It will hardly surprise you that I too have been spinning that recently. Having also listened to Volumes 1 and 3 of his "Mozart Essential Symphonies" series over the past few days, I have just ordered Volumes 2 and 4 via Amazon Marketplace. Volume 5 will have to wait. The price has yet to drop.

So, a bit nearer to Wagner's own timing then?

Taken from an interview with Norrington in the The Independent in 1995 [Edited as I'd posted an incorrect link before]

One of the things Norrington is famous (or is that infamous?) for is the speed of many of his performances. That isn't an end in itself either, he insists. But in Beethoven he has often taken the composer's hair-raisingly fast metronome markings at face value - where that's humanly possible, of course. He sets his face determinedly against a trend that has been growing since Otto Klemperer's "monumental" Beethoven of the 1960s. Like it or not, Norrington often has impressive historical evidence to back up what he does: if his Saturday-night Barbican performance of Wagner's Meistersinger overture takes, as planned, well under eight and a half minutes, that's still slower than the composer's written recommendation.

"He said a few seconds over eight minutes - that's fast! Most people take nine and a half to 10 minutes. Klemperer took 11 minutes 10 seconds - and it sounds great! But Wagner says he wants a bright, cheerful allegro in four beats, soon going into a swinging two. He says a few changes of tempo, but only slight. Where's the famous Mengelberg squeal of brakes? Have we been misled by Wagner's disciples - or, more likely, by Cosima Wagner's choice of his disciples?

"I actually can't do it as fast as Wagner says, but on our Wagner Day last year we got pretty close. I know that because we asked the audience to time it. Some of them were pretty indignant. But when we got to the end of the overture, I was thinking: I'd love to hear the whole opera done like that. It's supposed to be a comedy, for God's sake! It's about young love and spring and the defeat of aged, complacent traditionalism by youthful inspiration. Why does it have to be so solemn?"

On his LCP recording, he took 8:28; the new Stuttgart one sees him clock in at 8:12!

The New York Times article I'd wrongly attributed this to earlier can be read here.

NS: Japon - Shômyô, Chant liturgique bouddhique, Secte Tendaï
Downloaded from WeLove-music.
It's really quite exciting.

After a few hours of gardening and a sudden downpour of rain, I'm now spinning Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony from Claudio Abbado's, Berliner Philharmoniker, 5 CD set of The Symphonies, Nos 1-8, apparently their first release on CD.  Previously released on DVD, they were recorded live in Rome, in 2001.    Sym No 9 has been retained and re-edited from the older Berlin set and includes the Swedish Radio Choir and soloists, Karita Mattila, Violeta Urmana, Thomas Moser and Thomas Quasthoff - I recall reading reviews which considered this to be the crowning achievement of one of the most involving cycles of the modern era.

Abbado writes in the liner notes:   "There are many reasons for releasing this new edition, above all musical ones.   After many performances of the cycle, our interpretative vision had matured, becoming more natural and shared.  The concerts in Rome marked significant advances in terms of style, spirit and technique."    This new cycle replaces his Berlin set issued by DG in 2000 - now no longer available.

Thank you, IGI.    Yes, you've got it in one.   The CD set is first rate but I also wanted to see Abbado on the platform, too.    I've gradually acquired his Mahler set, on DVD, with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra - isn't Mahler 3 due soon? - and the all-round experience of DVD is now in a different league from even a few years ago.   A Bank Holiday is due in a few week's time; a good excuse for a treat.

I've found Hugh Canning's highly favourable review of the CD set and he adds:

           "...The most obvious gain comes in the sometimes least-regarded even-numbered
           symphonies, in which Abbado's scrupulous attention to instrumental detail in the
           Jonathan Del Mar critical editions, and his almost Haydnesque brio in the outer
           movements, are wonderfully uplifting.     I can't think of a more satisfying modern-
           instrument accounts of the exhilarating allegro vivace of the B flat major symphony
           (No 4) or the finale of the F major (No , while Abbado's power and dynamism propel
           the Eroica and the Fifth inexorably to their triumphant conclusions."

Mmmm. Gagaku.