2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
old fashioned, October 7, 2005
This review is from: Panorama: Handel (Audio CD)
behind the fabulous cover that Archiv designed for its full priced productions hides a boring account of Water Music. The edition used is from 1962, before HIP movement gave its best efforts. The playing is quite correct, but surely follows note for note the edition. It really sounds so literal, so attached to written music, and forgets improvisation.Marriner, an "old fashioned" who uses modern instruments with warm vibrato, gave in his 3 recordings of Water Music solid accounts full of improvisation and imagination. You may like or not his approach, but it is far more entertaining to discover what does he do in a passage than listening to Pinnock. In the end Marriner sounds more period in spirit.
The playing is very polished (I never heard the "Air" with more refinement, but sorry, Horns are not prominent enough) and rythms are quite solid, not unlike Karl Richter's recordings, but in movs like Minuets he seems so HEAVY ... Lacks a complete sense of spontaneity, freshness. And playing became more virtuosic (Look the Allegro-andante -allegro with those difficult Horn passages played by TP and by J Savall and see how propulsive Savall is, compared to Pinnock).
The label says this recording was one of the first ones which showed the world a period instrument orchestra can have polished playing, not sounding scrappy. Sure it has an historical importance, but I think it has been bettered by more recent readings.
To sum up, if you browse in the net you will see this recording still has an inmense and favourable reputation. The problem with this recording is not what is done (superb, if not allways virtuosic) but what can really be done and it is not: vitality.
Pinnock gives reason to those who think HIP only tries to live and play in a "museum" style.
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