Thread: zweden

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Post by nickc October 17, 2004 (1 of 14)
Has anyone heard any of this set? Who are the Residentie Orchestra?(obviously Dutch!) There seems to be no info on this set on the Decca website.
Cheers
Nick

Post by Marc P October 17, 2004 (2 of 14)
nickc said:

Has anyone heard any of this set? Who are the Residentie Orchestra?(obviously Dutch!) There seems to be no info on this set on the Decca website.
Cheers
Nick

Yes, they are dutch. Jaap van Zweden used to be first violinist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
I own this one, a single disc release from the box set: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 - Jaap van Zweden

I am not into classical music enough to give any comment on the content of this disc.

Post by Castor October 17, 2004 (3 of 14)
nickc said:

Has anyone heard any of this set? Who are the Residentie Orchestra?(obviously Dutch!) There seems to be no info on this set on the Decca website.
Cheers
Nick

Hi Nick,
Take a look at http://www.residentieorkest.nl/index2.htm for more on this orchestra.
Jaap van Zweden guested with the BBC Philharmonic a few years ago and the orchestra did not like him at all - he never came back!
What this set is like I don't know.

Post by Daland October 17, 2004 (4 of 14)
Castor said:

Hi Nick,
Take a look at http://www.residentieorkest.nl/index2.htm for more on this orchestra.
Jaap van Zweden guested with the BBC Philharmonic a few years ago and the orchestra did not like him at all - he never came back!
What this set is like I don't know.

This set was offered by jpc even before the Karajan set became available. I decided to buy it - only to regret my decision soon afterwards. In my opinion the conductor is completely incompetent (he took up conducting only a few years ago). He does not know how to build up or sustain tension or how to obtain a satisfactory tonal balance. His prefers fast tempi and adopts a "period" approach (the orchestra uses modern instruments), which is all right if you have something to say and sweep the listener along with you (as, say, Harnoncourt or Abbado). But Jaap van Zweden ist just boring and rather helpless. I can perfectly understand why the BBC Philharmonic did not like him at all.

Post by lana October 17, 2004 (5 of 14)
nickc said:

Has anyone heard any of this set? Who are the Residentie Orchestra?(obviously Dutch!) There seems to be no info on this set on the Decca website.
Cheers
Nick

Yes, I owned this set and I sold it immediately. In this forum there is a thread: Discussion Beethoven Symphonies Jaap van Zweden and I advised not to buy this set, because the sound is very disappointing.(November 2003) I look forward to the PentaTone set with the performances of Kurt Masur

Post by pentaman October 18, 2004 (6 of 14)
lana said:

Yes, I owned this set and I sold it immediately. In this forum there is a thread: Discussion Beethoven Symphonies Jaap van Zweden and I advised not to buy this set, because the sound is very disappointing.(November 2003) I look forward to the PentaTone set with the performances of Kurt Masur

Masur/Gewandhaus is coming out next month in Europe/Fat East. In these countries also the individual discs will be released simultaneously. In the USA the set will be released in November as well. The individual SA-CDs will follow early next year. From the PenaTone site everything can be ordered as from November 1 (the set at 5 for the price of 3)

pentaman

Post by tream October 18, 2004 (7 of 14)
pentaman said:

Masur/Gewandhaus is coming out next month in Europe/Fat East. In these countries also the individual discs will be released simultaneously. In the USA the set will be released in November as well. The individual SA-CDs will follow early next year. From the PenaTone site everything can be ordered as from November 1 (the set at 5 for the price of 3)

pentaman

Thanks for the update, Pentaman (are there really 5 of you?)

I heard Masur conduct the cycle with the SFS a number of years ago-it was quite an experience, and I look forward to these releases.

Post by hanser October 19, 2004 (8 of 14)
I have to disagree with the negative comments on this recording. I must admit to be a fan of historical informed practice and have listened mostly to Norringtons recording with the London Classical Players on original instruments. The Zweden recording nicely combines important elements of this kind of interpretation (swift tempi, clear rhythmic impulses, strong articulation) with the sound of a modern orchestra. Of course, if you prefer the more traditional, dramatic, but also heavyhanded approach of people like Karajan, Bernstein or Masur, than you will not like Zweden. On the other hand, it offers a refreshing alternative for fans of Gardiner, Norrington and Brüggen.
The sound is very warm, almost mellow. you can clearly distinguish the instruments, but nontheless they form a coherent single sound mass which I like very much. If I had one critisitm with the sound quality, it would be that the bass is sometimes too prominent. But I guess this is how the recording venue sounded.

Post by tream October 19, 2004 (9 of 14)
hanser said:

I have to disagree with the negative comments on this recording. I must admit to be a fan of historical informed practice and have listened mostly to Norringtons recording with the London Classical Players on original instruments. The Zweden recording nicely combines important elements of this kind of interpretation (swift tempi, clear rhythmic impulses, strong articulation) with the sound of a modern orchestra. Of course, if you prefer the more traditional, dramatic, but also heavyhanded approach of people like Karajan, Bernstein or Masur, than you will not like Zweden. On the other hand, it offers a refreshing alternative for fans of Gardiner, Norrington and Brüggen.
The sound is very warm, almost mellow. you can clearly distinguish the instruments, but nontheless they form a coherent single sound mass which I like very much. If I had one critisitm with the sound quality, it would be that the bass is sometimes too prominent. But I guess this is how the recording venue sounded.

The concept of HIP is an interesting concept, especially since we can't do more than make educated guesses about how music was played in the time of Bach or Beethoven. It really comes down to preference at the end of the day. Intellectually I have always found HIP to be compelling but then find that for performances of music after the Baroque era I actually have a strong preference for modern instruments. (The other side of the coin is true as well-I don't like to hear Bach on a piano, for example).
One of the other interesting things is to see how the bar moves for HIP. In the early 60's, the Davis recording of "Messiah" (along with the Shaw) was considered to be HIP, relative to the performances coming from Beecham or even more restrained ones like Bernstein. I still like the Davis recording but prefer the sound picture of Baroque instruments, countertenors, etc. (Gardiner would be my first choice, but I have recently acquired the McCreesh on SACD, so we'll see how that works out).
I didn't find much that thrilled me when I heard Norrington's Eroica, so let the rest of that cycle go unheard by me. I suspect there was lots of variation in performance practice during Beethoven's time, including large variations in tempos and dynamics and I often wonder if the diverse performance practice of, say, Toscanini and Furtwangler, are just as historically accurate as Norrington or Gardiner.

Post by seth October 19, 2004 (10 of 14)
hanser said:

On the other hand, it offers a refreshing alternative for fans of Gardiner, Norrington and Brüggen.

Please don't put Gardiner and Brüggen in the same sentence as Norrington.

In my humble opinion, Norrington is a hack. His recordings with the London Classical Players sound like high school rehearsal sessions. Their sound is horrendously scrappy. While many of the British period orchestras pool from the same players, Gardiner is able to inspire a level of technical precision in them that is on par with any major symphony orchestra. There's a reason why orchestra like the VPO invite Gardiner to conduct them and not Norrington.

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