WordPress consistently reports that the term “jonah falcon” is the top search term used to reach this blog. I finally got curious about who Jonah Falcon might be.
I’m sorry I asked.
Presumably they were being directed to my post on the Sistine Secrets, in which the prophet Jonah features.
Not sure of the ultimate source of this. But here’s a Christmas decoration you wouldn’t want to miss.
Classics Today decided to devote American Turkey day to reviewing what it considers to be some turkeys. It’s quite obvious that the reviewers enjoyed themselves. In fact, they even admitted as much.
Reviewing music is such a subjective business; few and far-between are the opportunities to cover a disc so horrendous that you can trash it and know that there can be no dissent, that you speak objective truth. So when my colleague at CTFrance.com, Christophe Huss, called me up and said, “You have to hear Angela East’s Bach Cello Suites; they are the worst ever,” I was naturally excited. I respect Christophe tremendously, but even so, well, you know how hysterical those French critics can be. Still, the cover looked promising: there is Ms. East, (blurrily) sitting barefoot on a rock in a billowing red dress, about to be swamped by a giant wave. Would the performances themselves, purportedly “authentic” in approach, match the cheesy quality of the graphics?
Among the victims, besides Ms. East, are David Fray’s recording of Bach, Marc Minkowski’s recording of the Bach B Minor Mass, and a Chandos release of Bernstein’s Mass.
There’s a big difference between authenticity with respect to circumstance and being true to the work in question. This release offers a case in point. It may be that 10 singers and single players per part (more or less) is what Bach had at his disposal, but this can scarcely do the music justice. The two great Kyrie fugues, the Sanctus/Osanna, and the conclusions of the Gloria and Credo sound pathetic. Even worse, conductor Marc Minkowski has singers (the tenors particularly) who do not blend, who never constitute a believable “chorus” (try the opening of the Credo for a particularly atrocious example), and whose pronunciation of the text isn’t even consistent (try the sopranos in the Christe eleison). Add scrappy strings and an acoustic whose excessive resonance only makes the forces sound even smaller, and the result is one of the worst modern performances of the B minor Mass, plain and simple. Yecch!
[Hmm, I don't remember it being anywhere near that bad, although he certainly has a point about the resonance. Have to take another listen to it this weekend, I guess.]
Also receiving a relatively restrained reproof are Fray and a HIP performance of Chopin. But things heat up with Lenny.
This performance has two things going for it: the Tölzer Knabenchor, and Randall Scarlata’s dignified and well-sung performance as the Celebrant. Everything else is simply vile. Kristjan Järvi conducts as if he’s late for an appointment somewhere (anywhere) else. The opening Kyrie is a blur, the text incomprehensible, while the climactic Dona Nobis Pacem is chaotic in a bad way. The individual street singers are mostly awful. I can accept the thick German accent in “World Without End”–indeed, it could have been kind of cool in a decadent sort of way–but Ruth Kraus can’t even pronounce the words. The “blues” singer in the Confession sounds more like he ought to be yodeling on an Alp. The principal soloist in “God Said” hams it up in a sorry parody of the real Broadway style, and it’s all recorded as a horrible multi-track pop album extravaganza, with the solo voices way, way too close. Disgusting. Avoid at all costs.
Well, I wasn’t planning on buying that one anyway….
But poor, poor Ms. East. Here’s the rest of the review
I put on the disc, and Voila! Indeed this is the worst-ever recording of these works, playing so tonally hideous, musicianship so lacking in taste, in basic musicality, that it surely deserves to become the Bach party record of choice for years to come. But, make no mistake, it’s terribly historically informed. Only years of academic study could produce a result this senseless. I know, I know–you think I exaggerate. Just spend a few moments listening [I'm not going to listen to it after this review!--K.]to the concluding Gigue of Suite No. 3: every phrase is played with different (and unrelated) dynamics, articulation, tempo–it’s a musical vivisection. Or listen to East grind her way through the Sarabande of the D minor suite. Is there a tune in there somewhere? Nah! Bad cello playing, it’s often said, sounds like a dying cow, but East puts a new spin on that image: she sounds like a dying mad cow. It’s that grotesque.
Happily, the sonics are fully worthy of the performances: atrociously close and airless, capturing every gasp, sniffle, snort, and a whole panoply of performance noises, from the clicking of fingers pressing on the strings to the thump of the bow in double stops. But there’s more! As a special bonus we get PICTURES, because East relates the keys of the suites to specific colors. Black (C minor) is particularly charming: it features East sitting in an enormous spider web in a black pantsuit and purple scarf. Any giant spiders out there care for a quick snack?
Dying mad cows…just what we need.
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