Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #50)

Now playing CD8, the last CD from the following set for a first listen. There is also a DVD of the pianist performing in this set, which I will not bother until a later time. The piano playing in this set is actually quite nice ...

 

Is that the very controversial one that is twice as slow as any other version...or so it seems?

 

Maybe things are different for L.A. Phil and Disney Hall but classical rep is played with a substantially pared down orchestra. Works fine in that venue.

 

Scott, you altered my original quote. Please don't do that.

One of the reasons I don't like it is because the material you added in parentheses incorrectly sum up what I was trying to say in my post. Another reason is when you use parentheses, it looks like it is what I wrote and not what you wrote. Brackets are usually used when adding to a quote [written like this.] If people want to see what my post was referring to, then can easily click on the arrow on my quote.

 

Well OK...I did that so folks reading it would actually know what was being discussed. With quotes of quotes the context goes missing and I was simply trying to restore it. I had no idea there was such a distinction between brackets and parentheses. How does it incorrectly sum up what you were trying to say? Did I misidentify something? Honestly I'm kind of baffled by your reaction to my post.

 

Brahms more to my liking: three Piano Quartets played by four members of the Eastman School of Music faculty. recorded 1968.

 

I'm not talking about my personal preferences. (Shostakovich is far from being my favourite or anything like that. Yet I do appreciate him probably a lot more than most of the 20th century composers.) It's just that I dimly remember some musicologists and several musicians to point out the qualitative unevenness of his symphonies (in a sense of 'this is rubbish, that's a masterpeace'). However, it's probably impossible for any creative worker to maintain the quality during the decades. Haitink probably didn't meant that - obviously, he referred to the formal and structural and other artistic features of Shostakovich's symphonies and the wider qualitative variation within these when compared to his string quartets.

Could be, but like I wrote, he isn't alone with his view. I guess that it was probably already one of my music teachers who already pointed that out (to me).

So in music the expression of the attitude isn't so easy, after all. The receiver must be capable of the interpretation. Also I doubt, how far it takes us if we start the interpretation of the work with one incident only - instead of the general formal and structural features.

But hey, I'm just a formalist fart: I don't give much credit to historical/political/psychological/sociological/etc. interpretations of art.

 

Now enjoying a first spin of the above CD set. Thanks again, Robin!

 

I don't know about other instruments, but there are at least 3 different clarinets commonly utilized today - the B Flat, the A and the E Flat. Most music written for the C Clarinet is played on the B Flat, although I believe C Clarinets (and perhaps even D Clarinets) are still made.

I am not including the bass clarinet or the basset clarinet (used for Mozart's concerto and quintet).

 

I thought about you, George, when I got to # 11 on this list:

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Com.../R36S8ZE121XIL1/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full

 

I might not always agree with your taste, but your rhetoric is often tastefully convincing, as here.

 

Touché, but the last segment of your comment rather proves my point, as better sound is always the hoped-for reward in any music listening endeavor. It was in the early Sixties that it came to me that there was something better than my dad's plastic Motorola radio/record player.

Abbado is another one of those conductors who, like HvK, somehow rubbed me the wrong way. But unlike Herb, I never made a conscious effort to avoid C. A., it's just that record-buying in my earlier years had to be economically selective.

Although I've always enjoyed Maazel, I don't have but a few of his LP releases and even fewer CDs. Still, I have to keep close reign on my purchases. I just don't have the space to store a lot of music, nor the time to hear it all. As I noted previously, I make it a point to listen to all of my music collection, and keep records as to when it was last played. The Mackerras Beethoven set will just have to be my last.

 

I thought it was clear that I was commenting on Haitink's statements. (I should confess that I find most conductors' musings on art to be odd or just wrong.) The Commissars were not examining each measure of his string quartets for apostasy, just every other measure, so he had a bit more freedom to write what he wanted. The symphonies though were seen as an official government document to be approved by the Soviet bureaucracy. It wasn't limited to Shostakovich. For example, Prokofiev had to tack on an ending specifically demanded by the commissars to his Sym 7. Prokofiev's wife was thrown in jail. Many of Shostakovich's associates disappeared. It's amazing he composed anything interesting under the circumstances. Not that it should affect our evaluation of the artistry but we have a ready and obvious explanation for the artistic variability of the symphonies.

Of course, an interpreter should concentrate on the musical structure and its internal relationships. That works very well for 80% of the interpretation. The last 20% is the attitude or emotion the music suggests because it wasn't written by a computer. It is all a matter of degree. Any analysis reveals the most rigid performance is filled with all kinds of deviations from the printed score. Have a computer program play back a score exactly as written. Everybody would rush to get out the door.

 

I recently came across a Russian label named Northern Flowers. They have issued an excellent series titled ""Wartime Music", which contains symphonic works by lesser known Russian composers written during the WWII. So far I have these two but I definitely want to get more.





These are very well recorded and sound great. The orchestra, which is the St. Petersburg State Academic SO under Alexander Titov, is captured perfectly. Based on these two that I have, the music is not up to the Prokofiev or Shostakovitch standards but still it is very interesting and worthy of exploring. The other cds in the series contain music by Popov, Mosolov, Yevlakhov and others.
Right now, I believe, the series is at vol 16. It's incredible to think how much music was written in Russia during the wartime period.

 

Now Listening To

Tchaikovsky. Symphony 5. Mravinsky. DGG Tulip pressing. (He's Russian too.)

 

There's nothing like Mravinsky's Tchaikovsky!

 

...... on original vinyl!!

 

I will have to check the timing but yes..it is a slower tempo than most recordings. LB experimented at times with slower tempos later in his recording career. In some cases, the results were stunning. I like the Tchaikovsky 6th by LB but the 5th and 4th not as much. The Sibelius 1st during this period is incredible...one of the best ever recorded IMO.

 

I have never read the score of this Symphonies. I have always wondered how close his interpretations are to the original dynamics markings. They always seemed a little extreme to me but that is what his Tchaikovsky is all about. The Fourth is my favorite by YM.

 

You are %100 correct. Use brackets when adding to a quote. I learned that working with my attorney wife!

 

Yeah, Mravinsky's 6th is getting expensive on ebay nowadays. There is one there right now for $50.99 with 2 bids and 7 days left.
I am glad that I managed to buy Mravinsky's DG LPs for cheap back when pretty much every classic lover was replacing his collection with cds.

 

Mravinsky goes for maximum impact and, like you said, I don't know either how close to the score his interpretation is, but I really like what he has done with the last three symphonies.

 

There are obviously two warring camps among classical music audiences: those who want it brisk and light and those who want to wallow in every phrase. I'd say the brisk and light folks are winning at the moment, not that there isn't a sizable minority in the Celibidache camp. Personally I'm more genre specific. Baroque and non Romantic 20th century I prefer faster. 19th century and also Early Music (pre Monteverdi) I prefer slower (as long as it's rhythmically pointed and shaped.) As for Bernstein's late recordings, I have more problems generally with the sonics than with the tempos although sometimes he just pulled it around too much.

 

Now playing:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata for Two Pianos K448
Franz Schubert – Fantasia for Piano Duet D940 (CBS Records Masterworks – Sony Classics)
— Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu

 

I really don't fit into either camp for any genre. With me the piece is the key and how extreme the interpretations are. I never could "get" many of Celi's extreme recordings (Bruckner 4th) but there are a few that I like. Same with LB. The PIT 6th sounds pretty good but his Elgar Enigma Variations from his experimental period I can't stand.