# Ernest Ansermet



## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

I've been looking at some old Decca recordings and noticed that there are a ton conducted by Ernest Ansermet. But it seems that only recently have they been released on CD and many by Eloquence. Any thoughts on Ansermet?


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

His Daphnis and Chloe is the best! I like it more than any other version. Hard to say why. It's sort of cool and measured, but that approach somehow paradoxically brings out all the passion so much better. Sounds strange, I know.


----------



## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

adriesba said:


> I've been looking at some old Decca recordings and noticed that there are a ton conducted by Ernest Ansermet. But it seems that only recently have they been released on CD and many by Eloquence. Any thoughts on Ansermet?


He's mostly remembered, I think, as a specialist in French music, which is not something I listen to very often. But I do like his Brahms and Beethoven very much.


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

His Daphnis et Chloe is the best! I like it more than any other. The apparently cool and measured approach somehow paradoxically results in overwhelming passion. And it does not feel like passion of the conductor, but passion in the music itself and in the objects that it depicts.

Oh! I posted twice, it seems. I blame technology. I am not insane.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

wkasimer said:


> He's mostly remembered, I think, as a specialist in French music, which is not something I listen to very often. But I do like his Brahms and Beethoven very much.


He conducted a lot of Russian nationalist music also: Rimsky, etc. He conducted the second performance ever of _le Sacre_, in London. There is a famous photo of Ansermet on the sidewalk flanked by Stravinsky and a young Prokofiev.


----------



## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Not a fan, personally. I blame his orchestra, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; they sound scrappy to my ears, and the dated sound doesn't help. Couple that with the fact that he's on record as an incorrigible antisemite, and I can't say I'm terribly motivated to explore his legacy in depth anytime soon.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

He's famous as (I believe?) one of the conductors that Stravinsky worked closest with and he made a lot of pioneering recordings of his music. His Petrouchka from 1946 is regarded as a true classic of the gramophone and was supposedly considered to be state-of-the-art sound for the age even though I think the performance itself is nothing special. He has a good disc of Stravinsky symphonies (Symphony in Three Movements and Symphony in C) that is worth checking out. I've heard some pretty good things about his R-K Scheherazade too.


----------



## Guest (Nov 17, 2020)

adriesba said:


> I've been looking at some old Decca recordings and noticed that there are a ton conducted by Ernest Ansermet. But it seems that only recently have they been released on CD and many by Eloquence. Any thoughts on Ansermet?


Ansermet's recordings have been released and re-released on every imaginable format, including on CD. Recently there was a near-complete edition of his recordings on three Decca Boxes.

I find his recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy and Stravinsky to be often revelatory. I find his recordings of the German repertoire, particularly the Brahms, to be wonderfully refreshing, replacing typical German heaviness with some Gaelic wit and sparkle. I wouldn't be without them.


----------



## Guest (Nov 17, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> Not a fan, personally. I blame his orchestra, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; they sound scrappy to my ears, and the dated sound doesn't help. Couple that with the fact that he's on record as an incorrigible antisemite, and I can't say *I'm terribly motivated to explore his legacy in depth anytime soon.*


You're depriving yourself of something wonderful. His Orchestra may be "scrappy" but was capable of producing wonderfully sparkling textures, particularly in French and Russian music. You may not be a fan of "golden age" recordings, but I find that Decca often blesses him with wonderful sonics. There is more to a good audio recording that signal-to-noise ratio or harmonic distortion.

Personally, it seems to be universally agreed that he an a**hole of the highest order. Since he is dead and buried I don't find this a reason to boycott his recordings.


----------



## Guest (Nov 17, 2020)

Strange Magic said:


> He conducted a lot of Russian nationalist music also: Rimsky, etc. He conducted the second performance ever of _le Sacre_, in London. There is a famous photo of Ansermet on the sidewalk flanked by Stravinsky and a young Prokofiev.


He later had a falling out with Stravinsky. He apparently wrote to Stravinsky that one of his works was too long and boring and had to be edited to be performable. Igor didn't agree.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

When I was a teenager beginning to explore classical music, Ansermet was one of the "go to" guys - most of his work was on a budget label under the Decca umbrella. I had all his Stravinsky - it was great! Still is. His Beethoven symphony set was pretty good, but it was the Russian music that seemed to bring out his best. Yes, the OSR plays like a 2nd or sometimes 3rd rate band: wind intonation was never a strong point. But they knew the correct style and Ansermet knew so many of the composers that he brought an authority to his music making that is sadly missing today. Did you know he was actually trained as a mathematician? Sometimes I got the feeling that he recorded certain French works only because it was expected, since Munch, Monteux and Paray had done them: so he did a Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and Franck symphony that are kind of boring. Was his heart in it? But his Ravel and especially Debussy could be good.

But great is the mortal enemy of the merely good and that's why I never bothered with any of the Ansermet boxes or much else - others did everything better and with superior orchestras. Still, if you want to find out what he was like, get the 2-fer from Decca with Scheherazade and other works by Rimsky-Korsakov.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

His last recordings - a Firebird (with a rehearsal disc) and Magnard Third Symphony, both with the Philharmonia, are really good. When I de-accessioned most of my LP collection to keep the house from exploding. I saved the Magnard, and a 1960s disc of excerpts from the Nutcracker, principally because of the principal trumpet in a familiar number I have forgotten the name of, did a really fast six-note run that was the cleanest I have ever heard from a brass instrument.

This may be misremembered or just an urban legend, but I think I once heard that he once formulated a mathematical argument to "disprove" twelve-note music.  I also remember once reading that at the end of life he had recorded most of what Decca defined as "his" repertoire and executives were freaked out that he might start lobbying to record Beethoven and other non-Ansermet composers.


----------



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

One of the best conductors of Ravel and Debussy ever. What makes him great, is his orchestra were not the greatest in the world, but by god, he made them sound absolutely splendid. 10/10


----------



## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Baron Scarpia said:


> You're depriving yourself of something wonderful. His Orchestra may be "scrappy" but was capable of producing wonderfully sparkling textures, particularly in French and Russian music. You may not be a fan of "golden age" recordings, but I find that Decca often blesses him with wonderful sonics. There is more to a good audio recording that signal-to-noise ratio or harmonic distortion.
> 
> Personally, it seems to be universally agreed that he an a**hole of the highest order. Since he is dead and buried I don't find this a reason to boycott his recordings.


Not boycotting, I have two of his CDs. Just not personally all that interested in what I'm hearing. I am a fan of "golden age" recordings, for what it's worth; I think recorded sound has all been downhill since RCA Victor Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence.


----------



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> Not a fan, personally. I blame his orchestra, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; they sound scrappy to my ears, and the dated sound doesn't help.


Yep. The few of his LPs I have, fit your description.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I've long appreciated Ansermet for his French music recordings. My collection holds three box sets from DECCA: The Decca Sound (50 discs), Decca Sound: The Mono Years 1944 - 1956 (53 discs), and Decca Sound: The Analogue Years (53 discs). Among these are several Ansermet recordings in each box, perhaps representative of his best recordings, including music by Albert Roussel, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, Arthur Honegger, Frank Martin, the Russians Sergey Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky, and others.




















But it's another Russian, Sergej Prokofiew, in a box set from Documents / Membran ‎(233200), whose Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major Op. 26 is well represented by the conductor leading L'Orchestre De La Suisse Romande with Julius Katchen on keyboard, for a recording I wouldn't want to be without.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Ernest Ansermet was one of the most philosophically-inclined and engaged conductors, as a disciple of Edmund Husserl and his Phenomenology. It was his reading of Husserl that triggered Ansermet's critique of Schoenberg. More found here:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2010/08/phenomenological-music-theory.html


----------



## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

His Beethoven's getting more praise here than I'd have given it. I much preferred his Haydn, which could occasionally be on the stolid side but had an openness and clarity I liked.


----------



## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Hi everyone! This thread takes me back many years to the time I bought my first Beethoven ninth symphony which was the only one I could afford as the time. It was in mono on the old Ace of Clubs label and was crammed on to one LP with a break in the slow movement. Ansermet conducted his Swiss orchestra and the soprano soloist was Joan Sutherland, no less! As to the performance, I didn't have much to compare it with until I heard Karajan's 1963 and that did put Ansermet's rather safe and colourless account into perspective.
I wondered years later why Ansermet had recorded so much Beethoven and Brahms, for which he and his second rate orchestra were not suited, until I read John Culshaw's account of his years with Decca. Apparently, one of the Decca bosses, Maurice Rosenthal, was Swiss, and felt that promoting Ansermet's orchestra was his patriotic duty. So Ansermet had the benefit of recording many things which maybe with another company he wouldn't have done.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Ansermet has been one of my favorite conductors for many years -- not just for French music or that from Switzers such as Frank Martin. Anermet was a friend of Toscanini and shared some traits in common with him such as clarity and adherence to the score. However he was far more a romantic than Toscanini. Setting aside the obvious French masterpieces I would recommend many of this recordings including:

Beethoven 9 Symphonies on London/Decca from the 1950s-1960s, Missa Solemnis
Haydn's "Paris" and other symphonies.
J.S. Bach Orchestral suites and cantatas
Stravinsky Pulcinella (complete)
Bloch Schelomo/Voice In the Wilderness
Brahms 4 Symphonies
Ballet: Tchaikovsky, Delibes, Stravinsky
Debussy Pelleas and Melisande
Faure Requiem
Rimsky Korsakov Scheherazade
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Rachmaninoff Isle of the Dead
Berg & Stravinsky concertos with Christian Ferras and/or Yehudi Menhuin
Britten War Requiem
Bizet Carmen
St. Saens Symphony 3 "Organ"
Franck Symphony in D
Frank Martin Concerto for 7 Wind Instruments, Petite Symphonie Concertante, Violin Concerto
Dukas La Peri
Respighi-Rossini Rossiniana
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

He was good mates with Britten for a while, doing the first performances of Rape of Lucretia. There is also a stereo recording of the War Requiem by him, but I've never heard it and can't comment on its quality. I guess if he was good enough for Ben...


----------



## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Ansermet's recordings have been released and re-released on every imaginable format, including on CD. Recently there was a near-complete edition of his recordings on three Decca Boxes.
> 
> I find his recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy and Stravinsky to be often revelatory. I find his recordings of the German repertoire, particularly the Brahms, to be wonderfully refreshing, replacing typical German heaviness with some Gaelic wit and sparkle. I wouldn't be without them.


It just seems like a lot of the CDs available are not on the Decca main label but on Eloquence, but maybe I'm just not seeing everything. I didn't really notice the box sets.

Do you mean these?


----------



## Guest (Nov 18, 2020)

adriesba said:


> It just seems like a lot of the CDs available are not on the Decca main label but on Eloquence, but maybe I'm just not seeing everything. I didn't really notice the box sets.
> 
> Do you mean these?
> 
> ...


The first one you linked was a relatively early release. Before that original masters release there were countless individual releases on Double Decca, The Decca Sound, Weekend Classics, Collectors Edition, etc, that covered most of his significant repertoire. For instance,







or









The next two are part of a trio of releases I was referring to which are _almost_ his complete Decca recordings. The third covers Russian music


----------

