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Catastrophic! Norrington is murdering Wagner

David Grandis | Washington, DC | 01/30/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I borrowed this cd at a library because I was curious about his rendition of Wagner. I know Norrington personally and I don't particularly like the man nor some of his interpretations but I must say that he has done some good things in the past and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.



If you are a Wagner "beginner", please do not purchase this recording! It is catastrophic. It is not a question of having a different taste in the matter of interpretation: Norrington simply kills the music, its inner energy, its melodic lines, well, everything. It is absolutely anti-musical.



First, let's say that Norrington is a buffoon who is surfing on the hype of playing without vibrato. A great idea for many pieces but indeed neither for Wagner nor for Tchaikovsky. I met him once, he was guest conducting our orchestra for Tchaikovsky's Pathetic (played without vibrato!) and I asked him what justified his approach. He answered that his research led him to believe that the Vienna Philharmonic and other orchestras did not use the vibrato as we do nowadays. (well, there's already a wide range of possibilities between over using it and not using it at all...). I asked him if he made any inquiry about St Petersburg's traditions (since Tchaikovsky was from there by the way...) and he answered that he didn't and it didn't really matter. Right...If you want to know what was the way of performing Tchaikovsky in its time, I think you should make some research in Russia, it seems elementary. Finally, he denigrated a lot his conducting teacher, Adrian Boult, who apparently did not teach him anything of real value...maybe he wasn't listening.



Playing Wagner without vibrato is indeed a really silly idea although, I found this approach quite interesting in Parsifal's Prelude, fitting very well the eerie and unearthly atmosphere of the music. Alas! Norrington rushes in every energy build up, crushing the effect of the Climax. In fact, ALL climax from every prelude in this recording are rushed through, destroying any effect of grandeur any basic principle of tension-relaxation. The beautiful melodic lines of Siegfried Idyll of Meistersinger are rendered so quickly, it is almost comical. It is ultimately a crime because the music is murdered and the people who don't know these pieces and listen to them for the very first time, will not appreciate them for what they're worth. When classical music is doing so badly in sales and concert attendance, it's really not the time to kill its magic.



There are so many good versions of these pieces, why would you bother with this half-wit. There are many great English conductors, past or present, Boult, Barbirolli, Rattle, Gibson, and I'm forgetting many others but Norrington is NOT one of them.

For Meistersinger listen to: Bruno Walter or Eugen Jochum (who is considered as the specialist in Germany for this opera)

For Siegfried Idyll: many choices here, Solti, Karajan, Thieleman (and probably many others I don't know about)

For Parsifal: Karajan is amazing there.

For Flying Dutchman: Dorati is my favorite. Karajan is quite good too. Klemperer is liked by many others.

For Tristan: Bohm or Kleiber



Please, avoid Levine: the Tristan I've heard at the Met and his Parsifal on recording are ridiculously slow, to the point where the melodies are dissolving into the ether and when an opera is around 4 to 5 hours long...you shouldn't linger too much...

That's it for my rant. I was too outraged to let this one pass. Norrington is a turd, here I said it."