Shocked that no one has chimed in on this. I unfortunately have not heard them live but in recording they are superb. I have numerous recordings so I would not know where to begin, suffice to say still one of the finest orchestras in the world. IMHO, you cannot go wrong picking up a performance by them in CD/LP or in person. Older Columbia LP's I favor and recently heard a very good Bruckner symphony 5 with Christoph von Dohnányi conducting on Decca.
Actually, quite funny I saw this today, as I was looking at possibly flying to Cleveland in May to see a concert at Severance Hall with Franz Welser-Möst conducting Bruckner and Berg.
I've heard a lot of great stuff. I recently listened to the entire Beethoven Symphony cycle with Dohnanyi on and it was fantastic. There are a number of Szell performances that are rated at the top, the only thing holding them back being their sound quality due to age.
I blame Maazel. Half of it feels like he hardly spent 5 minutes looking at the score, as if he didn't bother to spend time making any musical or philosophical interpretations beyond picking a tempo. There are many places where the orchestra is not completely together as if Maazel was sending mixed signals in his conducting. Truly a horrible treatment of such great music.
Yes, they are an excellent group, and have made numerous recordings over the years. The only things I'm familiar with them is Russian classical music, but it was done quite finely.
They're still a fine orchestra, and respected wherever they tour. FWM has been knocked some over the years, but hell, he's a survivor and probably the best MD in America, until Muti gets in top gear with Chicago.
Blasts from the Cleveland Orchestra past...
Haydn Symphonies 92, 94, 96 - Szell
Mozart Piano Concertos 21 & 26 - Casadesus/Szell
Beethoven Overtures - Szell
Beethoven Piano Concertos 3 & 4 - Fleisher/Szell
Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet Suites - Levi
R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben, Death & Transfiguration - Ashkenazy
Stravinsky Rite of Spring - Boulez
Walton Symphony 2, Variations on a Theme by Hindemith, Partita - Szell
I've been doing a series of portraits of the world's great orchestras on my classical music blog "The Horn" at the website blogiversity.org, which has blogs on a wide variety of topics.
By coincidence,I just happened to doa profile of the Clevelnad orchestra on my last post yesterday. You can easily access my blog from the blogiversity home page by clicking
on it, or you can go directly to it from links at these classical music websites:
hornmatters.com ,blog.onopera, or mahlerowesmetenbucks.blogspot.com. Other great orchestras I've profiled so far include the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston symphony, Staatskapelle,Dresden ,the London symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra ,the Philadelphia orchestra, and Chicago symphony .
I cover classical music in general for blogiversity.org.
I got to see them live doing Beethoven 5 a couple of years ago, and they actually made it sound genuinely exciting. I'm not too familiar with their other ventures, but they gave me a good Beethoven 5, so I'm impressed.
According to the trailer I've seen - Bruckner Ninth with Welser-Most they are in great form... But I don't have the full video.
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