Haha. I would love to meet the conductor that follows the score. Conductors and composers are two scorpions in a bottle. The conductors don't like to deal with them because they find it hard to argue with the person who actually wrote the music. That said, composers are not generally good conductors because they lack everyday experience dealing with orchestras. Mahler was the exception because he was a conductor before he became a noted composer.
The counter-argument to HIP is that composers have usually been keen on improvements to instruments & playing techniques and have been happy to have larger forces perform their music. There's no way to know what Beethoven would have wanted or accepted. I'm glad we have both HIP & non-HIP.
A lot of conductors don't know or don't care that Beethoven's 7th Symphony doesn't have a "slow movement".
I got to witness seeing the Borodin String Quartet in person today at Beall Hall on the University Of Oregon campus. It was wonderful. My best friend was to my left and a cute younger woman was to my right during the performance. I said to myself that I could live with this. The only thing which would have made today even more perfect was if I had a girlfriend sitting next to me so that I wouldn't have had to think about the lady on my right. I sat in the second row of the balcony. The sound was pretty much spot-on. I had my hearing aids in the music mode. That's when life got good for a little while.
Good point about Scriabin. Trying to get thru his Sonata Number 5 score is truly not for the feint hearted and a perfect example of your point.
Let's say an adventurous & enterprising conductor decides to really put his stamp on a composition. He starts by tinkering, but by the time he has finished he has altered all the parameters of the work, even the melodic content. It deserves a new title. And why not a new name as the composer's: the conductor's own.
Mr. Biggs goes to Leipzig. Producers: Reimar Bluth & Helmuth Kolbe*. Engineers: Eberhard Richter, Ed Michalsky & Ray Moore. Issued 1976. * In Junior High there was a teacher named Mr. Kolbe. He was very, very fat.
You talking about Stoky? or Lennie? Music is an art that almost always requires a stand in jongleur to perform the work, whether to sing or play. As the expression goes - the master is judged through the clerk.
This morning: I am listening to “Cherevichki”, an opera by Tchaikovsky. This one was performed and recorded in 1948 with soloists, choir and orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. Conducted by Malik-Pashayev. This CD release by Melodiya was part of its 50th Anniversary series and is noted as a “Historic Documentary Recording”.
To me, HIP just sounds faster and choppier. Some is at ridiculously break-neck speed. It seems more like classical music with a rock and roll overlay. Is that really how Vivaldi was intended to be played? Like a heavy metal guitar solo? How did musicians/arrangers all of a sudden decide classical music was supposed to be sound that way? I know, I should read up on it, and I probably will at some point. (I'm really just a listener and not an Historically Informed Person in this regard.) But it always struck me as a marketing ploy to get pop-oriented Baby Boomers to put down their Who albums and buy some classical records. I like much of it, but I accept it only as another way of playing the same music.
First listen to CD 20 from "Debussy - The Complete Works" on Warner. 22 Songs: 1. Séguidille, L. 44 - By Liliana Faraon 2. Coquetterie posthume, L. 50 - By Natalie Dessay 3. Chanson espagnole, L. 49 - By Liliana Faraon 4. Romance (Silence ineffable de l'heure), L. 53 - By Liliana Faraon 5. Musique, L. 54 - By Liliana Faraon 6. Paysage sentimental, L. 55a - By Gilles Ragon 7. Romance (Voici que le printemps), L. 56a - By Mady Mesplé 8. La Romance d'Ariel, L. 58 - By Natalie Dessay 9. Regret, L. 59 - By Natalie Dessay 10. 4 Chansons de jeunesse: IV. Apparition, L. 57 - By Mady Mesplé 11-17. Ariettes, L. 63a - By Magali Léger 18-22. 5 Poèmes de Baudelaire, L. 70 - By Barbara Hendricks
Oh, a fan I am. And a big one at that. They are just lousy at dealing with their historical recordings, of which they have many.
I need to relisten, but this isn't at all my impression, especially for the stereo remakes for Columbia, where he got top-flight players. However, it is well-known that Stravinsky did not feel secure as a conductor, and the orchestra was rehearsed by Robert Craft, who would also coach Stravinsky in conducting. There are some unique touches, though (I know this is a bit controversial, but it's been fairly well documented). Others like Copland were generally willing to conduct their works, but preferred others do it - Copland famously said he preferred Bernstein to himself for conducting his works. Composers playing/conducting their own works before 1940 tend to go at rocket speed, but it's hard to know how much was intent and how much was the limitations of the recording medium. Listen to Holst's recording of The Planets, for instance (both the acoustic and early electric ones). Rachmaninoff's recordings of his piano concertos and Third Symphony are both marked by rubato and tempo choices that no-one else would dare - really wide variances from the score, and very much out of fashion.
That is why all my Schnabel Beethoven Piano Sonatas and Concertos are on Naxos Historical, the less expensive route to better remastering ...
CD 4. Sinfonietta, Taras Bulba (Vienna Philharmonic/Sir Charles Mackerras), Lachian Dances (London Philharmonic Orchestra/François Huybrechts).
