Regarding the Casals Brandenburgs:
The post bore my name. Therefore, the opinion expressed is mine. Mr. Becker
may recall the Marlboro performances with pleasure. It was a festival
environment which is always charged with a special excitement and Casals
was uncritically revered without much examination of his interpretative
standpoint. With his henchman, Sasha Schneider, he preached the Gospel of
Vitality which often was mindless vitality. More historical and
instrumental awareness about performance practice in Bach than Casals's
world encompassed was needed, but those qualities were not especially
prized at Marlboro during that time. It's now long ago and that performance
style has receded. A treasured memory is quite different than the recorded
document that reproduces the deficiencies of the remembered occasion.
Harnoncourt and Thurston Dart had already recorded their versions. In that
company, Casals came up pretty lame then and even more so now.
DDR
On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 4:52 PM, Loftus Becker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I was present in the hall when several of the Casals Brandenburgs were
> played in Marlboro, and can testify that many people (including myself) got
> considerable pleasure from them. And I know that many of the musicians
> playing did too.
>
> No reason that Dennis or anyone else has to like them. De gustibus non est
> disputandum. But it’s a little silly to assume that your taste, or the
> current fashion, is universal.
>
> Lofty
>
> > On Mar 19, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Dennis Rooney <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > And the Casals-led Brandenburg Concerti are truly bloated caricatures of
> > proper Bach performance: heavy and sodden accounts that would give no
> > pleasure regardless of whether the shades were down or up.
>
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