Järvi properly considered

[Alan Howe]

Let me state from the outset here that I am not an uncritical fan of Neeme Järvi. However, I simply do not accept the view which has sometimes been articulated here - prompted, no doubt, by reviews of certain of his recordings - that he is a consistent speed-freak. In fact, Järvi père is, like many conductors, impossible to pigeon-hole with regard to the tempi he adopts, and I take as my example here his new recording of Svendsen's Symphony 2. Back in 1986, when he recorded the work for BIS in Gothenberg, his total timing for the work was 30:08; however, in 2011, when he made his new recording for Chandos in Bergen, his total timing was 31:56 which represents a not inconsiderable increase overall of circa 6%. Thus, rather than becoming a speedster, over time his view of Svendsen has actually broadened.
So, let's not allow certain facts about Järvi to obscure the true picture of this conductor. It's much more nuanced and complicated than people think...
 

[chill319]

Indeed,  Järvi does not seem to be pursuing Toscanini's tempo-ratcheting approach to the precipice.

Speed is one thing, but sometimes I confuse it with methods of utterance. In what I take to be my less deluded moments,  Järvi seems at his best in music that partakes of the dance rather than song. His performances of Chadwick, for example, are among the most subtle and effective, in my view, because he understands Chadwick's metronomic variances for what they are -- emotive departures from a metronomic norm.  Where Järvi comes a cropper, again IMHO, is in music that asks for prosodic, bardic delivery -- Yeats rather than Pope, if you will.

Not sure if he's recorded Vaughan Williams or Holst, but I should think he'd be more successful in Holst.

[Alan Howe]

Järvi seems at his best in music that partakes of the dance rather than song.

IMHO that may be too much of a generalisation. He's absolutely unsurpassed in the high-flown first movement of Taneyev 4, for example: his conducting allows the music to take flight at points where others (Gergiev, Polyansky) remain resolutely earthbound. He's certainly the Russian bard there.
On the other hand, you may be making a pertinent point about where Järvi's real strengths lie as a conductor - in which case I would expect his Raff to be terrific...

[mbhaub]

I don't think he's a speed freak, it's just he likes music to move. We know that music has slowed down over the last 100 years, many conductors taking tempos far below what the composer intended. They do it to heighten the drama and maybe try to make the music into something the composer never intended. One need only listen to Bernstein's last recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th. In general I like Jarvi's handling of the Russian nationalists, Tubin, Alfven, Sibelius and some others. But his Tchaikovsky symphonies for BIS are curiously cool and detached. I expected more. His Brahms set was dreadful. And his Mahler that I've heard (6, 7, isn't top-drawer. So it leads me to think that he doesn't understand the German-Austrian tradition -- look out Raff! His Schmidt cycle is uneven, with a truly spectacular 2nd, solid 4th,  but the 3rd is way too fast. But a Beethoven 3rd I heard him do live with the DSO years ago was utterly enthralling. No one, on or off record, has ever captured the last movement (fast for sure) as well as he did.

The point is, that like most conductors he has his ups and downs. There are very few conductors who have near-perfect legacies. Solti, Maazel, Bernstein, Karajan, and Ormandy sure don't. There aren't many Reiners, Szells, Monteux, or Barbirollis out there. I give Jarvi a lot of leeway and a huge amount of respect for being willing and able to bring to our ears music that most other big-name maestros wouldn't ever touch. I just hope that before he retires, Jarvi blesses us all with his sensational take on Gliere's 3rd. If a recording could possibly match the brilliant performance he did in Philadelphia it would go immediately to the top of the heap.

[Alan Howe]

His Brahms set was dreadful.

I beg to differ. Here's a pretty accurate review:

Very impressive at its best, in Sym. 1 and 2 29 May 2009
By Santa Fe Listener - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Audio CD
Here's a curious thing. In 1988-89 Jarvi's Brahms cycle appeared one disc at a time, each symphony paired with a Schumann symphony. Now Chandos is offering just the Brahms on four discs -- not much of a bargain. Unlike grocery shopping, it's good when listening to a new CD not to read the label before consuming. Jarvi is known to be a direct, even blunt conductor with no special feeling for the classical and Romantic German composers. Does he adhere to type here?

Actually, no. This is sweeping big-band Brahms with the LSO playing at full tilt for expression and impact. Jarvi even throws in the occasional Furtwängler touch, generally an unexpected swell and slow down. Today is Brahms day at my house, and compared with the other two conductors I've been listening to, Gunter Wand and Paavo Berglund, Jarvi could pass for a Furtwängler disciple -- a major surprise.

The Gramophone, always pro-Jarvi unless proven otherwise, fussed that only the First Sym. was successful, finding the other three symphonies tepid. The First was taped first, and it's a splendid reading, grand without being garrulous, beautifully phrased and played with impeccable execution. I venture that anyone hearing it without reading the label would never guess who the conductor was. Only a bit of slackness in the opening of the finale betrays that we aren't hearing Giulini or Klemperer.

Sym. 2 begins at a real Allegro, which is good if you want to distinguish it from the second movement; many conductors take them both as Andantes. Jarvi takes a pastoral view of this work -- maybe that's what struck some critics as tepid -- but unlike, say, Eschenbach, who maunders along monotonously, Jarvi injects energy as needed. The finale could begin in a more hushed, mysterious mood, but Jarvi takes it a tempo before the jubilant explosion to follow. The feeling isn't as viscerally exciting as the first, mono version from Bruno Walter in New York, but the LSO surpasses the NY Phil. for sheer sumptuousness.

Sym. 3 passes the first hurdle by giving us completely secure, lush string playing, but Jarvi fudges the tricky opening rhythm by slowing down. No foul, though, since Furtwangler did the same. The main tempo isn't perky by any means, but again there's no fear that the reading is tepid. We find ourselves in Gunter Wand territory, with nice balances and carefully tended phrasing. Happily, Jarvi finds more contrast and expression in the two middle movements than Wand, and his orchestra flies higher. After a placid beginning, the finale offers an impressive explosion, but then Jarvi suppresses the glorious horn and cello line. In all, the Third is not as strong as the First or Second (this is often the case for some reason).

Sym. 4 poses a challenge, to draw out its intensity beneath the seemingly academic surface of the first and last movements. Jarvi hears the first movement as elegiac rather than intense and conflicted, a valid view but one that prettifies the music, I think. Only the LSO's wonderful sonority saves us from conventionality. In the middle movements Jarvi is schizophrenic, placid in the Andante but on fire in the Scherzo -- one of the most exciting I've heard in a while. The passacaglia is extremely well voiced, dark and rich, when it announces itself in the finale. Jarvi plays the movement as a grand sweep, with a few unfortunate lapses in tension. Overall, my attention was basically held by the orchestra and Chandos's luscious sonics.

If you acquire this set as a download (elsewhere than Amazon), I'd recommend the First and Second above the other two symphonies. Yet even then, the whole cycle beats out Sawallisch, Eschenbach, Wand, Berglund, and perhaps the mighty Szell, even though the latter has his own masterful First.

[eschiss1]

Holst or Vaughan Williams- maybe in his Melodiya days? I don't see anything more recent. (How much of that early LP discography of his has been transferred to CD? Some, I know - at least some of his early Tubin for instance... but not necessarily all...)

Not that he's unique or even necessarily rare in this but I like how (it seems?) he doesn't separate his concert and recording life overmuch- Raff, Lemba, Kapp feature as much in his concerts as they have or are expected to in his discography...
(I've heard at least two of his three? recordings of Stenhammar's fine- I'd say great or almost-great- symphony in G minor - and prefer the earlier one on BIS, which never fails to thrill me (and have heard several others also. Then again, I've heard the other one once and the one on BIS often, as it's in my collection...)

[TerraEpon]

I have a lot of discs with Jarvi conducting and many of them certainly probably will continue to set the standard (the Still symphonies for instance). Yet he sometimes REALLY manages to misfire -- I have to cringe listening to the total butchery of Gershwin's Prominade (Walking the Dog). 

[Alan Howe]

I have a lot of discs with Jarvi conducting and many of them certainly probably will continue to set the standard...Yet he sometimes REALLY manages to misfire...

This is a balanced view of Järvi, I think. And of most conductors, even great ones. It's the unbalanced 'can't do anything right' opinion of him that angers me because it's so obviously false...

[Mark Thomas]

It will be interesting to see what he does with the Raff. As Martin says, tempi have slowed since the romantic repertoire was composed and Raff's tempi as written are certainly fast by today's standards, to the extent that conductors to whom I've spoken are wary of taking them literally. Even the great von Bülow commented that "with Raff everything is rather fast". Whilst I agree that Järvi isn't a speed merchant per se, he does have an appreciation of the need for momentum in music and that has always seemed to me to be an essential characteristic of any Raff movement.

[Ilja]

What I really appreciate in Järvi is the way in which he's prepared to take risks (in my view, the hallmark of any great artist) - in his choice of new repertoire, but also in often going against established performance traditions. There are many things you can say about Järvi's performances - but they're rarely conventional.

[Gareth Vaughan]

As a (very) general rule, most Romantic music benefits if the conductor "gets a move on".  Slow tempi can be real killers (hear what Klemperer did to Beethoven, then compare it with Norrington). Of course, it is possible to go too fast - and, I admit, some of Raff's tempo markings are worryingly fast) - but I get very irritated by the self-indulgent drawing out of melodic lines which have characterised the performances of some great symphonic works by some conductors who should have known better.  At school, I once submitted a composition exercise to my music master.  I was rather pleased with it - it was marked "Adagio".  He sent it back with the comment: "Don't write adagios."

[FBerwald]

First off, Järvi and the tempo. Always a problematic issue. If we look at this a bit clinically he is the worst of them all. It seems that he is driving a brake-less car at an insane speed. I have heard him complete obliterate Liadov's Snuffbox to sand! But Why does such a conductor have an almost fanatic following [myself included!]??

I would say that is the spirit of the composition that he manages to capture that endears him to all of us. I am aware that Järvi is very unsuitable for certain composers but his reading of the Glazunov symphonies could be his claim to fame. These symphonies definitely need sympathetic reading [Look at the mess Naxos created!]. Järvi avoids exaggerated phrasings [José Serebrier's No. 5] and all temptations to "touch-up" the music and gives an honest reading of the Glazunov scores. Admitted the tempo might be brisk at times but the energy and grandness of these recordings are phenomenal.

Järvi's recordings of the Berwald Symphonies beats even Sixten Ehrling's version by a hair! In the end its his non-schmaltzy readings which makes him a unique conductor.

[eschiss1]

Re Romantic music and tempi- there's a brief bit about this - historically speaking - in the 2nd volume of Walker's Liszt biography (in regards Beethoven's symphonies, which are at least  partially Romantic anyway, specifically; Liszt having taken them at a slower clip than had become the norm since Mendelssohn, and having received some contemporary praise for it. Worth reading,
especially if one regards slow tempi - or apparently, judging from some new recordings of early music, even distinguishing at all between an Andante, an Adagio or a Largo, but that may be a separate issue - as inauthentic.)

[eschiss1]

FBerwald- which Ehrling version? He recorded the 3rd and 4th symphonies twice, once for BIS, once for Decca (now available on Bluebell- actually, I think all four symphonies from his Decca traversal are available on Bluebell now.)

(He is indeed at least a shade faster than Ehrling is on Bluebell in each movement of 3 and 4 - see http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=1493795 for Ehrling,
Discogs for Järvi. Do they all  (e.g. all the versions compared at allmusic.com) take the first movement repeat in no.3?)

[FBerwald]

The Bis version! I believe Järvi takes the Ist movement repeat in No. 3. Also Järvi does something in the finale. I don't know if anyone else has noticed it but in the coda Järvi recapitulates a certain passage [an arpeggio run ascending and descending] right before the crescendo ending. No other recording has that. I believe that Järvi is taking liberties with the score here but the end result is so satisfactory that it's hard to find fault with him.