1927-2015. Not especially committed to rare, obscure music, but sure gave a nice set of Bruch symphonies. I always loved the bolo tie.
Actually, judging from his broadcast and recording legacy, he -was- quite committed to rare and obscure music, just not especially to Romantic-era rare and obscure music necessarily. (E.g., not everyone premieres Schnittke symphonies (3rd, 1981; 7th, February 1994. Other works incl. Dutilleux "Sur la meme accord", 2002. Etc. ...). Think what you will of them, this is still true.)
(I know we equate "Romantic-era obscure" and "obscure" rather by way of "term of art" here, but that can be confusing to people just browsing the forum...)
(Not to forget his early (ca.1970s, on Deutsche Schallplatten?) recordings of the Mendelssohn string symphonies, so I won't... not obscure now- but then?)
With all my respect for his great personality, commitment and professionalism, many of his recordings are quite dull. Into the great orchestras which were given to him, he could have put more drive and spark. Perhaps he was much better in concert. I don't have any of his live recordings, my judgement may be one-sided. Just last week I re-listened to some items from his EMI-Liszt boxed set. After that I urgently needed to play the same pieces with Golovanov, Joó or Haitink - or Karajan, who, unfortunately, did not record all of Liszt's symphonic poems.
I agree with Adriano. On the whole a safe pair of hands - but dull, dull...
;) 8)
His Beethoven 9 at the Proms a few years back sent me to sleep. Oh dear: I'm sure he had many virtues. I too value highly his Bruch symphonies on Philips - great to hear them so sympathetically played by a world-class orchestra.
"Safe hands" just about sums it up, I guess; not so much with newer repertory, though, where he was more adventurous. You need to realize that for an important part of his career he worked in the GDR, where he was instrumental in keeping the the country musically alive. I would also say that by natural inclination he showed most of his creativity in post-romantic era works (Eisler and Wolf, for instance). Despite all that, I still have to hear a better Bruch 2 (and a more lively one) than his.
Not a favorite conductor of mine.
Masur was a fine accompanist as a conductor in a time when many others are not, and that should not either be forgotten or under valued. I saw a fabulous performance of the Beethoven Triple with Mutter, Harrell and Previn. Come to think of it, I wonder how it worked with a conductor on the rostrum and another on the piano, both of them with strong musical personalities.
I think his Beethoven performances will most likely be his legacy, but even then it is in my view mostly limited to his performances with Leipzig. It could be that the political system in the GDR, however abhorrent to him, suited his musical development with the orchestra in Leipzig and once free from that system he never quite recaptured the style and sound he had had with the other more democratic orchestras he worked with. As for pushing neglected music, I agree with the others here, he didn't do much for it.
Let's not forget Masur's vital role during the uprising in the old East Germany in 1989. When pro-democracy demostrations in Masur's home town of Leipzig were being threatened with being put down with Tiananmen Square-type state violence, Masur used his influence to contact the head of the Communist party and the demonstrators in the street to call for calm. Violence was avoided and Masur was the hero of the hour.
IMHO I would respectfully suggest his set with Accardo of all Bruch's violin and orchestra works was very much championing unsung works (albeit by a sung composer).
At the time I suspect the wider Bruch (non-specialist) audience had heard little more that Kol Nidrei, VC 1, Sym 2 and maybe the odd other work. Having been on the look-out for other Bruch violin works, I was amazed when this set came out. Since then I've tried to look up details of unsung works by all composers - sung or otherwise - for whom I have (or desire!) some repertoire, so I then know what else to keep an eye out for.
Since then, I've discovered UC and contibutors' marvellous lists of various composers ouevres, so I've probably got a bit lazy in the research dept (which, in the 1980s to early 90s, mostly entailed going to the local library to trawl through the latest RED catalogue (a habit started in the 1950s by studying the Gramaphone Classical record Catalogue, as I believe it was then called).
Sorry for digressing. In relation to previous threads on unsung works by sung composers, do members feel the Accardo set was a bit of a pioneering release or have I missed the point (I don't mind being wrong as long as I can understand where and why).
Cheers
Richard
No, you're right, I'm sure.
Having read the obituary of Masur in The Times today, one understands much better his wider role in the former DDR as well as his talents as an orchestral trainer. Apparently it was Masur who brought the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra back to its former glory.
As far as unsung music is concerned, the Accardo/Masur Bruch set really does seem to have stood out for its quality and polish, both orchestrally and in terms of sound. During the earlier years of the Romantic Revival there was much happening but one often had to put up with some hasty production values. If only Ponti and Rosand had been given sound and orchestras up to Philips standards for their many recordings! There were a few things with top orchestras and labels like Wild's Scharwenka and Paderewski Concertos on RCA and Lewenthal's Rubinstein and Henselt Columbias with the LSO but those, like Accardo's revivals of unknown Bruch, were a real treat. I think of his Paganini Concerto set in the same terms.
In the 3rd Bruch VC especially, Masur inspires his players to contribute real character to the orchestral score. I'm sure he made similar contributions in other corners of the repertory here and there. And he certainly displayed character at a crucial moment in East Germany's political history.
Masur's Mendelssohn symphonies, on the other hand, are so glib that in the 1970s they literally infuriated me as nothing musical has before or since. I think Masur tended to conduct safely, as if above all to avoid criticism. Thus his performances often render a then-current musico-social center of the aesthetic Bell curve with minimal deviation. Put another way, many of his performances could not be more predictable.
Bottom line: He had a pretty good run for a man of his talents.
QuoteApparently it was Masur who brought the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra back to its former glory.
Good for him. Myself, I would have thought Vaclav Neumann had something to do with that restoration.
Hrm. Neumann was there from 1964-68 and Masur from 1970-96 if Wikipedia-en is quoting its sources accurately. (What happened in 1969 in regards the Leipzig Gewandhaus I don't know- a protracted search committee or something like something like something &c&c&c, I'm guessing.)
Not having read much on the orchestra or even heard a sampling of their recordings and broadcasts between e.g. their earliest ones and 1970-odd, I'm in no position to judge to what extent Neumann had an effect on the orchestra (and why Neumann - who I do rate!! - in his 4 years deserves more credit than Konwitschny (who I gather is underrated, which I expect I'd find is true...) who was there from 1949 to 1962.)
(Or is this "compared to the Konwitschny days" rather than compared to the Abendroth WW2 days? I guess this outsider is, like Ekaterin to Miles, please saying
"unpack!"
I was thinking about Konwitschny, too, Eric. I was listening to his ca. 1960 recordings of the Schumann symphonies with Leipzig the other week. Without getting into a different subject, and any "retouching" aside, the Schumann symphonies inevitably reveal how ably a conductor balances his different sections and how ably the sections respond -- in other words, how disciplined and responsive an orchestra is. Leipzig does quite well in these recordings, which compare favorably to Kubelik and the Berlin PO. And it's not because the symphonies were old hat. The critic/musicologist Joseph Kerman told me in the late 1950s that he thought the Schumann symphonies, then rather unsung, were much better than their reputation. And Konwitschny was apparently hearing (or thinking) the same thing at that time because it was then that (by his own report) he took them up in earnest.
I have vinyl imports featuring Neumann and Leipzig from the 1960s. Although (surprisingly) the Telefunken engineering quality is not up to Lyrita's 1960s standards, the playing is passionate and convincing. Less refined than orchestras playing under Karajan, perhaps, but close to the level of the Leningrad PO under Mravinsky -- perhaps the most rehearsed orchestra of all time.
So it's not clear to me when the "former glory" of the orchestra was lost, but Herr Masur seems to have had a darned good orchestra to start with.