Deryk Barker wrote:

>Richard Pennycuick ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>
>>...  I recently heard Mravinsky's version of the 7th and apart from those
>>"Russian " trombones, I thought it was quite magnificent.  What a pity he
>>did not leave us a complete cycle...
>
>Nothing wrong with them trombones - or trumpets or horns.  The sound of the
>brass is what helped give Russian orchestras a Russian sound, whose demise
>(the Russian National or whatever Pletnev's bunch are called, can certainly
>play staggeringly well - their Russlan and Ludmilla is spectacular - but
>they don't sound even remotely Russian) is a matter for regret IMHO.

Derek Barker is dead right.  I'm a strong supporter of the authentic
movement because music does not exist 'outside the notes' or specific sound
- it is embodied in and expressed through specific notes, orchestration
etc.  Mozart played on a post-Wagner orchestra, even slightly slimmed down,
can sound prettified - ' scaled down'.  Mozart on the right size orchestra,
which means a quite different balance with the wood wind and brass for a
start, is as 'strong' a composer as can be imagined - and as delicate a one
when he wants.  And this, of course, is only one aspect.

This is well rehearsed ground by now.  But it is ridiculous that the
same standard does not apply to Russian music.  A Russian orchestra does
not sound like a West European/US orchestra - the brass is physically
different, the style of vibrato in the strings is different etc.  But it
happens to be the orchestra that Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev or Shostakovitch
wrote for.

If you look at the Gramophone's recommended recordings of Tchaikovsky,
for example, they are all by West European/US orchestras - except for
Pletnev's Tchaikovsky 6th, and Pletnev consciously sought to get rid of the
Russian sound.  The result is a series of performances that is equivalent
to recommending the old style of St Matthew Passion or Messiah with 400
people in the choir and the continuo perhaps played by a grand piano - you
may or may not like it but it is not what Bach or Handel wrote.

There are a few performances of Russian music played on a West European
orchestra that are wonderful - Furtwangler's Tchaikovsky 6th, Celibidache's
Romeo and Juliet or Tchaikovsky 6th.  But they are good in the same way
that occassionally, Klemperer's Matthew Passion is very interesting - its
a great conducter using Bach to tell us something about himself but not
Bach.

To put it the other way round, regarding national character of orchestras,
Mravinsky's Bruckner, or Svetlanov's Bruckner 8th, are very interesting.
But the Russian orchestra, in that case, is a distraction as that is
certainly not the style of orchestral playing Bruckner wrote for -
substantial brass vibrato at the climaxes of a Bruckner symphony is a
strange sound even if offset by other features of the interpretation.
But Russian music, played by an orchestra without the specific technical
features of a Russian orchestra, is as wrong headed and inaccurate as the
old style of Bach or Handel - and there are not many Furtwangler's or
Celibidache's who have such virtues in other respects that they can
compensate for it.

John Glover <[log in to unmask]>