Gramophone turns its back on British orchestras
NewsThere is just one London orchestra in the latest list of ‘best’ bands selected by reviewers on Gramophone magazine. Plus a period ensemble and a lot of quirky choices in a title race that few consider worthwhile (unless they win it, in which case they crow forever).
Also missing this year are the Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Santa Cecilia and the Concertgebouw. So the UK is in good company.
Here’s the Gramophone selection:
Academy of Ancient Music (UK)
Accademia Bizantina (Italy)
Bamberger Symphoniker (Germany)
Berliner Philharmoniker (Germany)
The Cleveland Orchestra (USA)
Philharmonia Orchestra (UK)
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Canada)
Minnesota Orchestra (USA)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra (Singapore)
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich (Switzerland)
Norman, that’s not the Philharmonia but a picture from a Netflix drama…
It’s a French show called Philharmonia. Amazon has it too.
Well, the Gramophone reviewers are probably choosing their top orchestras and ensembles based on recordings they have recently liked, as opposed to orchestras heard live.
I haven’t heard a live orchestra in 16 months. The last one was March 2020 in Montreal.
Wait, what’s bad about two UK entries in a list of ten which appears to be taking every country into consideration?
I’d be interested to know how the magazine made its judgements. Gramophone may be a venerable publication, but that’s not to say its every pronouncement should be treated as holy writ.
I would say that it once was a venerable publication. I read it every month for 40 years and then gave it up when it was sold off to the Haymarket Group, who publish such magazines as Autocar, World Interiors News and Fruit Focus and, I guess Which Anorak and Wheelbarrow World.
These lists of the twelve best orchestras and ten best tenors etc. are the kind of things one found in the unlamented Classic CD magazine (sorry, comic), which once offerd a cover-mount CD called ‘How to be an opera buff in 60 minutes’. That The Gramophone has sunk to this level is precisely why I don’t read it any more.
Measuring the greatness of any instrumentalist or ensemble is highly subjective. Most of them have their good days and less good days, in recordings and live performances. There’s little doubt that by any standards one chooses, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is better on its worst day than the Neasden Symphony Orchestra on its best day. But rating those who are already world-status players is a matter of personal taste. I would prefer Schnabel playing Mozart or Schubert, with all the occasional wrong notes, to that digitally perfect keyboard mechanic Lang Lang. I would find it difficult to rate any recording of the Schubert B flat Piano Trio above that made in the 1920s by Cortot, Thibaud and Casals – but that by the Beaux Arts Trio is, to me, equally outstanding. Wunderlich and Dieskau in anything are, to me, a guarantee of excellence. I would prefer to hear them singing a phone directory to many others in a song-cycle or opera. I have never heard a more masterly recording of the Ravel G Major Piano Concerto and the Rachmaninov Fourth Concerto (including the composer himself in the latter) than Michelangeli’s stunning accounts recorded in 1960. And so on…
These are my own personal opinions (or prejudices) and if any of the SD readers rubbish any of them and say that they can’t hold a candle to some other performers, then so be it. Chacun a son gout. That’s what makes SD such an interesting read…
Here’s the link: http://bitly.ws/f6Y7
Now go vote for the Philharmonia and piss off Norman!
Thank you!
To pick Orchestra of the Year 2021, when everything was shut down for Covid, is akin to picking Airline of the Year 2021, or Restaurant of the Year 2021.
To put this in perspective a recent winner was the Hong Kong Philharmonic, now playing only patriotic Chinese music pre-approved by Beijing and the Communist Party Executive Committee on Morals, Hygiene and Obedience.
What utter nonsense uttered by Sam who has not the faintest idea what is going on with the Hong Kong Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden! This splendid orchestra fully deserved its Gramophone Award 2 or 3 years ago for the playing on its magnificent Ring cycle and other concerts. Sam’s childish joke falls totally flat!
An odious and worthless ‘ad hominem’ attack on Sam from Nick2. What a pity about the first and last sentences; were they really needed? Surely the middle sentence alone would have been a perfectly reasonable argument.
And if there were too many UK orchs, they would be accused of being homers. I voted for Berlin, as their COVID-era video concerts were exemplary, standards-wise, and simply sublime to take in.
SD often has provocative headings/story lines just to get us in, fuming. Then it rings up a few more clicks. I keep falling for it.
It’s not serious journalism or musicology, you know.
As Genius Repairman says, the short list is composed of orchestras the magazine thinks have had a particularly notable year, mostly in recordings.
Article begins: “There are is…”
I, too, voted for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; mainly because of the availability early on in this ghastly pandemic of their extensive online digital concert hall library for one month of free access, when our orchestras were not providing much at all; plus my ongoing admiration of the BPO. However, it is a huge sin of omission – to the Gramophone magazine’s shame – that no british symphony orchestra is represented in the list of contenders. If the LSO were listed they would have gained my vote. Does it really matter, though?
I know which orchestras – past and present – are constantly in my listening repertoire and, consequently, they get my vote on a daily basis.
I used to buy the Gramophone magazine years ago but I refuse to pay the current asking price because I do not think the reviewers – I read it regularly in one of my local Libraries – are a patch on those in past years. Let’s face it, the magazine is a commercial venture and they will no doubt support their favoured orchestras. The Gramophone magazine is hardly the final word on classical music. It’s merely a glossy mag that sits on coffee tables throughout the land before it’s thrown out in the rubbish, like all magazines. I can live without it.
On a more general outlook, there should be real concern for the future of british orchestras in the present economic climate and more pressure needs to be put on all UK governments who, in general, seem to be completely ignorant or simply not bothered about their survival; as most of the ‘great’ british public are, I believe. As Tommy Beecham used to say, ‘The british don’t really understand music, they just love the noise it makes’. Even Elgar used to describe british audiences he observed as ‘sitting like stuffed pigs’.
Some orchestras have provided online events – good enough for those with access but useless for those without – but have any of the british orchestras and their management done enough to urge the reappearance of live concerts? Certainly, here in Scotland, they haven’t. I recall Sir Simon Rattle and Nicola Benedetti being very vocal about this subject early on in this pandemic, but they seemed like voices crying in the wilderness.
I will be emailing the Gramophone to ask why they have, apparently, shown such disdain for the orchestras of the UK. I’ll be interested in their reply, if they can be bothered.
What complete and utter silliness, made even more silly from the world trying to dig its way out of the pandemic crises (thus, no orchestra concerts).
Sorry but who honestly gives a flying fish about Gramophone these days, or anything that they do.
Oh, so what? The Gramophone list of “the world’s beat orchestras” so many years back was ridiculous. Why do all these publications think that they can pronounce on “the best”, whether it’s a band, a recording, some architect’s concert hall wankathon….
What a strange list.