Music Chat: Roger Norrington Retires. Warmth Returns to String Timbre.

Yes, Roger Norrington is retiring according to reports. At age 87, the man who did more than anyone to paint a mustache on the musical Mona Lisa of the nineteenth-century will be hanging up his baton (or sticking his hands in his pockets--whatever works). We can only breathe a sigh of relief.

[antoineduchamp]

David, I have to confess you make me chuckle... I too feel delighted Mr. Norrington has retired... you express your distaste for his conducting much better than I.

[LeotheK]

I'm a big fan of Norrington, but I still highly enjoy your thoughts, interesting talk and thank you!!

[EddieJazzFan]

Not a big Norrington fan, but I did like sound of wood tip mallets on the tympani.

[jonnlennox]

What good news, thanks for sharing it!

[JackBurttrumpetstuff]

Spot on, Dave! Two comments about wacko conductors: I saw Norrington conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in the early 2000s. I never felt such obvious distain from an orchestra towards a conductor as I did on that concert. Also I recently saw a rehearsal in Vienna with Theodore Currentsis and Musica Aeterna.. They were playing Mahler 5. The entire orchestra - minus the cellos -played standing up! I did not see the concert, but I believe they did on the concert, too. Either way, as you would say, balderdash!

[angusmcmillan]

In the 1970s I sang music by Schütz in the Schütz Choir conducted by Norrington. The experience was thrilling musically and he paid no attention to our singers’ natural vibrato - very different from string vibrato of course but still something that can be modified. Performances went down well as did our recording of the Schütz Christmas Story (what views if you know it?). He was unacceptably rude, but not as cruel as JE Gardiner (for whom I sang Monteverdi in his Monteverdi Choir).
Decades later I heard him conduct vibrato-free Brahms in London - yuk.
And a few years ago he returned to Trinity Oxford (where his father was President) to conduct a group of alumni - even more offensively rude and got nowhere with the music.
Thank you Dave for always being objective and fair - as you say, colleagues who may work together can’t speak the truth as you do.

[ppfuchs]

I completely agree with this assessment, based on hearing his performances of Romantic works on the radio over the years. Truly wretched. But imagine my surprise when I bought a job lot of CDs on eBay recently, and in it came two CDs of Mozart symphonies with the Stuttgart forces. I have to admit that some were pretty enjoyable, though you could exactly hear when he felt the need to interject his affectations, and then it was ruined. But without those, surprisingly palatable. Perhaps he was just having a "bad day" and managed paradoxically to produce something lovely, despite himself, as it were.

[hbicht]

Can't say much about Norrington since I'm more familiar with other period instrument people but in general, historically informed performance is cool and good. Whether their approach works for Romantic music is up for debate but for Classical and Baroque music I think it sounds a lot better, fresher and more colorful. I'm definitely not the only one who thinks this. Nowadays, even if the orchestra is using modern instruments, they will almost always incorporate some elements of the period instrument approach when playing music from these periods.

[petterw]

What blows my mind is this: the first time Norrington played Elgar without vibrato and called it "authentic", did nobody point at all the Elgar recordings conducting his own music with plenty of vibrato?

[haroldvail]

I still enjoy Norrington's EMI Beethoven set from the 80s - the London Classical Players (like the English Concert under Pinnock) were always wonderful on their (presumably) rather cranky but colorful instruments, and Norrington didn't bother me
in Beethoven, except for that odd 9th. Enjoyed some of his Schubert, too, but anything deeper into the 19th century, with the LCP or Stuttgart, only revealed his kapellmeister-ish drabness of imagination. Gosh, I'm glad I never heard his Bruckner!

[davidowen]

welcome to Stuttgart, David. I was lucky enough to largely miss Norrington in my adopted city (although I still like a small handful of his early Beethoven recordings and enjoyed his 5th live a time long ago when this was all relatively novel) and have been repaid by getting Currentzis who at least has the merit of wild unpredictability in his over-inflated ego which means that there are are elements of genius there. Genius is not something I would associate with Roger N. But no, he is not the worst conductor ever in an answer to another video of yours. Ever more, it's the superstar conductors of some of our leading orchestras who are more interested in creating an artificial effect than trying to reproduce the music in a sincere and honest way. A sign of the times, I guess...

[martinhaub]

Complain all you want about Norrington, but he did accomplish something significant: he made us reconsider and really think about music performances. He really added to the conversation. Great conductor? Maybe not. But that Berlioz Symphonie fantastique with real ophicleides was surely an ear-opening recording. Then there was that Brahms 2 which he somehow found a way to make it dull. How long before we get the Complete Norrington EMI box?

[patrickstaples]

For me the best of Norrington is his Mozart 38-41, the Beethoven cycle (in particular the earlier works) and his Schubert's 4-6. None should be the sole representatives of these works within a collection, but they do add (to use your word) a "different" interpretation which is both important and worth hearing.
The 60s, 70s and early 80s classical music scene was dominated by big bands, playing with large amounts of vibrato; as a result the various musical layers got hidden, wind instruments suffered particularly badly. Also orchestras were not always tight, and hence cloudy, and hid that failing behind the string "fuzz" (Scimone's Clementi is a example of this). Karajan was the most extreme example of the big string approach (but the BP were tight) - all the layers were obliterated and his interpretations sounded like they had more to do with Led Zeppelin's heavy rock riff approach than anything else. Further, Karajan had one other similarity to Led Zep, both parties would quieten down the rock riff long enough so that one could hear either a violin or lead guitar play vibrato soulfully (ie like Bambi being strangled at birth) to add "pathos", and both parties referred to this unsubtle commonly used schema as the "light and dark" or chiaroscuro (you will appreciate I like neither Karajan nor Led Zeppelin).
Yes Karajan is great at playing Honegger, because the composition favours that style of playing, but his Scheherazade amounts to cultural vandalism and his Mozart is unlistenable (to me anyway).
Norrington was part of a movement that questioned that style and it has changed both playing and listening habits to a very large extent and led to bands "tightening up" a lot providing more clarity in performance, the vibrato heavy Bambi approach to violin solo playing has quietened down too. His Classical (ie 18th Cent) and early romantic (ie Schubert) might or might not be "authentic" (I doubt that is fully "authentic" but it may "approach" authenticity a little) but it is certainly authentic 70s/80s rebellion against the big bands and that alone gives it some historical credibility because of the changes he helped bring about.
Norringtons late romantic interpretations are not so great, his Brahms is dour (I fail to understand why he even went there, these works are best left to modern orchestras); even his late early-romantic works (ie Schumann) are at best acceptable. But his Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are not just historically, but also aesthetically, worth hearing - as part of a wider, more embracing collection.
Your are a very good critic, you even say good things about interpretations, and compositions you don't like much, which shows you are very objective and rise above your own subjective tastes. I think you are very unfair to Norrington; a lot of his work will vanish into posterity but his very best is worth some respect and I have stated what I believe this to be. Not everyone will like his Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert, but quite a few people DO enjoy these works and think they have some merit; they are not the best interpretations of these works but they are worth listening to and being part of a collection.
I own the 3 works I believe to be Norrington's best; and I also own Karajan's Honegger (even though I dislike Karajan in general) because it is simple a good rendition and is worth hearing.

[massawax]

I agree completely on Norrington and on Germans being obsessed with (and prone to) ideology. Sir Roger's Bruckner for one Is an emetic cataplasm to the ear and to the soul.

[s.k.angyal]

Harnoncourt sounds different compare to many other great names, but he sounds honest to my ears🎶

[bbailey]

Shrewd commentary! I especially appreciated the comparison with Regie theater in which a director "overwrites" the actual work with his own notions of what the plot, setting and characters should be and succeeds in obliterating it. I remember buying Norrington's Beethoven symphony cycle, intrigued by some very favorable reviews (e.g. William Malloch) but stopped when he made an absolute mess of the Ninth, espousing an obvious, grotesque misreading of the Trio of the Scherzo. In sum, he was obliterating the music.
But watch out! Old wine or rather sediment and vinegar in new bottles. You may soon be reviewing an Essential Complete Norrington big box.

[jamiefenner]

+1 for such entertaining comments! Cheers, Sir John.

[OuterGalaxyLounge]

Yeah, well, to keep this from becoming a "me too" pile-on, I'll stand up for Norrington. I like his Haydn, Beethoven and Berlioz. I like the odd tonalities.

[TheVaughan]

Best news in the music world I’ve heard in a long time. Heard him destroy my beloved Berlioz so I’ve avoided him ever since.

[vdtv]

I'm sure there'll be a "best of" box before you can say "heresy". The title I'd choose is also the title of a book by Victor Borge: "My Favourite Intermissions".

Wouter van Doorn