From the archives
Andrew Mcgregor finds much refreshment in Erato’s box set of Roger Norrington’s pioneering recordings
Sir Roger Norrington announced recently that he’d made his last recording, and that after 60 years he’s finally figured out how to conduct Mozart. On the evidence of Roger Norrington: the Complete Erato Recordings (Erato 9029624527; 45 CDS), that surely happened a while ago. Try the Requiem in 1991 and a fine vocal cast finding weight and gravity, but also the dramatic immediacy we hear in Norrington’s Mozart operas. There’s Don Giovanni, and a Magic Flute that delights and frustrates: superbly cast, but the breathless pace sometimes undermines the characterisation. On the other hand, the Piano Concertos with fortepianist Melvyn Tan have the intimacy of the finest chamber music.
Back then, Norrington was on a mission to ‘set aside decades of “interpretation” and replace it with evidence-based historical playing… not content just to get the details right; we wanted to make all the performances dance and sing.’ With his London Classical Players on period instruments, Norrington set out to recapture the exhilaration and disturbance of Beethoven’s symphonies, and these performances still succeed decades later – sample the whip-crack opening of the ‘Eroica’, the urgency of the Fifth, or the delightful details of the ‘Pastoral’. Their album of Rossini Overtures is pure joy, and as Norrington leads his players into the Romantic era there are more refreshing surprises: a radiant ball scene in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique; lean, athletic Brahms, effortlessly communicative Schumann symphonies, and the original Bruckner Third in a free-flowing performance that strips away a century of Romantic tradition. Back to the Baroque for one of my favourite recitals of Handel arias, with Norrington’s constantly rewarding instinct for balance and detail, and Purcell’s Fairy Queen brought dancing to life with light and shadow in perfect harmony. Others may argue about Norrington’s attitude to vibrato and metronome marks, but this retrospective leaves no doubt as to just what a pioneering and inspiring conductor he has been. series of picturesque episodes but here, from its brooding opening to its visceral climax, delivered in a single sweep.
The recording captures the usual presence and depth of the Gothenburg Concert Hall acoustic, though there is an occasional suspicion of spot-miking of woodwind detail. Bayan Northcott PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★