I have taken to Sinopoli's recordings as somewhat of a guilty pleasure. His style certainly isn't for everyone. Most people value instrumental clarity and individual sonorities when listening to classical music. Sinopoli didn't care about any of that, he approached the orchestra as if it was a gigantic, people-powered modular synth, with separate components only existing to mold the overall sound. I wrote about his marvelous, semi-shoegaze-y Bruckner 7th -- a piece that benefits (in my view) from a a cathedral-like, blurry sonority.
The problem with Sinopoli is that he would apply the "treatment" to just about anything and everything. The results were entirely hit and miss. And yet, even when I know that it's a miss (based on critic's reviews) I still can't help but listen.
For example, take the widely panned Elgar Symphonies 1 and 2, with the Philharmonia. The consensus is that the 2nd symphony in particular is dreadfully, drudgingly slow, a recording to be avoided at all costs. But I just had to hear it for myself. And I discovered, indeed, that the slow tempos completely kill the piece. Nevertheless, as an experiment in Elgar, it's oddly fascinating.
On the other hand, Sinopoli's version of the Brahms German Requiem with the Czech Philharmonic works surprisingly well. It runs completely opposite to the stoic treatment of Klemperer, often thought of as the reference recording. It may not be for everyone, but if you ever wished for a psychedelic mind trip version of the German Requiem, then Sinopoli's recording may be for you.
Sometimes the Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy occurs on the same disc, like with the pairing of Mahler's 8th and 10th symphonies with the Philharmonia. The Mahler 8 presents a grandiose, sweaty, wall of sound that is entirely appropriate for a piece in which more excess is always better. However, the Mahler 10 (Adagio only), runs for an interminable 33 minutes (!!) and is very nearly unrecognizable compared to any competing recording. It comes across like one of those time stretched recordings where every note blends into the next and the dynamics are flattened out into a sprawling void of nothing. I have no idea what to make of
I'll continue on this mini-quest to subject myself to the odd but daring stylings of this maverick conductor ...
