Review: Harnoncourt's Epic (and Sometimes Demented) 61-CD Complete Sony Recordings

[@RequiemAeternam01]

I genuinely can't believe how much your videos make me laugh! Thank you so much Dave, your channel will be cherished for the rest of the world's existence.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thank you!

[@b1i2l336]

Mr. H., I salute you! This is one of your all-time most entertaining and informative reviews. Your PORGY UND BESS overview had me on the floor. I have long been puzzled by Harnoncourt's performances, thinking "when he was good, he was very, VERY good, but when he was bad, he was HORRID!"

[@antoineduchamp4931]

David, OMG! Once a performer, always a performer. I have listened repeatedly to your German sung rendition of "Bess you is my woman now", "Bess du bis jetzt meine Frau" seasoned in I think with some nice New York Yiddish... I have laughed and laughed! Best account of this song I have ever heard. Thank you so much!! As I say, once a performer, always a performer, and that is you my friend...

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thank you! BTW, sorry for my accent, it's "Bess, du bist meine Hausfrau, nun" (or something like that).

[@antoineduchamp4931]

@@DavesClassicalGuide You are a true man of the stage, with an encyclopedic knowledge of classic music, second to none in the world. Alas your singing voice may have seen better days. Bravo David.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@antoineduchamp4931 Very true. The old voice ain't what she used to be.

[@ftumschk]

I loved that Yiddish-sounding version of Porgy & Bess. If only Sholem Aleichem hadn't died so young, he could well have collaborated with Gershwin at some point. Just think how good "Fiddler on Catfish Row" might have been!

[@chriskei7851]

Lol 😂 👍🏻

[@chriskei7851]

Excellent P&B

[@mickeytheviewmoo]

Love the Handel pun.🤣

[@richardwilliams473]

I love David s total command of the English language with his own embellishments when reviewing recordings.

[@jacquespoulemer3577]

David Hurwitz. You're a hoot!!! Your Porgy and Bess Medley had me laughing loud and long. 🤣 My life partner is a HUGE P&B fan so I just had to sing 'Bess du bist mein hausfrau nur Du Bist Du Bist' to him. We were both DYING!!!!😉 America's Wozzeck indeed! It ain't necessarily so probably should be sung in LOW German. Thanks for the Laughs and the insights. Still Smilin' JIM

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

My pleasure. It was so much fun to do...

[@judsonmusick3177]

My reaction to your rendition of "Porgy & Bess" in German - ROTFLMAO! Well done, Dave! 🤣

[@edwinbaumgartner5045]

In 2009, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) issued an enormously interesting recording of Monteverdi‘s „L‘Orfeo“, recorded in 1954: the conductor was a certain Paul Hindemith; the performance was played on original instruments, and one of the string players was Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The Viols and Gambe used came from his collection. Other musicians in this performance have been Anton Heiller (organist and composer of a Martin-like concerto) and the later teacher of music theory on the University of Vienna, Kurt Lerperger.

[@GastonBulbous]

That German Porgy & Bess. 🤣🤣🤣 I fell off my chair.

[@vinylarchaeologist]

5:59 “Having a good Handel on the Messiah” - Happy to have been present at the birth of this pun!

[@arneheinemann3893]

Regietheater in a latvian nuclear power plant with an all-white german cast……you made my day while I‘m sitting in COVID quarantine, tasting and smelling absolutely nothing. Thanks from Northern Germany.

[@bbailey7818]

Dave, did you say Handel Orlando Paladino @ 6:35? Isn't Harnoncourt's the Haydn version?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes, slip of the tongue--I was trying to say Handel did Orlando as well and that one is more familiar.

[@s.k.angyal3768]

I think he liked Porgy and Bess because his father was listening to Gershwin records at a time. And I think it was even banned in Austria and Germany…

[@jimcochran1408]

You know Dave, The 106 CD box of Szell is back. Be great if you could do that before it disappears again. Enjoyed this one!!

[@MrEye22tiger]

I second this comment...big szell box review!

[@michaelhughes1504]

...and I'd bet Peepo would love sitting in the box lid!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Add a little sand and she'd do more than just sit.

[@carlconnor5173]

@@DavesClassicalGuide LOL!

[@josephromance3908]

Fun and informative review.

[@stevenmsinger]

LOL! I want to hear more of your white, German Porgy and Bess!

[@Plantagenet1956]

My goodness! That’s a most cumbersome looking box set!

[@woongcho7709]

Another level of music critique!! As entertaning as anything on Netflix!! I have been his fan since 2004 when I bought his Bruckner symphony 9th. I think I almost always wished to ask him in person, "Why did you do it that way?" every time I bought and listened to his CDs. Now I''m revisiting all his recordings that I have, taking as much time as possible before and after work. Your reviews are already really helpful. I am going to go back to check this Porgy and Bess this weekend. I am wondering how it'll turn out to be this time. Thank you!!

[@AlexMadorsky]

Uncle Dave, time to hang out your shingle as a Porgy and Bess stage director at nuclear plants in the Baltics. Sure, your new career will render you penurious, and you could be in an active war zone soon, but I doubt you’ll have much professional competition in this sector. A Harnoncourt Porgy and Bess is such an intriguingly strange concept, I’ll have to listen to it soon.

[@bbailey7818]

More Porgy auf Deutsch! Maybe with Thielemann? But if Toscanini could do the three big Gershwins, why not Niklaus. Though Toscanini wasn't boring if not to the manor born.

[@marciosr8504]

Here's a box, still available, that you should review. The Deutsche grammophon "CHOPIN complete edition". When you buy it, it says on the cover, "specially priced 17 CD set". DG...I like the box anyway...

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I have it. We'll see.

[@johnfowler7660]

I hate and despise those giant retro-LP sized boxes. Odd that Sony, a company based in tiny, crowded Japan, is doing more to promote these monstrosities than any other label (though all have been guilty at one time or another). I was once pleasantly surprised when I opened the Warner / Menuhin "Violinist of the Century" giant retro-box and found seven smaller boxes inside. I was able to toss the outer box and put the smaller boxes on my CD shelves (and the hard-cover book on my bookshelf).

[@AlexMadorsky]

I don’t own any of these LP-sized boxes but it does seem like a bizarre way to package things that, you know, aren’t LPs.

[@richardfrankel6102]

@@AlexMadorsky Lp-sized? This thing could house 16-inch transcription discs!

[@woongcho7709]

I have a small bookshelf where I keep a handful of LPs and LP-sized CD boxes together along with some books. Actually I've been wondering what this shelf is originally designed for. I like it anyways. It's convenient and cheap. And I just hope those other labels do a better job.

[@AlexMadorsky]

@@woongcho7709 I’m a big vinyl guy, so an LP-sized CD box wouldn’t be inconvenient for me either, but I’m sure that packaging format is suboptimal for some purely CD collectors.

[@richardfrankel6102]

I've managed to find shelf space for Sony's Szell, Walter, and Serkin boxes, but this one is going too far: I Iiterally would have nowhere to put it! (Besides, the sheer hubris offends me.)

[@markstenroos6732]

JPC had this set on sale for the longest time for 50€. That would have been the time to pull the old purchase trigger. 🙁

[@francoisjoubert6867]

Was Lotte Lenya perhaps your Granny or Aunt? ;)

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Actually, she was my mother's uncle's second cousin (twice removed).

[@francoisjoubert6867]

@@DavesClassicalGuide - really? Your singing reminded me of her!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@francoisjoubert6867 Thank you, but alas, we are not related.

[@gregstanton7321]

I've never purchased a "big box", and I'm suspicious of the value of them. Especially conductor boxes, because a conductor's recorded legacy can be extremely variable. Harnoncourt is probably the most variable. The early stuff particularly, where he seemed more interested in making musicological points rather than making music. Sometimes these hold up and can be rather exciting, sometimes not. I find his Bach cantatas feeble, full of weird sounds. Some of his Mozart is highly irritating, often due to odd phrasing in the strings (courtesy of his wife Alice's bowings). On the other hand, Orlando Paladino is brilliant, and his recording of Thy Gypsy Barron is one of the most delightful operettas ever committed to record. No argument against the fact that he was a versatile and passionate musician. With generally mixed results.

[@maudia27]

I think most of us would prefer the lyrics instead the photos.

[@jaykauffman4775]

Your Porgy and Bess was hysterically bad. Boring??? NEVER!!!!!!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

But unfortunately Harnoncourt's is.

[@1984robert]

Great review, I have this box and I think it is worth the price. I think there is a CD-ROM also in the box with translated libretti. I mostly agree with your opinion. Some things where I disagree: Orlando Paladino: most boring 2 hours of my life. Maybe because I can't understand the story but the music was absolute triviality and banality. I love Haydn's music but this was boring. Mozart symphonies from Haffner to Jupiter: most weird performances I've ever heard. Ugly sounding orchestra, music turned inside out, melodies put to the background, background rythms put to the foreground. It is strange that you liked it while you don't like other period performances which are much more better in my opinion. Same for the Beethoven 4 and 5. Weird sounding, sometimes feminime ending (first movement of the 4th), never again. And Schumann: Paradies. I love this work on Gardiner's recording but Harnoncourt's is very boring. Anyway singig was great I agree. But I liked Bach, Timotheus (fun indeed). Early Mozart symphonies were one of my favorite performances from this box. I can't speak German so I skipped the letters (I have a book with modern Hungarian translation of Mozart's letters). Actually I liked Beethoven's oratorio also. The two Bruckners was absolutely great. I liked Harnoncourt's English comments about the last movement of the 9th. Dvorák, Smetana, Haydn Paris symphonies, etc: that was all fun.

[@hhk01]

I heard the Haffner years ago on the car radio, and almost had an accident. Pulling the tempi around so that all the juice ran out. Reminded me of the really bad Figaro from Salzburg, where the VPO fell apart because of the illogical gear changes.

[@marcschuyesmans]

Make america classical again :-))))))))))))))))

[@harisamp]

Hilarious. It was the only time I didn't find your singing atrocious. 29.09 minutes very well spent.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

This is the only time I don't find your comments atrocious, so we're even.