Sunday, February 23, 2003 10:32 AM, Robert Stumpf wrote:

>There are also some interesting and vast differences.  Magil dismisses
>Baudo, Dutoit, Giulini, Haitink and Karajan ...
>
>| Perhaps some of you have noticed similar conclusions in the books.
>Perhaps I have too much time on my hands, but maybe you would like to
>offer your observations about other recordings.

If we may include periodicals as well as books in our responses, I offer
some "vast differences" which I found in my research of Jeffrey Tate's
discography.

Of Haydn's Symphony No. 104; with English Chamber Orchestra and released
by EMI in 1987: Ivan March wrote that although Georg Solti and Colin
Davis chose faster tempi, "Tate's more spacious approach is entirely
convincing." (GRAMOPHONE, March 1987). While MUSIC AND MUSICIANS' Robert
Matthew-Walker found tempi "sluggish" and playing lacking "electrifying
style." (June 1987)

Of Tate's Mozart symphony recordings with the ECO on EMI, Donald Vroon
of the AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE wrote in April 1993: "Jeffrey Tate is tame
and flat and uninflected, deficient in expression and excitement.... The
strings are anemic, the timpani is on megavitamins. ... Too many repeats.
... Faceless performances: they smell of musicology." However, Robert
Schwartz wrote in the NEW YORK TIMES (12/28/86): "Mr. Tate coaxes
remarkably clear, perfectly balanced textures from his orchestra,
accomplished partly by the crisp articulations and penetrating accents,
and partly by the generally lean string sonorities. Ironically, he selects
expansive, sometimes exaggeratedly slow tempos; yet the taut clarity of
his ensemble creates a sense of drama that compensates for the relaxed
underlying pace. ... Mr. Marriner's tempos are far brisker than Mr.
Tate's, yet, oddly enough the overall effect is less exciting."

And then there's Tate's EMI recording of HANSEL UND GRETEL, released in
1990. One wonders if ARG's Kurt Moses (March/April 1991) and CD REVIEW's
Sebastian Russ (Sept. 1991) listened to the same recording. While Moses
described it as if it were "background to a horror movie: loud, shrill,
fierce, unbending, and relentless," Russ  happily found "no lack of
weight, and the ominous pages ... fully rendered." Where Moses heard
"little charm or geniality in the playing," Russ found the playing "always
vibrant, transparent, and resilient." The orchestra was too loud and
tempi were "often rushed" for Moses, but to Russ, it revealed "the many
threads of the multi-hued orchestral fabric without bogging down in slow
speeds or wallowing in artificially induced lushness." And while ARG's
critic quipped that although Humperdinck was a devoted Wagnerian, he
doubted the composer "meant this work to be a sequel to GOTTERDAMMERUNG;
CD REVIEW'S critic lauded "the rich, sometimes heavy orchestration ...
given its full due, both by the wonderfully spacious airily detailed
recording, and by the superb conducting of Jeffrey Tate."

Madeline Jenkins Millard