FireAid Benefit Concert

I watched the nearly six-hour FireAid special on Netflix, and I don't really want to critique it because the audiences obviously enjoyed it and they raised a ton of money for the worthiest of causes.  However, I do have a few thoughts:

• This was an old set of performers.  I counted eight acts where the featured musician was seventy or older.  That's not counting the guest vocalists with Nirvana (two of the four were over seventy).  Some of them were transcendent.  Stevie Wonder dominates every stage on which he appears, to the point that it's not even fair to the other performers.  Rod Stewart has no business looking or sounding as good as he does as age eighty.  I was surprised to discover that John Fogerty and Stephen Stills are still compelling performers.  But I couldn't help but wonder: who is going to appear at these benefit concerts in 10-20 years?  Will we see a never-ending parade of Nirvana and No Doubt reunions? Or think of it this way: LiveAid is often seen as a gathering of millionaire dinosaur rock stars.  But virtually none of the major performers were born even as early as the 1930's (Tina Turner was born in November 1939).  The most senior acts were in their mid-40's (e.g. Paul McCartney).  The members of RHCP are in their 60's.  Elton John (the headliner in Wembley in 1985) was younger than the FireAid headliner at the Intuit Dome, Lady Gaga.  
• Gracie Adams, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo received probably the biggest ovations, thanks to the lungs of their teenaged fans.  All three are great in different ways, although for me Gracie Adams was something of a revelation.  As far as confessional teen drama ballads go, her interpretation of the style was my favourite.
• Many performers opted for acoustic sets, possibly wishing to strike a more serious, somber tone considering the circumstances.  Others just plowed ahead with their usual bombast.  Both approaches worked.  These shows had a little something for everyone.  
• These shows featured "classic" artists (i.e. the aforementioned boomer acts), 90's hangers on/afterthoughts (Black Crowes, Green Day, Alanis Morissette), millenial radio pop faves (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Pink), and the current crop of early 20's teen heroes (Billie Eilish et. al.).  There is a big gap between roughly 1995-2008, where apparently no new megastars were made.  
• I do wonder about the next generation of stars.  Anderson.Paak and Jelly Roll are both veterans of the music biz but rose to national prominence relatively recently.  Both are around age forty.  Where will Billie Eilish be in twenty years?  My feeling is that artists who become global phenomena in their teens and early twenties don't stay unstoppable for more than about fifteen years, they eventually burn out (Rihanna) or settle into a part-timer role (Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears).  So who will be around as a can't miss, cross-generational, bankable star in the 2040's?     

The Rolling Stones are featured on "The Rest Is History"

This might seem like an unusual topic for a history podcast, but co-host Dominic Sandbrook wrote his doctorate on American politics in the 1960's and has written multiple books on post-WWII Britain.  He has a unique talent for tapping into the essence of baby boomer politics and culture. In the first episode of a two-part series, he demonstrates a keen understanding of how the Stones filled a unique niche in British culture, along with a solid grasp of the music criticism of the time.

Naturally, the Beatles also lurk in and out of the story.  Sandbrook opens up a contentious debate topic by claiming that if the Beatles hadn't come along, then some other British group would have blown up just as big in their place.  He doesn't argue that another group could have matched the Beatles' musical genius, only that another band's mania would have filled the same cultural space occupied by the Beatles.  His point is that the conditions were ripe for a group to break through into superstardom.  The market had been wholly prepped toward the teen demographic, and skyrocketing music sales indicated that the interest was absolutely there.  The cyclical nature of teen heartthrob bands in the six decades since seems to prove this point.  When it comes to "boy" or "girl" bands transcending the culture, it's always just been a matter of time.   

Thus, the genius of the Beatles (and the Stones) isn't born out by the fact that they broke through, it's that they lasted as long as they did.  Careers were short in the 50's and 60's, which is why most artists were struggling to maintain a career on the oldies circuit less than a decade after their peak. A new cohort of teenagers came rose up every couple of years, while the previous cohort aged out and took their favourite bands with them.  A promoter had one or two years tops to milk every red cent out of a musical fad before it faded away permanently.  A record would become a hit and would be quickly followed by a slew of copycat and/or response records.  The turnaround time had to be weeks or months.  Long term investment in a band for their artistic vision was a concept that had little meaning.  All in all, yes, I believe that some other band other than the Beatles would have been pushed into a pre-arranged spot that had been carved out for them by the record industry.  They probably wouldn't have broken America or lasted beyond a couple of albums.  But in the short term, it would have worked.  

Sandbrook describes the Andrew Loog Oldham enigma wonderfully.  Here, I hadn't appreciated many key aspects about his role in shaping the band into what they became.  Oldham was just nineteen years when he started managing the Stones.  At the time, he knew nothing about music or the music industry.  He just knew that there was a lot of money to be made.  The image of the Stones as a bad boy group of misfits (leading to the infamous "would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?") was entirely manufactured by him.  In reality, the Beatles were the true working class misfits, but were presented as clean cut and wholly presentable.  The Stones were middle class ex-grammar school students.  Mick Jagger dropped out of the London School of Economics to devote himself fully to the band.  Charlie Watts trained as a graphic designer, loved jazz more than rock and roll, and was married until the day he died to a woman he met before even joining the Stones.  There was nothing even remotely bad boy about him.  But somehow, a complete industry neophyte like Oldham correctly read the cultural winds where so many others had failed.  He recognized the need to market his crew as a stark alternative to the Beatles.  He recognized that the prevailing trends were moving towards bands writing their own song -- a bold risk that paid off when Jagger and Richards proved to be brilliant songwriters.

Part 2 jumps ahead to the end of the 60's, covering the death of Brian Jones and the tragedy of Altamont -- topics that fall even more into Sandbrook's wheelhouse.   

Ranking every recording of Sibelius' Fifth Symphony that I own

(It's been a while since my last post, and that's because I have undertaken a listening marathon while quietly compiling these 5000 words on Sibelius)

Five years ago, I discovered the world of Sibelius through reading Alex Ross' "The Rest Is Noise".  Sibelius might be the ideal pandemic-era composer.  His music can vary between intense claustrophobia and celebrations of the wondrousness of nature -- often within the same work.  He encapsulates the rawest emotions many of us felt during that time: first, the sense of being confined indoors, trapped in one's own psychological headspace, and second, the intense longing to burst outdoors and reconnect with nature and other living beings.

When I wrote this post I almost certainly had Sibelius' Fifth Symphony in mind.  Over the years, I have come to hear it as the perfect symphony.  And with a run time generally in the range of half an hour, the symphony is a concise and tightly controlled statement. 

I'm fairly sure I have more versions of this symphony than any other classical work, and I'm about to embark on the nightmarish task of trying to rank them all.  I don't claim to be a completist or to have heard most of the great versions out there.  I just love collecting recordings of this symphony.  The ground rules are simple: I am ranking only the recordings that I own through CDs or downloads.  I am not considering recordings that I have heard via Youtube or other streaming services because then there would be no limit to the available inventory and this project would never finish.  This means that I won't be ranking a notable recordings that I have heard and enjoyed.  You have to draw the line somewhere.

In other words, this isn't a list of the "best" recordings of the symphony.  Some of them aren't even good, as we'll see.  But since I own them, I'll be ranking them.  We can still use the bad recordings and all their faults to help appreciate the good recordings and what goes into making them so good.  Many of these recordings are part of symphony cycles.  In some cases I own the whole cycle, and in some cases I don't.   Either way, I will be considering the recording of the Fifth Symphony only.  I want to judge each Fifth on its own and not in the context of the conductor's approach to other Sibelius symphonies.  Nothing gets bonus points for being part of a great cycle, or knocked down a peg if I didn't like other recordings in the cycle.  Lastly, these rankings are of course subjective and on a different day or year there could be considerable reshuffling, particularly once I inevitably acquire additional recordings.  

  

15.  Leonard Bernstein, Vienna Philharmonic, 1987

In the '80s, Bernstein's tempos slowed down throughout much of his repertoire.  In some circles, he was criticized for being overly grandiose and dramatic in his interpretations, which wasn't always fair, but those excesses became a fairer representation of his style as he got older.  Nevertheless, the results could still be spectacular.  I recently bought his recording of Schumann's Fourth Symphony, also done with Vienna a few years before the Sibelius, and it's a gem.  The tempos are slow but gripping and turn bright and energetic in all the right places.  In particular, the second movement is perhaps the very best that I have heard.  It poses a challenge because all movements are played without a break, and finding a way to connect the weird and spastic first movement with this gentle, lyrical passage has confounded many a conductor.  Not to mention that Schumann is generally weak with slow movements and the conductor has to manage the flow of the music leading into yet another abrupt shift in mood with the bombastic scherzo.  With that recording fresh in my mind, I was eager to revisit Bernstein's Sibelius recordings with Vienna.  I had thought they were dreadfully slow and wearisome but after hearing the Schumann, I was inclined to think that I had been missing something.  Thus I began this Sibelius re-listening and ranking project with Bernstein's Vienna Fifth.  

The recording is so bad that I nearly lost the will to continue with the rest of the rankings  I wish I was exaggerating in claiming that it really is that tedious and bordering on unlistenable.  Often in classical music, you don't really notice that the piece is dragging until the later movements, when the cumulative effect of the languid tempos has built up and the music loses its focus while building to the conclusion.  In other instances, the boredom arrives earlier, once you reach the slow movement.  This is the case for Bernstein's recording of Sibelius' Second Symphony in Vienna that he made around the same time.  The first two movements nearly kill the piece but he brings it back together for a suitably thrilling finale.  But the Fifth?  It drags from the very first bar.  The opening notes, reminiscent of an emerging sunrise, linger aimlessly and interminably, the audio equivalent of freezing one's gaze into a death stare directly at the sun.  The should-be sublime moments in the final movement are flaccid and lifeless.  For the final two chords of the work, he launches into a sudden accelerando for no conceivable reason.  After maintaining such a slow tempo for the entire symphony, crushing the tempo for the final seconds is simply bonkers. 

The sad thing is that Bernstein could be fantastic with this symphony, for Exhibit A, we have this performance with the New York Philharmonic over twenty years earlier, featuring (among other things) the most breathless opening to the finale that you'll ever hear.  But like I said, I'm ranking only the specific recordings that I own.  Bernstein gains no credit based on his prior greatness.  In short, this recording is awful and I can't imagine ever wanting to listen to it again, except possibly in the context of a cruel practical joke.  

14.  Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra, 1994

This was my first Sibelius Fifth.  Knowing that Davis was a noted Sibelian, this felt like a can't miss choice.  But I hadn't done my homework properly, because I bought the version from his legendarily bad cycle, as opposed to universally praised one.  

I do credit Davis for wanting to differentiate these recordings from the ones he did in Boston twenty years earlier.  That cycle was gloriously gloomy, with surprising interludes of sweetness and light.  It featured snarling brass, swirling strings, and a flexible approach to tempo.  Based on what I've heard from Davis with the LSO (this fifth is coupled with the third), he went for a more natural, lyrical approach, determined to let the music breathe and flow on its own.  That sounds all right in theory, but in practice, Sibelius is too full of weird details and sounds to succeed with a conductor who just wants to beat time.  And that's all that Davis does here -- count the bars and stand witness to directionless orchestral playing.  The first minute of the first movement is OK but the sleepy orchestra never awakens, and the final crescendo in the scherzo section is flat and lifeless.  The second movement is a load of nothing, background incidental music and nothing more, with no story or direction.  The third movement, which could take off like a shot with those blistering sixteenth note runs from the violins, has zero urgency or attack.  They play this section like it's a sight read in their first rehearsal and they're still trying to get the notes down.  The tempo lags from the opening bars, and the whole thing simply limps along until a pitiful end.   It's not as offensively interminable as Bernstein in Vienna, but I can scarcely imagine a more flaccid and boring recording.  

13.  Vladimir Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Orchestra, 1981

Ashkenazy is maddeningly inconsistent with Sibelius.  He'll deliver moments of blinding grandeur, only to lose the flow of the music just seconds later, the interpretive equivalent of stumbling around like a drunken sailor.  In the middle of the scherzo section of the first movement, there is a bewildering accelerando that goes nowhere and detracts from the ending a couple of minutes later.  It's as if Ashkenazy blew his wad too early, had to slow down before attempting to careen toward the finish, and burned out the orchestra.  The andante rolls along at a glacially slow pace, grinding to a near halt on a couple of occasions, meandering along and never building any momentum toward a destination.  Those odd lurches in tempo are on display again in the final movement, but it bears fruit in the buildup to the final section, gathering a welcome dose of nervous energy leading into the final chords.  This isn't a bad Sibelius Fifth, but it's one of the most frustrating, and not worth a recommendation when there are so many better ones out there.   

12.  Sakari Oramo, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, 2001

This is a brisk performance but one sadly lacking in dynamics and emotional heft.  The first movement is a full-on sprint, running just over twelve minutes.  At that tempo, it should feel energetic, but instead, it comes across as an orchestra rushing to meet an early dinner reservation.  The ebbs and flows of the music are simply missing.  Similarly, Oramo's andante has a similar identity crisis.  Sibelius always struggled to compose heavy, solemn slow movements.  That's why the andante in this symphony usually isn't played all slowly.  With the outer movements -- where the first ends quickly and the third starts quickly -- there's no need to play it too slowly, as it will already feel slow in contrast to the surrounding tempos.  The idea is to keep the music moving, to make it sound effortless, and to create a sense of arriving to a destination -- easier said than done considering it's structured as a sequence of variations. Oramo's performance does indeed offer a contrast to the outer movements, but it just sort of coasts by while making almost no impression.  The andante can function as an interlude between the co-main events of the outer movements, if that's how the conductor wants to play it.  But it should never feel like background music, should never come across as superfluous.   

The final movement is similarly lacking in the the necessary dynamics, beginning with a lax tempo and coasting into the swan hymn with the lethargic urgency.  Oramo recovers a bit by the end but it's too little too late.  There are some fleeting moments here, but overall, I can't recommend it.  For what it's worth, the couplings on this disc (Karelia Suite, Pohjola's Daughter, and The Bard) are solid, so the orchestra was certainly competent with Sibelius at the time of the recording.  But there was a dullness in the air when they recorded the Fifth Symphony that handcuffed the orchestra from the start and they couldn't recover from it. 

11.  Herbert von Karajan, Philharmonia Orchestra, 1960 (stereo version)

This is the first of three Karajan recordings on this list, so I can't help but compare them.  This is a far more dynamic version than the mono recording from '52, which may be partly due to the engineering of the recording itself.  Stated differently, the mono version is more uniformly bombastic, but perhaps it's because the quieter parts couldn't be recorded more clearly with the inferior technology, so the engineers added too much compression in an early example of the Loudness Wars, 1950's Classical Version.  Alternatively, in the intervening years between '52 and '60, Karajan may have absorbed the enchanting qualities of the Sibelius tone poems or the Lemmenkainen legends and had a clearer understanding about how these pieces should be played.  Then again, when did Karajan ever care about how something "should" be played, as opposed to his own stubborn conception of the work?  This is a constant thread in Karajan's Sibelius -- he breaks with the conventional style and insists on doing it "his way", and it usually turns out wonderfully.

In this recording, the sonority is nicely balanced, which is uncharacteristic of Karajan, with less emphasis on the strings and more woodwind detail peeking through.  There is a gloomy mystery to this interpretation that I find from convincing.  Karajan was a lot of things, "haunted house" wasn't one of them.  I like this performance, but this is the least of the Karajan recordings.  

10.  Colin Davis, Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1975

Davis' cycle in Boston is widely regarded as one of the best. While I may not hold it in the same esteem as many others, it remains a remarkable interpretation.  As I wrote about in my review of the cycle a few years ago, there is a logical progression to the symphonies, allowing the listener to track the evolution of Sibelius' style like an evolving plot over chapters in a book.  Each symphony sounds like a continuation of the one before it.  This showed remarkable vision and focus on Davis' part, especially since these symphonies were not recorded in the order that they were composed.  

However, after listening to all these Fifths as a group, the flaws in Davis' account become even more glaring.  The first movement is simply too slow, among the recordings I'm reviewing here, only Bernstein in Vienna is slower (and by a mere 20 seconds).  The pacing and expressionism is far better than Bernstein, but overall it's still a wearisome listen with that run time.  The andante is good, but doesn't distinguish itself from the other fine versions I have been listening to.  The final movement is the best of the three, with a blistering tempo that most conductors don't attempt.  The string runs and tremolos are hypnotic and played with laser fine precision.  I'm still not a big fan of the brass squelches characteristic of the Boston Symphony at the time, but it certainly is unique.  In all, it's a brilliantly played Sibelius Fifth that was no doubt executed to Davis' exact expectations, but it nowhere close to the upper tier of recordings in my modest collection.    

9.  Petri Sakari, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, 1997

This is a very unique recording that disappointed me upon initial listens.  I thought (and still think) that it comes across as a tentative, even milquetoast interpretation.  The orchestra never lets loose at any point, perhaps for lack of trying, or perhaps for lack of technical prowess.  The playing is somewhat sloppy during variations in tempo in the early minutes of the opening movement.  This trend continues toward the end of the movement, when the scherzo never takes off and staggers to a timid conclusion.  

However, there are some wonderful delicate, atmospheric bits in the first two movements that prompt me to make comparisons with icy glaciers and glistening frost-covered forests, since this is an Icelandic orchestra and all.   The third movement also never takes off as it should and leads into a swan hymn that is short on power, but creates a gentler, soaring feeling that is nonetheless entrancing.  There is a lot to like here if you meet this version on its own terms, so to speak, by accepting the emphasis on wintery, fairytale-like sonority, rather than what Sibelius wants (and what most interpretations deliver).  

8.  Yoel Levi, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, 1990

This is a fine performance by the underrated Yoel Levi.  The opening movement is sprightly, and flows with a nearly effortless momentum.  Levi doesn't quite hit the transition point in the latter part of the movement, the pace doesn't quicken very much, but acquires a chugging and propulsive energy that feels a bit off to me.  He makes up for it with a thunderous conclusion to the movement.  The andante strides with a similar, natural air that unfortunately doesn't provide a strong enough contrast to the start of the first movement.  I think this is by design but I prefer the andante with more of a folksy, atmospheric, even somewhat ghostly quality.  

The third movement begins too slowly and has trouble getting into second gear.  Once again, Levi struggles with the shifts in tempo that the music demands, as the prolonged opening passage doesn't gather enough momentum heading into the swan hymn.  But as with the first movement, Levi recovers with a powerful final two minutes that ends the symphony on the highest of high notes.  He's hardly the only major conductor to be a bit carefree with tempo changes (e.g. Karajan), but I find that Levi's approach saps the energy from the music at certain critical moments.  Still, this is a recommended recording.  

7.  Tauno Hannikainen, Sinfonia of London, 1959

Before we get to the recording itself, some historical perspective is in order.  Hannikainen was endorsed by Sibelius himself and conducted the music at the great composer's funeral.  He recorded these symphonies at a time when interest in Sibelius' music was arguably at a post-WWII low and there were relatively few recorded versions available.  Thus, Hannikainen's versions were praised (thanks to the scarcity of competition) and were viewed as more authentic because he was Finnish and had a personal connection to Sibelius.  This type of nationalistic viewpoint (i.e. the Finns have mastered Sibelius instinctively, better than anyone else ever could) still exists today.  For instance, witness Klaus Makela having a Sibelius cycle thrust upon him despite having very little to say with it, or Jukka-Pekka Saraste claiming straight-faced in an interview that non-Finnish orchestras are deficient in capturing the proper atmosphere of the second movement of the Fifth (skip to just before the 14-minute mark of the video).

As for the music, there is a unique serenity to Hannikainen's interpretations that is rather appealing if one is in the mood for a less energetic, unthreatening version of Sibelius. I do like how he brings the brass to the fore, but not in a blaring, smash one's ears with a fortissimo way.  Most conductors keep the brass subdued until the big climaxes, but Hannikainen achieves a blended strings-plus-brass sonority that evokes a peaceful calm and is wholly unique.  The second movement has a folks-y, whimsical air which may be what Saraste was referring to in the interview linked above.  But before we give Saraste too much credit for tapping into the forested beating heart of the symphony, he also talks about it's requiem-like qualities which to me comes across like a complete contradiction.  How can it be a nature ode and a tribute to the Finnish countryside and also an emotionally wrought requiem for one of Sibelius' closest friends?  

Nonetheless, it's clear that Hannikainen goes with the first option throughout the work.  As a result, some might find the final movement to be bland and underplayed.  I think it's the best part of the recording.  After navigating the first two movements rather quickly, Hannikainen takes the third movement at a leisurely pace, with a soaring, dramatic swan hymn section.  However, he refrains from playing at full volume until the very end, where it becomes the piece's sole climax. Hannikainen seizes this moment, making his one attempt at a fortissimo truly impactful.  

6.  Herbert von Karajan, Philharmonia Orchestra, 1952 (mono version)

Karajan stands apart from just about every major Sibelius conductor.  He broke the unwritten rules by mostly ignoring Sibelius' tempo markings and not caring one whit about the composer's concept of the symphony as an extended advert for vacation homes overlooking Finnish lakes and forests.  Karajan saw this music as an exercise in orchestral power -- lush strings and mighty brass leading a symphonic roller coaster from one hefty climax to the next.  That's not to say that Karajan had nothing to say between the crescendos, in fact it's the opposite.  He was a master of managing the flow of the music by crafting mesmerizing lyricism via highly disciplined string playing.  Granted, when you have a tunnel vision approach to tempo and only care about keeping the music chugging along at the pace you choose, the concept of "flow" is greatly simplified.  But Karajan had a vision for Sibelius and it almost always worked. 

The first and second movements here are very strong, showing a maximalist approach to the music.  True to form for Karajan, there is little in the way of fluttery bird dynamics and the woodwinds are mostly buried in the mix.  The third movement is surprisingly the weakest, never quite expressing the necessary power.  The tempo actually ticks upward while launching into the tutti portion of the swan hymn, which is weird.  It seems as though Karajan was still figuring out this symphony, but recall that Sibelius was still alive at the time and hadn't written new music in over two decades.  The post-war Sibelius revival was just getting started, and the Fifth Symphony was only thirty years old.  The blueprints for performing this work were still being established.   

5.  Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic, 1965

This is definitively the best of the three Karajan recordings that I'm reviewing in this post.  Now in full control of the BPO, this version sees Karajan molding the string sonority of his orchestra like a master puppeteer.  The first movement is full of serene, yet dynamic moments with string details that you simply don't hear from other conductors.  In the climax of the first movement, leading into the transition to the scherzo section, the music is supposed to bloom in a technicolour explosion of brass.  Instead, the brass is completely subdued but the music swells into a blurry, drone-y haze.  Karajan ignores the rules and forges his own path -- and the results are exhilarating.  

The andante is airy and brisk (just under eight and a half minutes), again with pristine string playing and everything else subdued.  The violins are perfectly in unison, and the basses sound particularly clear and powerful.  Karajan wants a specific mood and this is the sonority that he needs in order to get it.  The finale starts out tense, sweeping and urgent leading into the swan hymn -- and keeps barreling on, with no slackening of the tempo.  Again, Karajan ignores the conventional approach, and the results are powerful and deeply affecting.  Later on, he does bring the music to a near standstill in order to set up the furious final minute.  To me, the balance sounds a bit off with the horns and tympani drowning out nearly everything, but it's surely what Karajan wanted and the outcome is breathless.

4.  Herbert Blomstedt, San Francisco Symphony, 1991

This is my newest acquisition, one that I'm listening to for the first time while compiling these rankings.  In fact, it's the first recording that I've heard from Blomstedt's widely praised cycle in SF. 

Blomstedt's Sibelius is bright and energetic, it sounds natural and effortless when it needs to (e.g. the opening two minutes), but also tense and overwrought when the music calls for it (e.g. the transition to the scherzo in the first movement).  In fact, the tightly coiled, dramatic build in the scherzo may be the finest I have ever heard.  The second movement is one of the quickest ones, running just eight and a quarter minutes, and is simply a masterclass in controlling the tempo and keeping the music consistently engaging.   Sadly, the final movement is the weakest in Blomstedt's reading.  He copies Karajan's approach to tempo (consistent, almost metronomic) but the climaxes lack the theatrical power that Karajan brings and that the finale sorely needs.  On the other hand, in comparing the two, Blomstedt achieves an orchestral balance that Karajan could never approach (nor attempted), providing colour and detail that Sibelius demands but that Karajan consistently neglects.  Besides those critical underplayed moments (admittedly a significant weakness of the recording), this is about as perfect a Sibelius Fifth that you'll hear.  

3.  Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra, 1955 (mono version)

Running just under 29 minutes, this is the quickest Fifth in my collection.  Ormandy's version is characteristically lush owing to the sublime string playing that features prominently in the mix.  During the development section in the opening movement, he coaxes nightmarish screams out of his violins -- a wholly unique sound that is unmatched in any of the other recordings considered here.  The andante runs under eight minutes and thus really *moves* -- a slow gallop propelled with metronomic efficiency.  I think Ormandy pushes the tempo too much, leaving no space for the music to breathe during this nature walk of a movement.   But that's my personal taste.  Heard on its own terms, Ormandy sticks with the concept and executes it nearly perfectly.

The final movement takes off like gangbusters, a breathless and electrifying sprint.  It should be noted that Ormandy is one of the few conductors to achieve the proper contrasts in tempo, thereby realizing the "arc" in tempo modulation as Sibelius intended.  The first movement is supposed to begin slowly and gradually speed up (nearly every conductor succeeds with this), and the third movement should do the opposite, completing the second half of the arc.  Most conductors can't pull it off, and some (e.g. Karajan) ignore the arc almost completely.  The final section is heart-wrenchingly slow, harrowing, and builds to a volcanic conclusion.  The only real criticism is in the orchestral balance.  The strings drown out everything, burying the horns under a cloud of tremolo at precisely the times when they need to be heard the most.  Otherwise, this is a first rate recording, and dare I say that it's a criminally underrated one?  

2.  Osmo Vänskä, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, 1997

Vänskä's cycle in Lahti was the first one I bought, and it was performances like this that really made me fall in love with the Fifth Symphony.  Vänskä truly made the symphony his own, more so than any other conductor, which is especially impressive considering he recorded it at a time when there were already dozens of competing performances available.  The pacing is perfect -- leisurely flowing but never too slow -- and yet full of unusual idiosyncratic changes in cadence that are always alluring but never distracting.  The clarity of tone of the orchestra is remarkable, and the sonics are magnificent.  Vänskä goes from super pianissimo (one of his calling cards) to thundering fortissimo like it's the most natural thing in the world to pull off, and yet no other Sibelius conductor comes close to replicating this degree of mastery over such a wide range of dynamics.  The fact that Lahti is a smaller orchestra actually works in its favor—they never sound "compressed" at high volume, and key instruments and details never get lost in the recording.  The finale, among its many wonderful moments, features the quietist super-pianissimo that you'll ever hear from a symphony orchestra at about 3:20.  It's as if Vanska wanted to pull off a magic trick -- the Incredible Vanishing Orchestra -- just to prove that he could.  And it still works amazingly well in the context of the music!  The final three minutes are the most emotionally devastating, gut-punching orchestral Sibelius in existence.  A perfect recording with a wholly deserved reputation.     

1.  Paavo Berglund, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, 1974

Sometimes you read through a list of the 100 Best Albums/Songs of All Time and it features the usual canonical material as well as some odd and adventurous choices.  Then you get to #1 and it's a Beatles song or "Pet Sounds" and it feels like a letdown.  After all that, they went with the safe, accepted choice?  There are often some big surprises in the top ten, particularly around #3 or #4, essentially making the case for more recent albums ("best ever" lists always skew towards older, widely accepted choices) and underappreciated classics.  Those entries are enough to make you sit up and take notice, but not quite high enough to seriously challenge the top spots.

I guess this is one of those lists.  

As is well known, Berglund arrived in Bournemouth in the early 70's and transformed the orchestra into one of the finest Sibelius (and Nordic music in general) ensembles that have ever existed.  If you're looking for Sibelius recordings featuring a maximialist symphonic sound, then this is it.  Berglund mastered both the airy, delicate passages and the thunderous climaxes equally well.  He achieves a symphonic balance that no other conductor can touch.  One consistently hears powerful, blended timbres from the orchestra as a whole, while still maintaining the clarity of individual instruments and sections.  Small yet significant details ring through that are simply not heard on most recordings.  

There are plenty of reasons to prefer Vänskä's creativity in dynamics and tempo, or Karajan's bold stoicism, or Blomstedt's sprightly approach.  But for my money, Berglund gets it consistently right better than any other conductor, by a wide margin.  Vänskä can be a bit eccentric and idiosyncratic, Karajan's balances are often off (with the strings and brass taking over), and Blomstedt tends to be a bit too cool and restrained.  Berglund succeeds in areas even where other excellent conductors fall short.  

It wasn't my intention to revisit all these Sibelius Fifths only to confirm what I already knew.  It just turned out that way.  Berglund is simply undeniable, and his achievements in this music remain unsurpassed.  

Popmatters Best Alternative Singles of the 90's

Putting aside the egregious editing mistake in the header -- note that this is a singles list, not a songs list -- this is a rare 90's listicle with results that I mostly agree with.  The methodology behind the SINGLES list is described here, and keep scrolling to see the full list.  

The one song per artist rule is a necessary one for this kind of project, so good on Popmatters for realizing it unlike many other sites compiling similarly themed lists.  They strike a good balance between different corners of the 90's alt-universe, American (grunge, nu-metal) and British (Britpop, shoegaze) fad genres are all here, and just about all the uncategorizable key bands (REM, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, many more) are featured.  It's very much a white male dominated list, but that was alternative in the 90's.  Other genres (electronic, hip-hop) were more varied in that regard, let's not retroactively pretend that POC-dominated bands were unjustly ignored by the grunge scene.  And finally, the #1 single is entirely predictable, and as noted in the write-up, there is really no other choice for #1.  It's nice to see a list that doesn't try to distinguish itself through surprise choices and controversial re-writes of the canon.  

There are two weaknesses here.  First, I have the notion that  Popmatters had an internal struggle between featuring cult bands vs commercial bands, and often flexed toward the former.   If Alanis Morissette, Dave Matthews, and U2 are alternative, then where are the other alt-lite acts like Semisonic and Matchbox 20?  I feel like they wanted to make this a more commercial list, but held something back.   

Second, they sometimes choose singles that have gained more prestige over the years, instead of choosing more obvious singles from the same album that were considerably bigger at the time.  For instance, Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" became more of a signature song after Johnny Cash recorded it.  But at the time, "March of the Pigs" or "Closer" were far bigger and more characteristic of the popularity of "The Downward Spiral".  For No Doubt, why choose "Spiderwebs" over approximately five more massive hits (unless we're getting into the radio single vs physical single argument, in regards to songs like "Don't Speak" which was never released as a physical single)?  "If You Tolerate This ..." was a #1 hit for the Manics in the UK, but it's hardly their breakthrough song and was released after they peaked creatively.  But most of the time, they don't get cute and chose an obvious genre-defining, band-defining single.

p.s. where is 1999?  Just one song is represented (Flaming Lips, "Race For the Prize) 

IPO dir. Lahav Shani, Martha Argerich (Jeans concert)

Tonight's concert was wonderfully varied and was headlined by the sensational Martha Argerich playing Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1.  I have to admit that I didn't care for the work, it's a showcase for all the weird tonalities and dissonances that characterize the composer a bit too much.  IOW, too Shostakovich-y for me.  But the ageless Argerich (83 years young) displayed incredible dexterity in performing the work as well as she did.

The night opened with the delightful "Overture on Hebrew Themes" by Prokofiev, but the highlight for me was Bruch's "Kol Nidre" arranged for cello and orchestra.  Although it was exclusively associated with Yom Kippur for me as a child (through performances at synagogue -- permitted in Reform traditions), tonight's performance proves that the piece is magnificent enough to transcend all religious and cultural boundaries.  Bruch and Prokofiev, both non-Jews, captured a Jewish cultural essence through simple admiration for Jews and Jewish themes.  Such empathetic practices seem nearly impossible in today's climate.  Shostakovich also composed many Jewish themed pieces, during times in Soviet Russia when it was politically risky to do so. 

In addition, the music was a creative bit of programming that broke from the rut of featuring the same standard composers and repertoire far too often, a clear weakness of IPO schedules of recent years.        

Movietone, "The Blossom Filled Streets"

I was surprised to see an album by the fourth best act from the second most famous 90's Bristol scene featured in Pitchfork's Sunday review.  This feature is supposed to highlight notable albums from the past, and this has to be one of the most (if not the most) obscure album of the series.  

Don't get me wrong -- I'm overjoyed to read feature articles about the second most famous (but musically superior) 90's Bristol scene.  And I know why this review exists, that's clear based on the final paragraphs, in which Mark Richardson tells about a chance Movietone live encounter in 2000.  You can't short-change him his memories, similar music-related experiences were probably the best parts of my twenties. But let's not get carried away.  This isn't a "lost classic", it wasn't underappreciated in its time, and there's no narrative that requires uncovering.  

This isn't to say that "The Blossom Filled Streets" shouldn't be heard by more people (surely one of the motivations behind the review), and its rating (8.6) is more than fair.  Richardson isn't grossly exaggerating his case by giving it a retroactive 10 and proclaiming it the best album you've never heard.  But I think this review is symptomatic of an odd trend in modern music criticism, one that I wrote about with a different Sunday Review for Lush.  

Many writers grew up on music criticism from the 80's and 90's.  We regularly read about underappreciated acts from the 60's and 70's.  The Velvet Underground became a myth.  Can became legends outside of their time.  All the proto-punk bands from the late 60's onwards (MC5, Stooges, too many more to name) were anointed as the godfathers of something or other.  Helping to rediscover and promote such bands -- and getting credit as a visionary for doing so -- was the apex of music criticism, just about the loftiest goal one could aspire to.  

Naturally, this generation's writers want to emulate the greats of the past.  But there's a key difference.  When the Velvet Underground were active, the music press was in its infancy.  Criticism was a niche topic, and countless bands came and went virtually unnoticed.  Even the bands that did get noticed tended to flummox the writers of the time, who were still learning how to write about music in an engaging way.  I covered this in a post about then-contemporary criticism of the VU.  But that's not true anymore.  Virtually nothing falls through the cracks, just about every album of note gets pored over in countless reviews and message board posts.  That's certainly true of any band who featured in a celebrated music scene or recorded for a prestige label.  It means that there aren't many underappreciated bands to dig up anymore.  The problem is that some writers insist on trying, searching for a new angle to prop up their pet projects.  I'm sure I have been guilty of it too at times.  

Movietone were properly appreciated in their time.  They were a mid-tier band in a cool microscene that I personally enjoyed very much.  Nobody was under any illusions about Third Eye Foundation or Flying Saucer Attack going mega and supporting U2 on a massive world tour.  But 25-30 years after the fact, "properly rated band that I personally used to like" isn't much of a selling point for a major review.  This brings us to the enhanced prose to describe "The Blossom Filled Streets": "an ethereal and luminescent highlight of the underground Bristol scene" goes the byline.  Not every fine yet enigmatic band from the past needs to be elevated into a folk tale.  I think Richardson appreciates this, based on the final few paragraphs of his review.  However, there are contradictory messages here.  "One of the beautiful things about Movietone is that they're almost always written about as a spoke in their local scene's wheel."  So they're an extraordinary band deserving of this effervescent review ... precisely because they were so ordinary?     

After reading this review, I listened to "The Blossom Filled Streets" for the first time in many years, and it was like effortlessly slipping back into an old, warm jacket.  Each song was immediately familiar, and I was overcome with wistful feelings associated with this music.  The years that had passed simply melted away in an instant.  I did in fact listen to this album quite a lot back in the day -- probably more than I had realized, based on how familiar it all seemed.  It was a nice feeling, but that's about all.  And that's just fine.     

 

IPO dir. Philippe Jordan: Schubert Symphony #8 (Unfinished), Bruckner Symphony #3

Two great works by two symphonic masters -- and also a daring bit of programming.  Schubert's Unfinished is by far the more popular work, but it's not the headliner.  It takes guts to program Schubert's brooding masterpiece and follow it up with arguably the most humourless of the major symphonic composers.  

I wasn't familiar with Jordan before tonight but he impressed me with his flowing, lyrical style and masterful sense of pacing.  I always think of the first movement of the Unfinished as the "fast" movement and the second as the "slow" movement, but Jordan reverses that.  The first movement is meticulous, deliberate and intense, with a surprising emphasis on the brass.  The second movement is shockingly and refreshingly upbeat and full of Viennese charm.  It all sounds effortless, and stands in contrast to the steadiness the first movement.

For the Bruckner, Jordan does his best to hold things together while the orchestra struggles through a few sloppy moments in accents and timing.  The director of the Vienna State Opera just has to know his Bruckner, but the IPO comes across as underprepared and uninvested in one of Bruckner's lesser symphonies.  Since it's also one of his shortest, it works as the post-intermission headliner without burning out the audience too much.  Credit goes to Jordan for keeping things moving through the long opening movements, and wringing the energy from the orchestra during the scherzo and the finale, even though the latter is a bit underplayed.  

Schumann*Gardiner, "Complete Symphonies"

John Eliot Gardiner's recordings of Schumann's orchestral works are both celebrated and controversial – it depends on who you ask.  Gardiner wanted to counter the widely held opinion that Schumann was a poor orchestrator.  In the liner notes to this three disc set, he dismisses this notion as a "myth" that can be debunked by re-framing these works in period instrument performance and orchestration.  In this instance, it calls for no more than 50 players, with the violas and violins standing, and fewer instrument groups, all with the intention of reconstructing the orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus of Schumann’s time.  In other words (again, according to Gardiner), this was the orchestra that Schumann was accustomed to and for which he was orchestrating. 

There is something very refreshing about Gardiner's approach.  Sometimes Schumann can come across as colourless, although in the case of the Fourth Symphony, it's crushing bluntness in doubling up many of the instruments is precisely what I love about it.  However, Gardiner's leaner ensemble produces a less adventurous timbre but also a more consolidated one.   The tempos are consistently more brisk than most Schumann sets, the percussion is sharp and bracing, making for an often exhilarating listen.  This is a fascinating and often incendiary take on Schumann.

Having said that, I really couldn't care less about Schumann's "true" intentions, whatever that means.  It's interesting as a historical perspective into the origins of the work.  Since when is art only meant to be enjoyed in a singular manner, representative of an all-seeing eminent truth, frozen for all eternity?  And since when does the creator of said art get exclusive rights to present that truth?  I'm reminded of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", apparently "intended" by Cohen to be a plastic, faux-launge mid-80's soft rock track.   But the song turned into something else thanks to John Cale's cover, and Jeff Buckley's cover of Cale's cover, and then the dozens of versions that followed it.  "Hallelujah" turned it into the "Imagine" of the 00's, and yet I have never heard anyone pontificate on Cohen's "true" intentions for the song, and advocate for a return to the original recording, stylistically speaking.  Over the years the song morphed into something else and affected a lot more people than Cohen's original recording ever did.  That's the story of "Hallelujah", and that's not going to change whether Cohen could foretell it's future of not.  

I would argue the same to be true about the Schumann orchestrations.  Reviews such as these get a bit too hung up on settling aesthetic scores with period instrument practitioners, and the period instrument people are too focused on proving themselves right.  Theirs is a conception of the music, just as valid as any other.   

 

re: Spotify, "The playlist model meant listeners didn't have a relationship with the artists"

The sentence above is the money line from Elizabeth Lopatto's piece about Spotify for The Verge.  She's ostensibly writing a book review about Liz Pelly's "Mood Machine", but she spins it off into her own analysis and some thoughtful criticism on what the book isn't, rather than what it is.  

I like playlists.  Even back in the days of Pandora, I loved the "if you liked that, maybe you'll like this too" approach to sequencing and recommending music.  I have discovered a lot of great new music through playlists.  But it's hard to argue with the notion that many people have outsourced their taste in music to algorithms.  Spotify playlists may be the 21st century muzak -- always in the background, never commanding the listeners' attention.  

Nobody wants to return to the bad old days of $20 CDs and no outlet for buying anything less than the full album when it's only the single that you want.  Having hundreds of thousands of songs available on demand is a minor miracle that was unimaginable to my former teenage self.   But it has created a different problem.  Music is now an accessory, not a commodity.  It's too cheap, and cheap things have little value by definition.  During the peak of file sharing, many noted that music collections had lost their value.  Nobody was going to proudly display and treasure a CD of burned mp3's or an iPod hard drive whose contents were always changing.  And now?  With streaming, most people don't even have a music collection anymore.  The result is that songs drift in and out of our headspaces, and listeners don't connect to the artists who create the music.  Beyond their so very cheap subscriptions to streaming services, listeners feel no loyalty toward artists, and don't spend the money to support them financially.  

Pelly and Lopatto don't have the solution to this problem, and neither do I.  Their central theses appear sound (I haven't read Pelly's book) -- the complex monetization policies of streaming services are a disaster for all but the most successful contemporary and legacy artists.  Lopatto doesn't see why indie labels should matter, but to me it's clear.  The labels are a stamp of quality.  Association with a cool label is just about the best marketing strategy available to an up and coming non-mainstream act.  The labels don't always need to supply the production expertise and studio time, not when many DIY musicians can record at home.  Being with the label means the artist instantly becomes part of a history and a legacy.  That's a powerful marketing tool and a provides a big incentive for listening.  

Arturo Toscanini, 10 CD box set on Membran

I picked up this 10 CD box several months ago and listened to it in fits and spurts, but in the past week I made a point of listening to the entire thing in a few dedicated sessions.   

One reason for that is the fourth disc in the set -- Wagner.   This was my first time intentionally and knowingly listening to anything by Wagner.  First, I'm not an opera fan.  Second, exactly how does one get in the mood to listen to the music of an unhinged anti-Semite and all-around flake who spent most of his life spewing venom and running away from creditors?  

I'm not a fan of cancel culture.  I came to terms with the moral failings of other classical musicians such as von Karajan.   One simply can't go through life dissecting the character flaws of every artist, I think we'd find most of them highly disagreeable (at best) or flagrantly indefensible (at worst) in some way.  And that's only based on their public personas, through interviews, social media, etc.  I don't need to be pretend friendly with an artist to enjoy and respect their work.  I still listen to the Phil Spector Christmas album each holiday season.  Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" is an obvious Spector tribute, and it's gone to #1 each year for the past several years.  It's a special part of millions of people's lives.  You simply can't cancel some people. 

You can't cancel Wagner, but on the other hand, everyone has a personal choice to make.  I never felt the need to listen to his music, so I didn't.  Until now.  

Unsurprisingly, the quality across these ten discs is consistently great.  Nearly everything is a soundstage mono recording with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the 1940's or 1950's.  You know what you're getting with Toscanini -- brisk tempos, highly disciplined yet energetic playing.   I felt that the sound is an impediment to extended listening, not because of the mono recordings -- the quality is for the most part good -- but due to the dry acoustics of the soundstage.  It may be useful for radio broadcasting, but the lack of reverb and depth to the recordings is grating on the ear.  For the most part, the performance sound thin, reedy, and lacking in bass and punch.   

First, the obvious.  The Rossini overtures are a clear highlight -- breathless sprints through the material by an opera master.  Toscanini is also tremendous with Beethoven.  His run through the Eighth Symphony is a delight, capturing all the warmth, drama, and humour that most conductors fail to bring out.  His take on Schubert's Unfinished is a true sprint, running just 21 minutes, but I found myself entranced by the urgency of this interpretation.  His Strauss and Sibelius are also appropriately fiery and intense.

Now, the less obvious.  Disc 8 features a quartet of French composers and is a true gem. I'm not sure I've heard a better Debussy "Images" (unfortunately incomplete here).  Similarly, excerpts from Ravel, Franck, and Roussel respond well to the Toscanini treatment.  Disc 10 features American composers and definitively contradicts the notion that Toscanini didn't connect with American music.  Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" (featuring Benny Goodman!) and "An American In Paris" are as fine as any on disc, and Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" (sometimes derided as trite, populist junk) is a tour de force of symphonic imagery.  Has there been a better recording of "Cloudburst" that captures this force of nature more vividly?  Finally, this recording of Barber's "Adagio For Strings" is outstanding, as you'd expect from the maestro who premiered the work.

And Wagner?  Still not for me, although there are wonderful moments in nearly each piece, particularly the Prelude to Lohengrin.