Transferred from Amazon my reviews of two essential Honegger CDs, Neeme Järvi’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 5 + Pacific 231 on Chandos 9176 (1993) and Mariss Jansons’ Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3 + Pacific 231 on EMI (1994). Both are among the best Liturgiques (others being those of Baudo, Mravinsky, and Karajan, with Plasson and Fournet also excellent versions), both following the furious model of Baudo and Mravinsky rather than the more expansive and grandiose one of Karajan. Jansons’ is even the fastest Finale ever recorded, and there’s a serendipitous irony that, in the very same month (December 1993), Jean Fournet would have recorded the slowest one ever! Jansons’ Second Symphony is excellent, though not quite on a par with the very best ones (all those of Munch belong there, with Baudo’s and Karajan’s). But I would venture to say, however reluctant I am to make such pronouncements, that Järvi’s 5th is the best ever – and, yes, I’ve heard almost all of them. Both Pacifics are excellent also, Järvi’s a touch better even than Jansons’ because of his great sonics – but none are quite equal to Bernstein’s.
Going to My Profile on Amazon because I was trying to locate my review of Denzler’s Liturgique on LP. The entry itself for the LP has been suppressed, but last time I looked (which was a long time ago), the review was still among my list of reviews, living some ghostly existence somewhere in the Amazon “system”.
But there, very bad surprise: all my reviews between April 29, 2009 and August 18, 2016 – gone. The reviews just jump from the one posted on April 29, 2009 and the one posted more than seven years later:
What a fright! (more a surge of grim rage, rather). That would be more than 1,000 reviews – gone. Sure, I keep copies on my computer – not always the final version, though, rather the final draft, which I then always marginally modify when I post the review. But it’s really the fact that I don’t keep track of what I posted in which chronological order.
But, after the first moment of startlement, I think it must be a glitch with the Profile. The reviews are still online, on their respective product pages, since I’m transferring all those Honegger reviews from 2013 and am finding them directly on the CDs’ entries, not going through My Profile. Well, I wrote to report the glitch (hoping it is indeed a glitch) and asking for a fix.
But it reminds me (if ever I had forgotten) that Amazon cannot be trusted for a second, and that I need to transfer these 2,500 reviews before they really delete them all.