Gergiev at his thrilling best, before the fall

Gergiev Admirer says:

Sorry Norman, but when he is at his best these days, it’s just on a whole other level than anything he put out 20 or more years ago. He has matured tremendously as an artist.
Here’s a selection of my favorite recordings of his from the last 15 years, which are all incredible:

-2021, Beethoven Piano Concerto 3 with Buchbinder and Münchner Philarmoniker
-2020, Beethoven Violin Concerto with Daniel Lozakovich and Munich.
-2018, Scheherazade with Munich. Gergiev at his best!
-2018, Rococco Variations with Andrei Ionitá and Munich.
-2017, Mahler Symphony 4 with Munich. His Mahlers with Munich are all excellent, and it’s surprising to see how much better he got in this repertoire since his abysmal LSO cycle.
-2017, Strauss’ Don Juan with Munich. Wow! What sound…you can also check out Till and Heldenleben.
-2017, Shostakovich 9 with Munich. What amazingly refined and fresh playing!
-2016, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. When I first heard it, this became my new reference recording. It’s mind-blowing, and will probably never be equaled in my lifetime. And if you directly compare it with his 1998 recording, you can really see how much his artistry has grown.
-2012, Tchaikovsky’s 1st with LSO.
-2011, La Mer with LSO, unlike anything you’ve ever heard, and will certainly make you look in a new way at an old piece.
-2007, Swan Lake with Mariinsky. Also so much better than all the alternatives.

Yes, his LSO tenure was very disappointing. But his Munich tenure is much more consistently great, and the orchestra often sounds amazing under him.
Yes, he gives many very bad concerts every year. But I personally judge artists by their best work, and his best work puts him at the top.

All of his flaws were already known for a long time anyway. Recall the excellent Guardian piece from 1999:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/1999/sep/18/classicalmusicandopera

To finish off, if you also want proof that he can be phenomenal in live performances, here are a few YouTube video links. I don’t think there’s anybody who can say after watching any of these that Gergiev is not one of the best alive, even if you personally dislike him or his style of music-making:

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.6, Mov.4 by Gergiev, MTO (2010): https://youtu.be/yQoLS2_z4_0

Berlioz. Harold en Italie, Bashmet, Gergiev (2006)
https://youtu.be/bgVsJLDLWj8

Tchaikovsky: Romeo & Juliet / Gergiev · London Symphony Orchestra · BBC Proms 2007:
https://youtu.be/Cxj8vSS2ELU

Valery Gergiev – Serenade for Strings – Elgar (2016) https://youtu.be/NiSR2uuvxoA

Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major (Janine Jansen, Munchner Philharmoniker, Valery Gergiev) – 2015 https://youtu.be/L_I82afDVlo

Tchaikovsky “Swan Lake” Suite｜Gergiev Mariinsky 2007 https://youtu.be/GsYz7l0i0eY

Honorable mention: Mahler – Symphony No. 5 (2020) https://youtu.be/z_1w7wyuuBs

wiener says:

Er ist immer noch einer der drei Besten ( Barenboim, Thielemann, Gergiev )

RW2013 says:

Was he sight-reading?

Anonymous Bosch says:

An awfully large bald spot for a guy in his 30s … (said the man whose girlfriend made him start shaving his head a month after he turned 39).

I clicked over to YouTube so I could navigate to other pages while listening. There are 53 “Up” votes and zero “Dislikes”.

That being said, certain conductors are lucky enough to find a piece or two with which they connect on a plane that defies reality, and Salonen and “Sacre” are there. I had the great privilege of hearing him lead … uh, probably the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a performance at the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm in 2003 which set a new benchmark for me with a work with which I grew-up (the very first Boulez recording, 1963/ORTF).

Many years ago I purchased the orchestral score and gradually managed to get through all of it (I recall on my first visit that I got lost somewhere around page 14). I know it well. Salonen did so many things which are just missing from this performance. One brief example: the muted horn duet passages at the beginning of Part II were played so unbelievably pianissimo that you literally could have heard a pin drop. I disagree with some of Gergiev’s tempi and derivations (such as unwritten fermati on rests), but it is a competent performance of an incredibly difficult score, if a bit overtly blunt where it needn’t be.

I did hear Gergiev lead it a few years ago with …uh, the Mariinsky? It was at Salzburg so it could have been any band. Whatever. The indelible memory of that all-Stravinsky programme was “Les noces”.

Now that I’ve gotten all that out of my system, I recall first hearing Gergiev leading a new production of “Pikovaya dama” at the Metropolitan Opera in 1995, and since then other operas and symphonic concerts, many of which have been damned terrific. A well-known pattern emerged: the longer he stays put in one part of the world, the better the performance will be.

A highlight was, of all things, Mahler VI. with the NYP in the first days of 1998 (while doing a guest stint at the NYP he was simultaneously leading “Boris Godunov” at the Met). It was one of those rare occasions where I had to be physically manipulated out of the hall and across the street to the nearest bar. If I am going to keep track of benchmarks in live performances, that makes the list.