The Joy and Sorrow of YouTube

I just can't get interested in the streaming services for music--probably because they seem to be ill-adapted to classical music generally. But I am a heavy user of YouTube because there are so many riches to be discovered there and it is all free. Sure, there are a lot of poor or mediocre performances and many of the older clips have poor video or poor sound, but alongside those are a lot of great performances.

The problem with YouTube is mainly sorting through to find the good stuff. For example, I was looking for a good performance with good video and good sound of the Mozart Requiem to share with a friend and found the search function to just not work well. It turned up a lot of inadequate performances and then, as you scrolled down, was offering up other pieces of music entirely. Then, a few minutes later, I went to the main YouTube page and there was what I had been looking for: a 1988 film of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Requiem with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Choir. Here it is:

The YouTube algorithm is not your friend. I am constantly telling it not to offer up obscure pop music and dance on my personal page, but it keeps on keeping on.

YouTube contains thousands of absolute gems, but it hides them quite successfully. Looking for a good performance of the Symphony No. 7 by Shostakovich, the first on the list was Marin Alsop with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. These clips from Frankfurt are really excellent in terms of video and sound: crisp and clear and the camerawork does not go overboard. The problem with this one, I am afraid to say, is that Marin Alsop delivers possibly the most boring Shostakovich I have ever heard. God knows it was tidy, too tidy, but it had about as much fire and passion as a trip to Macey's. How could you make this piece in particular sound dull? Wow. The next clip was Bernstein conducting, it is unclear, but I think the New York Phillies. That had all the fire that Alsop was missing, but no video, just audio. Next Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra. Lots of fire again, but no video. Next, the utterly authentic Leningrad Symphony conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, but no video and the sound was poor. Next is Semyon Bychkov conducting the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in a concert in Japan with video. A brisk, no-nonsense performance.

The thing with this piece, I think, is that if you have ever heard it live, you will not be satisfied with any recorded performance because the dynamic range will be seriously compressed. No ordinary sound system as far as I know, can reproduce the 11 minute crescendo in the first movement from one snare drum played very quietly to the whole orchestra, with ranks of tympanists, trombones, trumpets, horns, etc. playing full blast.

Well, I have gotten a bit off-topic, but I think what I will do, from time to time, is post particularly good YouTube clips for your general edification and amusement.