OMG! This Robert Shaw album is AWFUL!!

[Rabrrrrrr]

I respect Shaw as a conductor of songs, but this is a CD of serious music - Gorecki, Part, Schoenberg and others - and it's AWFUL! I am a HUGE Part fan, and I've never heard such a poor performance. He actually makes Part sound uninteresting and vapid and empty. All the mystery, all the otherworldliness, is totally absent.

It's like Shaw thinks he's doing that light bullshit music he did with Alice Parker and others.

All these interpretations are utterly the shits.

He's like the Ron Howard of choral conductors, at least when it comes to serious music. When he's doing songs, he's brilliant.

I guess he just shouldn't do music.

Thank God I borrowed this from the library and didn't buy it.

I have stopped listening. Even the Barber piece he managed to destroy. What the fuck?

And it was with the Robert Shaw singers, too.

The only good thing I can say is that they were totally on pitch and had their entrances and exits down. But I don't think Shaw understands how serious music works at all.

[MuseRider]

1. How could anyone

manage to destroy Part? Damn, it must be awful. Gorecki too? Such a shame. Could you talk the library into getting rid of it? It could spoil great music for people listening to them for the first time.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. It's something about the tonal quality of the voices

It's like Shaw is saying, "Remember, you're on Lawrence Welk and performing 'Tea for Two' and the listeners don't like 'purity' of voice or 'mystery' or anything unusual or different from the second-rate people they're used to in their churches."

[MuseRider]

4. Like Lawrence Welk,

yes I suppose that could make even Arvo Part sound vapid and empty. Ewwww.

Do you like the Wind Octet with Percussion? I heard that the other day and fell in love with it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Is that by Part? I havenn't heard it

In the last couple years, I've not bought any new Part stuff because of the shitty neighborhood I was in (mostly Dominican, so it was concert level salsa all the time, and I realized there is no point in even trying to listen to Part or any other serious music).

Other than the CD of the Cantus and Fratres and etc., I think everything of Part's I have is choral.

[MuseRider]

8. I heard it for the first time

a while ago. I was not in the best place to listen but it was mystical with some really nice percussion going. I wish I could say more, I only heard it once and have not bought it yet. His instrumental stuff is really nice, at least the few I have either heard or played.

Concert level salsa would be nice for a while but give me day long cumbia anytime! Happy happy music.

[GOPisEvil]

3. He sings, too?

[Enraged_Ape]

9. He used to ride a unicycle and spin plates on poles, too.

Unfortunately, it all went downhill after Jaws. Poor guy.

[ChoralScholar]

6. What album is it...

I'd like to see if it's on Rhapsody.

I've been blasted for disagreeing with Shaw interpretations, but I don't care. He had his place in choral music, and we should leave it at that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. It's "Evocation of the Spirit", from 1995

Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers.

On Telarc. CD 80406.