I have just heard a handful of Leinsdorf/BSO recordings (Mahler 5, Beethoven 9, Schoenberg's _Survivor from Warsaw_, and I used to have Strauss' _EinHeldenleiben_ by Leinsdorf/BSO on cassette), and those recordings seem quite solid to me, especially the _Ein Heldenlieben_ which I've yet to find on CD at a reasonable price. I'm interested to hear that Leinsdorf was having "discipline" problems with the BSO, because I read the same thing somewhere about Dimitri Mitropoulos and the NYPO, and despite a prolific repertoire and some wonderful music-making both Mitropoulos and Leinsdorf seemed to languish in syndication, neither was promoted very well by major record companies in the multitude of reissue budget lines (i.e. "Great Performances", "Masterworks", "RCA Gold Seal", "Silver Seal", "Red Seal", etc.). On the other hand conductors such as Szell, Reiner, and especially the not-headed Italian, Arturo Toscanini, who were known as heavy-handed task-masters who (at least in Toscanini's case) were known for fits of rage, and monster-tantrums, have been revisited time and time again.

Apart from master-musicianship, eidetic memory, and drive, a key component to being a master conductor is to NOT work on one's anger management skills.

ON a different note, I'm interested in how some conductors have been said to be better live than in the studio, or conversely, better in the studio than live. The music critic, Michael Walsh wrote in his book, _Who's Afraid of Classical Music?_, that Szell was much better live than on records, that you really had to "be there" to understand how great he was.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Coach G said:


> ON a different note, I'm interested in how some conductors have been said to be better live than in the studio, or conversely, better in the studio than live.


No doubt true. When making a recording you have to be careful to get it right. Orchestra time is expensive so you can't take too many risks. Munch was one of those who loved to change things up in concert but was restricted in the studio. Even there, he hated the editing process, preferring to make long takes, minor slips be damned. That's why so many superb recordings are those that were made "live". Minor errors are forgiven in trade for otherwise incandescent performances. Like Karajan's live account of the Mahler 9th. Furtwangler had a certain electricity in concert that is revealed in his many live recordings, but he was noticeable ill at ease in the studio.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Coach G said:


> I'm interested to hear that Leinsdorf was having "discipline" problems with the BSO, because I read the same thing somewhere about Dimitri Mitropoulos and the NYPO....


Different situations....the NYPO wildmen of the 40-50s loved Mitropoulos, but took advantage of his kind and easygoing nature....so performance discipline could be erratic...Mitropoulos was a fine conductor, who could certainly inspire his musicians and generate terrific performances....when they're on, Mitropoulos/NYPO was awesome (Sym Fantastic, Petrushka, Prokofiev R&J Tchaik, etc)
The BSO didn't like Leinsdorf and resented his treatment of them....Leinsdorf was essentially a journeyman-level conductor, who did ok as a guest conductor - he had a very large repertoire, virtually all of which he conducted with a stiff, pedestrian stodginess, known in musical circles as a "dead stick".



> On the other hand conductors such as Szell, Reiner, and especially the not-headed Italian, Arturo Toscanini, who were known as heavy-handed task-masters who (at least in Toscanini's case) were known for fits of rage, and monster-tantrums, have been revisited time and time again.


Toscanini, Reiner, Szell were great conductors, who really delivered the goods....great musicians, not very nice people, to be sure...musicians will play for a tyrant if the music is great, everyone likes to be on the "winning team".


> The music critic, Michael Walsh wrote in his book, _Who's Afraid of Classical Music?_, that Szell was much better live than on records, that you really had to "be there" to understand how great he was.


Michael has a point, but I don't know if he can hear it....I went to school with him, he was a year behind me....smart fellow, quite articulate, but lacking any real musical talent.... he couldn't make it as a pianist, or a composer...so he switched major to musicology, iirc...he quickly got a music critic spot with "Time" magazine, I think...and has followed that path since.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Anyone guess how something like this can happen?_

Easy -- you changed in the interim. My guess is if you listen to it again 10 years from now you'll have another perspective.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Munch was one of those who loved to change things up in concert but was restricted in the studio. Even there, he hated the editing process, preferring to make long takes, minor slips be damned.


Right, Munch didn't even like to rehearse...he loved spontaneity, and would frequently deliberately change something in performance from what he'd done in rehearsal...all with a smile and twinkle in his eye....that's why you may hear some sloppiness or messy playing on a Munch recording....it probably was exciting at live concert, but repeated hearing on recording can be annoying.
Several other great conductors hated the piecemeal, stop and go recording process - Toscanini, Reiner, Furtwangler...they liked big long chunks, where flow and momentum could be established...you might get minor slips, but they were going for the big picture...Reiner was noted for some famous single-take recordings: the '60 Don Juan, Pines/Appian Way, final mvt of Sheherazade with CSO, and single take "Till Eulenspiegal" with VPO in '56...
OTOH, Ormandy favoured the short bits and pieces approach - 10 measures and stop; 10 measures and stop, ad nauseam....drove his musicians nuts (but they loved the payday!!)....then the bits and pieces would be pasted together for the recording....I always thought Ormandy/Phila sounded better live than on recording....live allows the flow and momentum to develop...studio allows for editing of mistakes, but it can be too choppy, lacking continuity.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Heck148 said:


> Right, Munch didn't even like to rehearse...he loved spontaneity, and would frequently deliberately change something in performance from what he'd done in rehearsal...all with a smile and twinkle in his eye....that's why you may hear some sloppiness or messy playing on a Munch recording....it probably was exciting at live concert, but repeated hearing on recording can be annoying.
> Several other great conductors hated the piecemeal, stop and go recording process - Toscanini, Reiner, Furtwangler...they liked big long chunks, where flow and momentum could be established...you might get minor slips, but they were going for the big picture...Reiner was noted for some famous single-take recordings: the '60 Don Juan, Pines/Appian Way, final mvt of Sheherazade with CSO, and single take "Till Eulenspiegal" with VPO in '56...
> OTOH, Ormandy favoured the short bits and pieces approach - 10 measures and stop; 10 measures and stop, ad nauseam....drove his musicians nuts (but they loved the payday!!)....then the bits and pieces would be pasted together for the recording....I always thought Ormandy/Phila sounded better live than on recording....live allows the flow and momentum to develop...studio allows for editing of mistakes, but it can be too choppy, lacking continuity.


Then there's the hybrid approach as when Ormandy conducted a "very fine "live" recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3 in a rare instance where Ormandy leaves his Philadelphians and conducts Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Horowitz in tow. Only I later found out that the recording was almost live, as Ormandy and Horowitz took the orchestra to the recording studio a few days later to air-brush a few rough spots.

On the flip side of Munch's spontaneous approach or Sergiu Celibidace who avoided the recording studio all together, is Glenn Gould who turned his back on the concert hall, and retreated to the electronic world of the recording studio. Gould used the studio as much as his instrument as he did the piano, and yet there doesn't seem to be any disruption of continuity. As Gould's final recording was also his conducting debut (Wagner's _Siegfried Idyll_), I read somewhere that Gould's idea was for his to conduct the orchestral part of a piano concerto, and dub himself in later as the soloist.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> Right, Munch didn't even like to rehearse...he loved spontaneity, and would frequently deliberately change something in performance from what he'd done in rehearsal...all with a smile and twinkle in his eye....that's why you may hear some sloppiness or messy playing on a Munch recording....it probably was exciting at live concert, but repeated hearing on recording can be annoying.
> Several other great conductors hated the piecemeal, stop and go recording process - Toscanini, Reiner, Furtwangler...they liked big long chunks, where flow and momentum could be established...you might get minor slips, but they were going for the big picture...Reiner was noted for some famous single-take recordings: the '60 Don Juan, Pines/Appian Way, final mvt of Sheherazade with CSO, and single take "Till Eulenspiegal" with VPO in '56...
> OTOH, Ormandy favoured the short bits and pieces approach - 10 measures and stop; 10 measures and stop, ad nauseam....drove his musicians nuts (but they loved the payday!!)....then the bits and pieces would be pasted together for the recording....I always thought Ormandy/Phila sounded better live than on recording....live allows the flow and momentum to develop...studio allows for editing of mistakes, but it can be too choppy, lacking continuity.


But he did have his moments. His recording of Berlioz overtures makes them sound like the greatest music in the world. And his Beethoven Ninth is at the top of my list (although admittedly, I prefer French Ninths to the heavier Germanic style).


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

MarkW said:


> But he did have his moments. His recording of Berlioz overtures makes them sound like the greatest music in the world. And his Beethoven Ninth is at the top of my list (although admittedly, I prefer French Ninths to the heavier Germanic style).


Munch really enjoyed himself...he was a terrific guest conductor, always brought lots of energy and spontaneity to the host orchestra..he certainly knew what he was doing....Munch isn't the only famous conductor who disliked rehearsing- Knappertsbusch was well-known for his disdain of rehearsals, Beecham was known to skip them if he could!!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Handelian said:


> There is a Brahms 1 under Leinsdorf which is not issued on CD as far as I know. It is difficult to know the reason sometimes why these recordings just don't catch fire. I have a Schumann piano concerto with Kempff and Kubelik which should be great but sounds like autopilot.


I have it in the big Rubinstein box. Interestingly, it was the first Brahms 1 I ever heard, and I loved it, but that was over 40 years (and many interpretations ago). I'm not sure I've listened to the CD.


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