Recordings Recently Acquired and Absorbed

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Recordings Recently Acquired and Absorbed

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1Existanai
Apr 15, 2011, 12:21 am

Or, Recidivist Reactionaries Adoring An Andante
Or, Retro Rhythms Attracting Anachronistic Antiquarians
Or, Raving Ravel Aficionados Antagonizing Alkanites
Or, Romantics Rant Against Atonal Aberration
Or, Ramblings Resumed After Audible Acrobatics...

2Existanai
Modificato: Apr 15, 2011, 12:34 am

Giulini Rehearses for a Bruckner 9th Performance in Stuttgart.

http://youtu.be/MF41e9TGgAQ

For those new to Bruckner, Bruckner's 9th conducted by Giulini on DG is an essential recording.

3Existanai
Modificato: Apr 15, 2011, 9:05 am

Marietherese's mention of the Anderszewski recordings of Szymanowski prompted me to listen to Hamelin's recording of the composer's Mazurkas. Samples are available at the Hyperion website. I can't think of much to say at this point; it's wonderful, the musical zeitgeist is evident, the playing is obviously accomplished, but all of this covers the same ground as blurbs; those other, much more famous Mazurkas never held as much appeal for me as the rest of Chopin's music, but Szymanowski grabs your attention and doesn't let go easily. A tough listen at a stretch, however. As with so many other piano series when heard straight through, the material begins to overlap and it's probably best to take breaks if you want to savour each piece individually.

Giulini's Bruckner was noted above. I finally got a hold of the famous 2nd Symphony recording on Testament and heard it today. I feel that in his early symphonies, Bruckner's faults as a composer are as much in evidence as his qualities (the received opinion is that Bruckner doesn't come into his own till the 4th Symphony or later, but this is not my point - the Brucknerian 'sound world', like the Mahlerian, is quite singular and remains identifiable from the first symphonies to the last) - so many passages appear to be formless, since the arc of the development can be so long and so much separates the commencement of a musical theme from its reprisal much later; and yet, when it works, it's irresistible, and the sweep and fervour of Bruckner makes such cavils seem superfluous, if not silly (I have to admit I'm predisposed to like the recording, since Bruckner is one of my favourite composers and Giulini one of my favourite conductors.)

4Existanai
Apr 19, 2011, 1:42 am

I don't want to be the only one posting in this thread! I didn't make it for myself...

5Existanai
Modificato: Apr 19, 2011, 3:27 am

Anyway, Maki said the Angel/Melodiya LP of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death has Vereshchagin's Apotheosis of War on the cover; I haven't heard that one, but I only recently received the Hyperion album Mussorgsky: Song Cycles, and it has the same cover. I just listened to it over the last couple of nights. It's too early to say much about the recording, and I couldn't possibly say anything interesting about the cycle itself since it has been the focus of detailed criticism for decades, but the texts by Golenishchev-Kutuzov (grandson of the famous general, apparently) are fantastic, filled with concise, striking observation and imagery, and I wish the latter's poetry were more easily available. The booklet has quite a few typos, unfortunately.

I was a little bothered by this statement in the booklet, repeated in the album blurb. Michael Jameson writes "His senses dulled by drink and the incessant tedium of his office job, Mussorgsky here composes with a grinding pessimism quite uncharacteristic of the rest of his work." Blurbs in general have an uncanny tendency to annoy me, but I don't know what to make of this comment. It summarizes a few points of received opinion in one sentence. The first one is that the piece reveals Mussorgsky's musical skills in decline (which I couldn't possibly comment on, understanding little about the technicalities, but elsewhere these "declining" skills have also been described as restrained); the second is that we are here presented with Mussorgsky's own bleak laments, rather than one of his characters', which is why it is so affecting; and the third that Sunless in particular is more unrelenting than his other work. But I'm not convinced a composer whose "senses were dulled by drink" would apply such a modern idiom to little explored territory, with what is perhaps a very characteristic emphasis on psychological turbulence, and a treatment of dark material that is alternately bittersweet and terrifying. The invocation of the ominous interspersed with the playful appears to be consistent across Pictures at an Exhibition, Boris Godunov, and these song cycles, and it is precisely what appeals to me in Mussorgksy. With Mussorgsky's Boris, for instance, opera finally appears to mature (not in a musical sense, of course, but in terms of thematic treatment.) There is less room for extraneous jollity and frolicsome chirruping (being very ignorant about operatic demands on vocal nuance, I feel free to spurn large chunks of mandatory staccato dueting/duelling at the end of an act as tiresome) and we approach current sensibilities. I realize I might be making some bristle. My point is fairly clear, however: I feel Mussorgsky is taking up what Mahler will return to decades later, with works like Das Lied Von Der Erde or Kindertotenlieder, and to trivialize this as "grinding pessimism" is to concede to more banal trends in music, then or now.

I also listened - not very carefully - to the Hagen Quartet's renditions of two Beethoven string quartets, Opp. 127 & 132. I mention it not to plug or diss this recording but because I like Hagen's ability in general to accentuate what is contemporary about well-known classic repertoire; their Beethoven sounds almost as if it came after Bartók. One of my favourite chamber music CDs is their coupling of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 95 with Schubert's String Quartet D. 887; it is out of print but worth getting if encountered used.

6Nicole_VanK
Apr 19, 2011, 3:58 am

Not recently acquired any recordings, but I'm lurking the thread.

7Makifat
Apr 19, 2011, 11:05 am

Lurking and learning. Keep going!

8LolaWalser
Apr 19, 2011, 4:53 pm

#5

I think it's important to keep in mind that there is no such thing as "a modern idiom" that older music is "tending" to (so to speak). The more one listens, the more incredible "anachronistic" discoveries there will be: boogie-woogie passages in Beethoven, atonal dissonance in Monteverdi, African syncopations and polyrhythms in Baroque etc. It's a bit like saying cave paintings are prefiguring Picasso. What you'd need to establish an organic link between the two composers is to show that, for instance, Mahler was inspired by Mussorgsky, specifics as might be. In music there is no future.

As for recordings in general--I have pretty much completed my collecting. So it's nice to live vicariously the encounters with the new through your posts!

9Existanai
Apr 19, 2011, 8:45 pm

#6-8 The thread title is only incidental - this was supposed to be a "Classical Music" thread for all, as suggested by Marietherese, and Myopic apparently didn't notice it when he created his. It's not my own listening thread, analogous to the other reading threads.

#8 The more one listens, the more incredible "anachronistic" discoveries there will be

Yes, this is precisely what I was thinking last night, and suggesting about the Hagen performances of Beethoven! In fact, in almost every aspect of Beethoven's über-recorded body of work there is something that suggests later composers. And of course, over time, other threads for every other Major Personality become clearer, just as in literature, art history etc.

#8 there is no such thing as "a modern idiom" that older music is "tending" to (so to speak). The more one listens, the more incredible "anachronistic" discoveries there will be

Yes, of course, a point made by Eliot and Borges: what arrives later becomes a prism through which tradition is better or differently interpreted. However, it's not all a level plane, and I was referring to those aspects of the music that are quite clearly "of their time" because they predominate in a certain epoch. I don't want to trip over myself trying to clarify this, but - in every art, even though the grouping of 'schools' and other critical categories can be rather arbitrary, and part of a continuum, and even though a chronological grouping can be deceptive - Kleist and Kafka have more in common than Georges Perec and Danielle Steele - it is still possible to distinguish between, for example, the dialects of one era in literature from the next; and even if is wrong to map these on a sort of evolutionary timescale and talk about clear paths leading from one point to the next, it's also obvious that the language of the Victorians is not the language of today, and in that sense, one can certainly point to figures whose work has relatively anomalous characteristics. My post was of course very vague. But that's precisely because I was trying to avoid committing myself too much to these generalized, somewhat superficial observations. I am not suggesting that Mahler was 'influenced by' Mussorgsky, or that modern music has one particular sound. In fact, I am referring more to our current sensibilities than to the music itself - it's our sensibilities that have changed, and much as the Romantics are adored, we would be rather impatient with epigones of Chopin today. In that sense alone perhaps, Mussorgsky appeals more to the modern ear than some of his contemporaries; but I should also repeat that "modern" is not a judgement or a category, and is used with a small m, and it does not automatically suggest a rejection of anything else that does not fit this nebulous criterion.

10LolaWalser
Apr 19, 2011, 8:59 pm

Mussorgsky appeals more to the modern ear than some of his contemporaries

But this is a highly personal assessment. Plenty of people find early music to be the most appealing, or many composers and styles much older than Mussorgsky (or older than any still living composers, as is well known and frequently deplored). What we enjoy today (simply by virtue of finding ourselves at this point in time relative to the centuries behind us) is an unprecedentedly rich overview of musical traditions (presumably those 200 years after us etc. will have one even richer). And, while no one today IS Chopin, learning to compose LIKE Chopin, or Bach, or Mozart is a standard part of a professional composer's education. Moreover, such musics are still created not only for educational or artistic, but for commercial purposes too--meaning for a wide audience. What has happened is that they bear a self-conscious period stamp, but, like lace-up Victorian boots produced today they are no less "real" (music or boots).

11Existanai
Apr 19, 2011, 9:33 pm

Yes, their reality is granted, and you pounced on a point of hesitation in my post (whether to use the article "the" before modern or the possessive adjective "my"). As I mentioned, there is no implied rejection of other tastes or sensibilities, because anything else would be absurd; and my choice of words may be unfortunate, but my rather superficial observation stands. Just as Saki, writing about Edwardians, sounds like he is satirizing the world of today, whereas Kipling, for some time a contemporary, seems firmly grounded in a Victorian sensibility, and though both might be used as models for fiction now, it's hardly wrong to point out how much closer Saki feels to us than Kipling does; and for that matter, even though individuals may find Kipling more worthwhile than Saki, or some critic might argue that certain aspects of his work are more relevant today than anything in Saki, or some linguist might detect a higher percentage of Victorianism than Edwardianism in current prose, it would be a little bit of a stretch to state Kipling's language does, in fact, sound more contemporary than Saki's prose does; and I don't see why similar observations about music (albeit much more difficult to dissect and discuss) should be so contentious.

12LolaWalser
Apr 19, 2011, 9:43 pm

Well, I've quoted the remarks of yours I was responding to; past that I don't know what's contentious.

13Existanai
Apr 19, 2011, 10:51 pm

Timelines and influences are thorny issues, as with many other entrenched sediments of classical criticism (form vs. content) that are still used loosely and taken for granted today in any aesthetic critique. Franco Moretti complained that literary criticism is the most regressive of fields since it's still stuck applying ancient criteria to centuries of work that have outgrown initially narrow models. With films too, the breakdown into separate categories for the sake of awards is used as a model to evaluate what is an organic unity, and every amateur, borrowing from the typical newspaper reviewer, assumes it makes sense to speak of specific qualities in a film separate from others when it is in fact sometimes nonsensical. When the model no longer applies, the first reaction of many such amateurs is to state a movie "makes no sense." The film might in fact make a lot of sense, but it is as if, in their minds, only established categories exist, and the work exists only to fill these in, so by default anything that fails to acknowledge or adhere to such categorization is not only incapable of being critiqued, but is not even really a work.

When I say that "Mussorgsky appeals more to the modern ear" I am not trying to apply blunt force to complex entities merely to make them conform to established critical models. I am not saying there is a singular taste that is fixed to a particular date, that there are default standards by which to classify eras in music or compositional trends, etc.; it is simply a figure of speech - only another way of repeating the common observation that, for whatever reason, certain trends have, at this point of time (that's call 'modern' or 'contemporary' simply by virtue of being part of the unpinnable present, not because it is somehow "superior") become prevalent; and the listener can detect a lineage in Mussorgsky that might not have been as evident to his contemporaries. It is absurd to state there are only Universals, i.e. Classical, Romantic, Modern, Postmodern, and that only the links and manifestations contained within these universals matter; but it would be equally absurd to deny they have some relevance, and that only some Particulars exist instead, shorn of all surrounding context and conventions. How else does the word "innovate" make any sense? One innovates only in the context of their era, and with reference to an as yet-unknown development. Otherwise all historiography in art is reduced to mentioning a random smattering of people doing interesting things in their rooms by themselves. I pay attention to dissonances more often in Beethoven or Mussorgsky because they connote something that is more prevalent now than it was then; a listener of the time who also heard these dissonances would not necessarily see what they were leading to, because, as you mentioned, they could not survey later developments. By this I do not mean we only like what was composed yesterday, nor that we only or necessarily like in older music what resembles later developments.

14Existanai
Apr 19, 2011, 11:03 pm

Essentially, I agree with everything you say, but your objection appears to be that, when I admire what looks forward to another era in a composer, I am also implicitly rejecting wholesale the conventions of his/her era, or denigrating all other aspects of the composer's work, or assuming this is the only or the most valid approach to criticism; but this is not the case, at least not over here.

15LolaWalser
Apr 19, 2011, 11:39 pm

It looks like you`re packing both your original statement and my objection to it with more stuff than either may hold. No doubt some modern ears find Mussorgsky more appealing than X, Y or Z. But there is also no doubt that most modern ears are better attuned to the harmonies and forms of yestercenturies (Mussorgsky`s or older). Some think that`s why "contemporary classical" is so estranged from the masses.

I pay attention to dissonances more often in Beethoven or Mussorgsky because they connote something that is more prevalent now than it was then;

Well, actually, minor point, but this isn`t at all true. There are dissonances in all music, from Gregorian chant onward and often they are consciously exploited. It`s their placement and treatment that differs. But there are no fewer dissonances in Mozart than in John Adams.

#14

I don`t know where you get this, but it`s not in anything I`ve said. Srsly. Anyway, I`m kinda losing track of whats being discussed. Fresh post! Fresh post!

16AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Apr 20, 2011, 12:27 am

Fresh post! Fresh post!

(I live to serve)

Saturday I picked up the Lindsay Quartet's Complete Beethoven SQ cycle.

A friend of mine is big on the Lindsays; I haven't started in on it yet, because I'm still working through the EMI "Beethoven" box. (There are only so many hours in the day....)

Edited to add:
Me & the Beethoven String Quartets: back when the world was young and CDs were new, I shelled out some serious money for the Melos Quartet's cycle on DG; I just listened to the Hungarian Quartet's EMI cycle; I've picked up a few scattered quartets (and a budget 'complete cycle' on LP) along the way; and I've recorded (well, helped record...) Takacs doing Opus 130/the Big Fugue, and the Emersons playing a couple of the quartets (I forget which, offhand).

17LolaWalser
Apr 20, 2011, 12:34 am

and I've recorded (well, helped record...) Takacs doing Opus 130/the Big Fugue, and the Emersons playing a couple of the quartets (I forget which, offhand).

Wow, Bob! WOW! You were there, the entire time? And to think five minutes ago I was just envying you people`s new CDs... :) I did hear the Emerson Q. 3-4 times, but never so intimately!

The Lindsays were a fine, fine ensemble. Should you hate that set, remember me, your envious friend.

What`s in the EMI B. box? A link will suffice if it`s too much to type.

18tomcatMurr
Apr 20, 2011, 12:46 am

interesting discussion between Lola and Existanai. Seems to me you both trying to thrash your way out of a false dichotomy, in that music exists both diachronically and synchronically at the same time. I like E's notion in 9 of the tradition as a prism, in which later composers help you to hear new things in earlier ones, and vice versa of course.

On Lola's recommendation, I acquired and have been listening to Jarrousky's Opium. I love the whole project - the material is fabulous- but have reservations with regard to Jarrousk'ys suitability for this material. He is not really capable of sustaining a long line. He does this modern vibrato-less singing at the beginning of a long note, and then adding a touch of vibrato as the note nears its end, a technique first pioneered with great subtlety by Fischer Dieskau, as far as I can tell, but over used among younger singers today. Also, in spite of his liner notes emphasising the text, his diction is not always clear.

Jarrousky's gifts seem to be better displayed in his Vivaldi and Handel recordings where his agility and control really are superlative. I would also like to hear him in some Rossini.

19tomcatMurr
Apr 20, 2011, 12:48 am

P.S.
also, no one can beat Janet Baker doing Chausson, no matter how hard they try.

20AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Apr 20, 2011, 1:57 am


What`s in the EMI B. box? A link will suffice if it`s too much to type.


I mentioned it in the other thread: it's EMI - and seemingly, mostly EMI/France - hoping to make another buck out of their back catalog, and packing up a bunch of their oldies:

http://www.emiclassics.co.uk/release.php?id=94638773924

Cluytens/Berliners symphony cycle, Eric Heidsieck piano sonatas, Ferras violin sonatas, Tortelier cello stuff, Hungarian S Quartet, etc. etc. All good-to-interesting, nothing life-changing has jumped out at me. Not even Amazon can be bothered to list the entire contents, sorry:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000J0ZPH4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539...

Berkshire Record Outlet had it for $49.50 + shipping. I couldn't NOT buy it.

(Later) Ah! HERE's a complete listing

Wow, Bob! WOW! You were there, the entire time?

The Emerson Q play here once or twice a year, as do David Finckel (the Emerson's cellist) and his pianist wife Wu Han.
One of my old college radio pals has a gig to record the series they appear in, I help him out sometimes. It's a very nice series, and a really nice-sounding hall.

(The highlight of that gig so far was shaking hands with a very young Lang Lang.)

We also do the odd gig over at the world-class Troy Music Hall.

21Existanai
Modificato: Apr 20, 2011, 4:17 am

#15 It looks like you`re packing both your original statement and my objection to it with more stuff than either may hold.

Well, as I mentioned, my original statement was only meant as a casual generalization.

#15 No doubt some modern ears find Mussorgsky more appealing than X, Y or Z. But there is also no doubt that most modern ears are better attuned to the harmonies and forms of yestercenturies...

I'm not disagreeing with this at all, and I'm struggling to see why you think my point contradicts yours. Again, I'm stating something rather simple and, in my opinion, too banal to be controversial. If we look to painting for an analogy - the general public often reacts strongly against modern art, but there is nothing wrong with stating that Cézanne (1839-1906) is closer to modern sensibilities than Waterhouse (1849-1917), even if Waterhouse sells far more prints and adorns many more bedrooms or blogs. Perhaps this hinges on semantics. If "modern sensibility" does not coincide with the taste of the general populace today, then what does it refer to? And perhaps you are correct to point out it's a narrow, possibly elitist (i.e. for critics and academics and certain artists only), and chronologically biased usage of the term, lacking any meaning. But I don't think that, as a generalization, it deserves so much attention.

#15 There are dissonances in all music, from Gregorian chant onward and often they are consciously exploited. It`s their placement and treatment that differs.

Fine, allow me to rephrase: the way in which Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt and Mussorgsky etc. use dissonances in some passages has been more common in the past century than it was previously; I'm not referring to the mere existence of dissonance in all music.

#17 The Lindsays were a fine, fine ensemble. Should you hate that set, remember me, your envious friend.

This set is selling on Amazon Canada for $7.99. Out of stock as of now, but it should come back in.

For those interested in similar bargains, Levine's Wagner Ring cycle (14 CDs; not the same as the one on DVD) is also on sale for $17.99; Yves Nat's EMI recordings (15 CDs) are on sale for $16.09; Gardiner's Bach recordings are available on 22 CDs for $31.49, Chailly's Mahler symphony cycle is on sale for $21.49; and the Grainger Edition on Chandos (22 CDs) is going for $44.99 (all these are more in the US - a rare occurrence).

22SilentInAWay
Apr 20, 2011, 5:13 am

Pardon the didactic nature of these reflections on dissonance in music.

Dissonance is, to some degree, a mental construct. One might even argue that dissonance exists only in the mind of the listener. (Of course, from a cognitive perspective, all music is ultimately constructed within the mind, but that's not the distinction that I'm after here.). What is or isn't dissonant to a given individual is influenced by their cultural background, musical education, preferred genres, and the listening paradigms of their age.

When I was younger, there were a good number of works (or passages in works) that I considered very dissonant, very modern. In fact, there was undoubtedly a point in my musical development where I equated the two. Today, I listen to those works differently -- whether or not a musical tension is perceived as dissonance depends upon much more than the notes that are sounding simultaneously.

For example, when I first listened to the Berg Violin Concerto in my early teens, I had very little exposure to the Second Viennese School (I believe I had heard Pierrot Lunaire, perhaps Wozzeck, but not much else). When I listen to serial music today, I do so with an ear that is no longer solely accustomed to tonality. You could say that I adopt a different "listening paradigm" -- one in which the tensions within 12-tone music are no more dissonant than suspensions within tonal compositions (far less so, in fact, since there is no expectation, no concept of tonal resolution). When I listen to the Berg Violin Concerto now, my attention is drawn to its late romantic lyricism more than its modern tonal apparatus. What has changed? Well, I'm certainly older, more experienced, with wider musical horizons -- but that's only part of it. More importantly, having developed a sense of what these composers were attempting, I no longer approach these works as a musical outsider. I approach them on their own terms.

One must be careful when comparing music from different eras. The way that people experience music has changed over time. It is very well to say that "there are dissonances in all music" -- but not only would many of today's harmonic practices seem incredibly dissonant to (European) listeners in the common practice period, but works from earlier periods may well sound more dissonant to us today than they would have to contemporary listeners. In the age of polyphony, for instance, churchgoers listened to the separate voices, following how they intertwined, created and released tensions, etc. There was no sense of "harmony" as we know it from the common practice period. If we were to freeze a medieval or renaissance motet at various points and listen to the notes as progressive chords, we would undoubtedly encounter many dissonant harmonic configurations. When one listens polyphonically, however, the mind identifies that some of the tones in each voice are leading tones, so many of these harmonic "dissonances" (viewed anachronistally) are perceived as passing tensions and not true dissonances. This is not to say that there were no dissonances in polyphonic music. There certainly were (despite the church's attempts to rid music of certain unpleasant tensions). We must also remember that what was dissonant or uncomfortable to the medieval ear is not necessarily dissonant to us today. During the age of high polyphony, for instance, it was though to be "unpleasant" if a voice, after jumping an interval larger than a third, continued in the same direction, or if two voices moved in parallel for more than a couple of notes. (Parallel movement is, of course, a staple of certain musical styles before and after the common practice period, such as early organum and, six or seven centuries later, impressionism.)

I realize that it is tempting to think of the history of western music as a gradual progression from less to more dissonance. I reject this characterization for several reasons. First of all, it assumes that we can apply a consistent measure of what constitutes consonance and dissonance to music from all periods, cultures and practices (it should be clear from what I've written above what I think about this). If, however, we were to posit an unchanging ear for dissonance across the last 1500 years, counterexamples are nevertheless easily found. It would be very difficult to argue, for example, that music of the early classical period is more dissonant than music of the late baroque, or that music of the early baroque is more dissonant than music of the late renaissance. Moreover, smack in the middle of the baroque period, the move from mean-tone to equal temperament removed the natural dissonances that gave some keys their unique character. Fast-forwarding to the 20th century, we might ask whether minimalism is more or less dissonant than serialism. To our imaginary "unchanging ear," I suspect that minimalism would tend to be less dissonant than 12-tone atonalism. To make that claim would be absurd, however, because one does not listen to a minimalist composition in the same way they would listen to a serial composition (or, for that matter, an aleatoric composition).

I started by claiming that dissonance may be a mental construct. Taken to an extreme, this would mean that everybody experiences music differently. This is clearly not the case. I suspect that this is due to what I have referred to (awkwardly, I admit) as "listening paradigms." These paradigms could be thought of (using another infelicitous term) as a "contract" between composer, performer and listener--a contract that establishes the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, formal and expressive conventions of a particular musical practice. When a composer violates these conventions, it is expected that the listener will notice*. In fact, for most composers, the specific ways in which they comply with or violate this implied contract is part of what constitutes their unique style. When a new paradigm emerges, however, many listeners find themselves at a loss, unable to come to terms with "the new music."

The same holds true when we today listen to music composed during earlier periods. Casual listeners have no idea what they are listening to -- they have no knowledge of the dialectical progression of styles, the historical succession of paradigms, that ultimately informed a given composition. In short, they don't know how to approach the work on its own terms. If they listen to enough music from certain periods, however, they will develop their own listening paradigms--approximating, perhaps, that of the composer and his contemporaries. With a little knowledge of music history, these approximations should improve. We may never be able to fully listen to a piece of music the way its composer intended, with the minds and ears of his contemporaries; I believe, however, that those of us with a passion for music are obligated to do our best. The more we learn about music from the past--not only how to listen in accordance with its intended paradigm, but also an awareness of how music was received when paradigms shifted--the more likely we are to approach compositions on their own terms.

*As I write this, I cannot but think of the moment in the PDQ Bach sportscast of Beethoven's 5th, where the announcer explodes in orgasmic disbelief upon hearing what he at first believes to be a second recapitulation added to the standard Sonata Allegro form.

23SilentInAWay
Apr 20, 2011, 5:23 am

Incidentally, one thing that I have learned here on LT is that the best way to terminate an escalating disagreement within a talk thread is for a third party to write a lengthy and ponderous analysis of the issue.

24tomcatMurr
Apr 20, 2011, 6:04 am

22> brilliant post, though. thank you.

25Existanai
Apr 20, 2011, 8:55 am

I guess this dashes my hopes of qualifying for the next biennial International Musicology Competition. Oh well. There's always brandy.

26tomcatMurr
Apr 20, 2011, 9:00 am

no no no don't give up. It's the most interesting discussion on music I have read on LT! No winners, no losers, just good talk.

(But I'll join you for a brandy)

27LolaWalser
Apr 20, 2011, 11:40 am

E, relax, as Murr says, it's just talking. I've no clue what are you getting so defensive about. You know I'm literal--I read things first as they are written. I'm agreeing with a lot of what you said, which is why I responded only to two things I couldn't agree to, in a manner I thought was simple and unequivocal. Most attention to this is coming from your side. (And words. ;))

Thanks for the rec links. I just might spend some imaginary money today...

#18

Small correction, lest recording angels hook on it, I didn't recommend Opium, it was my reason for not caring for J. Also, Dame Janet's all yours! For Chausson et al. I'll take Souzay!

#20

Thanks, Bob, just wanted to compare with other Bee-boxes out there. For those prices, everything's a must.

#22

I realize that it is tempting to think of the history of western music as a gradual progression from less to more dissonance. I reject this characterization for several reasons.

Yes! It is tempting because people think they can hear it easily, making it an easy "mark" separating early from "modern idiom". Whereas what they hear--usually--is only one kind of dissonance, the direct tonal clash, or chordal dissonance. Even as they might be tolerating the same dissonance in, say, jazz!

Casual listeners... they don't know how to approach the work on its own terms.

And this is exactly what bothers me about, say, hearing Mahler in Mussorgsky and similar prefigurations. (Don't worry, E, explanations above duly noted.)

Okay, P.D.Q. just made my heart sing!

28Existanai
Modificato: Apr 21, 2011, 1:09 am

Thanks Murr, Lola for the encouragement, and Silent for the lucid, informed overview.

This discussion throws up very interesting intertwined thoughts on influence and the historiography of art, particularly with regards to the 20th century, but maybe I'll return to that a little later. Also, I don't mean to thrash a dead horse now, but - though the above comments are stated in general terms, I would like to stress I personally don't see music as moving from less dissonance to more (dissonance is only one musical aspect among others, and it served as an example) nor do I hear Mahler in Mussorgsky (I hear him in Wagner, but that can be another discussion.) There are commonalities between the two, but I am not thinking in terms of influence and progression. Mussorgsky induced puzzlement and unease among contemporaries. Many disparaged him, some admirers felt it was necessary to qualify their praise. Some critic/s noted (to paraphrase) that he was writing music for a future generation, but was limited by his time and his technique. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see why he was misunderstood or underappreciated (ex. the re-orchestration of his work to make it 'presentable'.)

There are two reasons I return to this; first, the importance of the historical narrative and its concurrent complexity and associated anxiety. As Silent noted so eloquently (and not infelicitously as he modestly claims) there are many factors at work: "listening paradigms", differences in intention, in perception, in practice etc. There are no unchanging, unifying frameworks that would help us to draw clear boundaries between these shifts. Perhaps we can never approach compositions on their terms. We can only refine our own approach. But in acknowledging these changes in paradigms, in practice, we're also acknowledging that linear changes do occur. No matter how microcosmic or contextually limited, and how unreliable a grand totalizing narrative might be, narratives themselves do exist, unfold, inform; the dismissal of an oversimplified, linear art history does not preclude the existence of borrowings, imitation, parody etc.

Further, and this is my second reason for returning to this - natural curiosity and various scholarly demands aside, I believe we can also disregard some specific intentions and contexts, as in art. Bruckner's Catholicism, I've mentioned before to Lola, is a case in point. It can't be completely ignored, but a secular newcomer to Bruckner doesn't love him out of faith. (A part of the paradigm shift.) And a love for Bruckner that's not based on, say, "spiritual communion" affirms Lola's contention that there is no singular modern sensibility, since one can love Bruckner and Vivaldi and Messiaen all at once (though they may be more closely related than we might first think, or related in unexpected ways, as Silent elucidates.) It also indicates that since we don't initially approach works on their own terms, there is something about the nature of music and its interpretation that is always "left over", that continues to draw our attention many centuries and vanished traditions later. Of course it's dangerous to dilute this to popular adages such as "music/art is whatever you feel at any given moment". Rather, just as in art history, volumes and volumes of social history, criticism, archeology etc. exist to help us make sense of any given work or object. Scholarship determines aesthetics. However, the aesthetic impulse is usually propelled by this 'remainder' that is not quite expressible through accumulated facts, no matter how much new knowledge transforms our first impressions. The naive attempt to express what someone's music "is" or "stands for" is not rooted in a desire to fix it in a geographically and historically accurate place, defined by a rigid relation to other pre-determined positions occupied by other entities; it's only an inadequate attempt to articulate this 'remainder'.

29tomcatMurr
Apr 21, 2011, 12:59 am

yes, absolutely. The bit left over, the remainder.

30SilentInAWay
Apr 21, 2011, 1:42 am

E, you are the Derrida to my Foucault.

31LolaWalser
Apr 21, 2011, 9:13 am

Cool beans!

32AsYouKnow_Bob
Apr 21, 2011, 11:03 pm

I would love to steal #30, but I'm racking my brain for someone to say it to...

33Existanai
Modificato: Apr 22, 2011, 10:06 am

Silent, that's hilarious... but (here comes Killjoy!) though Foucault taught Derrida, the latter criticized one of Foucault's first books (Histoire de la folie) and they weren't very friendly after that, which I hope will not be the case with us; and secondly, assuming that you don't hate Derrida or me, you're giving my very shallow, ignorant ramblings too much credit! I have begun to feel my adolescent curiosity about the arts has devolved into an accessory for my consumerism, rather than the other way around... A sad state of affairs. That said, I wish the more knowledgeable would pipe in from time to time. I would love to hear more from you, Marie, Lola and others about your many "favourite" (what's a more dignified, less squealy-teenie word - "preferred"?) recordings.

Edit: damn touchstone.

34LolaWalser
Apr 22, 2011, 10:29 am

#32

I'm going to use it on our concierge, a learned gentleman from Crete with whom I discuss international politics and modern life.

#33

E, you're being too modest and unfair on yourself--although I agree that you're a shopping fiend, and must be stopped, for your own good. ;)

I've a problem talking about things I love the mostest, music or books or whathaveyou... Too much emotional investment, and what--horrors! horrors!--if brazen strangers fail to see their value, what if they mockingly deride, or yawn indifferently--no, it bears not thinking about. Panning is so much easier...

So, I'll get back to you with stuff I hate or am at best lukewarm about. ;)

I'm sure others can't be such vile cowards, though! Step right up!

35AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Apr 22, 2011, 10:54 pm

Huh - Me, I toggle between hating everything and loving everything.

The British DJ John Peel had an approach that I admire and hope to emulate:

(Producer Steve Albini talks about Peelie):

"One of the things that made John Peel so valuable was that he had decades of archived material and sessions of bands that had played live and were only ever heard on the John Peel show. His work ethic was absolutely incredible. He made it a point of pride to listen to every record that anyone sent him. He would listen literally to dozens of records a day. He said something once that I thought was really profound: He said that no one would bother making a record and sending it to him if he thought it was shitty. Obviously, to the people making those records, they are important. If he doesn't get it as a listener, if he didn't like it in some way, that's his fault, not the fault of the people who did something important to them. That's a pretty amazing, humble insight for someone like him to have. A lot of radio professionals kind of feel like they know the game, they know what's good. His way of looking at it was much more selfless: there was this culture of bands creating music and he was getting to audition some of it. Then he could spread it out to the rest of the world if it struck his fancy. Just because he didn't like something didn't mean it was bad. He was just deaf to it."

36Existanai
Mag 10, 2011, 12:32 am

The complete cycle of Beethoven's violin sonatas, performed by Szigeti and Arrau.

This 4-CD set is probably a litmus test of listening proclivities: if, as with one of the Amazon reviewers above, the vinyl artifacts of the (perhaps poorly-remastered) recording make you ask for a refund, we should probably not cross paths too often; if on the other hand the startling expressivity of the playing, the evocativeness of the hiss, crackle and pops, and the old-world sentimental grandeur of the repertoire move you to an alternately maudlin and ecstatic state, I want to hear all your recommendations. I am tempted to insert some hyperbolic statements about otherworldly pleasure here, but you get the idea - it's worth hearing at least once.

37LolaWalser
Mag 10, 2011, 1:35 pm

Sounds interesting. Szigeti was great. I don't think Arrau recorded (or played) often with other soloists, very much a primo uomo he, so that's a curiosity too. Are they well balanced? When I think of Arrau the first word to come to my mind is tonitruant. (In, like, generally AWSM way.)

As for recs--how many does a body need? Complete sets, I like the Menuhin/Kempff I grew up with; Grumiaux/Haskil is well worth hearing, and there's dozens of scattered individual sonata recordings I love/like--Schneiderhahn/Kempff, Oistrakh/Oborin, Kremer/Argerich... aaand more I can't remember offhand.

In general, I'd look at the violinist first here, someone with a nice personality who plays well with others--wouldn't mind picking up versions with Szeryng and Francescatti, say. For a buck. Did you know ageing makes one not only conservative, but tight-fisted? True story.

38Existanai
Mag 10, 2011, 11:15 pm

I meant all the musical recommendations possible, because I was trying to be a little grandiloquent. But thanks for the list - I have Grumiaux/Haskil and Schneiderhahn/Kempff and Schneiderhahn/Seemann as well, and selections here and there by other duos; but I never checked out the Menuhin/Kempff, which I shall be on the lookout for now.

39marietherese
Mag 11, 2011, 2:21 am

I grew up with snap, crackle and pop as I spent many of my formative years obsessively playing my grandparent's 78s, so I'm one of those people who can listen "around" or beyond surface noise without any problem. Most of the time I don't even register it, the way I don't register background noise in my home or the sound of my own breathing. As long as the underlying sound isn't distorted through problems with the initial recording or transfer speed I find old recordings just as pleasurable to listen to as the most technologically up-to-date releases.

In fact, I actually find the excessive immediacy of some modern recordings more of an issue. Despite what many producers seem to believe, I don't want to feel like I'm in the soloist's lap or peering down the singer's throat as I listen (I'm the audience not a freaking otolaryngologist!) and I really don't want to hear the cellist's heavy breathing or the tap of the pianist's shoe hitting the pedal. Extraneous noise like this doesn't make me feel like I'm in the concert hall or salon, it just makes me feel annoyed and keeps me from committing my full attention to the music. As far as I know, very few composers envisioned their music, even their chamber music, played to one person in a 3x3 closet equipped with acoustic panels, so it would be nice if record companies would quit recording every piece of music in such a way that one would think this is the ideal set-up for all classical music ever! (Of course, because where there is yin there must be yang, I also loathe the opposite strategy, long beloved of British record labels, of making everything sound like it's been recorded in a giant, echoey cavern with the mics placed a good half mile from the participants and all the recording apparatus boosted to "11" in some vain attempt to pick up anything close to normal sound levels. Some listeners find this atmospheric, for the most part I just find it unbearable and also vaguely kitschy.)

40dcozy
Mag 11, 2011, 2:42 am

One of the great thing about the university that employs me is that the library subscribes to Naxos. That means we can listen to anything in the catalogs of Naxos and its affiliated labels so, just moments after reading the mention of the Grimaux-Haskil Beethoven sonatas above, I am listening to them, and quite nice they are.

41LolaWalser
Modificato: Mag 11, 2011, 12:13 pm

Count me as another Snap, Crackle, Pop veteran.

That's great, David, Naxos is currently rereleasing fantastic back catalogues--AND they engage some of the best sound engineers around, like Ward Marston (who has his own label, http://www.marstonrecords.com/) boy, how I wish I could afford more than the couple of Ernst Levys I have) and Mark Obert-Thorn, both previously with Biddulph. There's so much to enjoy...

42dcozy
Mag 12, 2011, 12:09 am

I'm on a bit of a Haskil-jag now, so, again courtesy of employer-subsidized-Naxos, I'm now listening to this.

43LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 10:54 am

What, all of it? Sir, you are wallowing! Ooh--I MUST look for those recordings with Anda, love the two piano concertos, and he's one of my favourites. What a pairing!

44Existanai
Modificato: Mag 12, 2011, 4:04 pm

#39 Thank you for that post. :)

#41 I suppose you've read Marston's bio page - incredible.

#43 This is the 4 CD set above, I think: Clara Haskil: Portrait, and I am pretty sure the recordings are included in this 10 CD budget set. Also of interest is the 7 CD Clara Haskil: Philips Recordings, 1951-1960, which overlaps with or might be contained in the Clara Haskil Edition from Decca.

45LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 3:58 pm

I met him.

46Existanai
Modificato: Mag 12, 2011, 4:05 pm

Don't be such a tease. Tell us more. :)

47LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 4:27 pm

He's a friend of a friend, who's a curator at the Ellis Island museum. I was helping out on weekends with translation of the old recordings in various Italian dialects and got invited to join them for an informal sound wizard meeting and lunch. Before we went out Marston played on the piano a bit--jazzy improv on the song we were working on.

48LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 4:30 pm

And what do you know... Marston on YouTube

49LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 4:33 pm

Heh! All these years I felt vaguely embarrassed to have noticed (and remembered) his ears so much--but golly they ARE big.

50Existanai
Modificato: Mag 12, 2011, 10:34 pm

>I was helping out on weekends with translation of the old recordings in various Italian dialects

Something you never told us about - I should start looking for your name in my CD booklets. :)

As for Marston's label, the catalogue is a mind-boggler, but mostly beyond my current budget, alas - I would love to hear samples, but I can't find any clips.

51marietherese
Mag 12, 2011, 8:57 pm

On the subject of Marston releases, I was listening to The Complete Issued Recordings of Francis Planté today. Planté was born in 1839 and the recordings were made in 1928 when he was eighty-nine years old so, as one might imagine, his renditions are not note-perfect and there are a few stumbles that might have made even Cortot (a famously shameless stumbler) cringe, but they are quite interesting and display a lively intelligence and much verve (I particularly enjoyed the Mendelssohn pieces as here Planté seems most relaxed and his enjoyment of the music shines through-these are also the only tracks where I hear a bit of Planté's fabled "floating", velvety tone). Surprisingly good sound too given that these tracks were apparently recorded at Planté's home with questionable equipment. Not an essential recording for any but a historian but an interesting listen nonetheless.

For more on Planté, Marston has a full page bio. Pretty darn amazing career (concertizing until he was 96!). Not only a remarkable musician, he also appears to have been a very kind and generous man, donating virtually all his mature adult concert proceeds to charity.

52LolaWalser
Mag 12, 2011, 10:40 pm



Reminds me of Cuenod, singing into his nineties (and marrying his boyfriend when he was past hundred)--the man who created Satie's Socrate! Who else is still around performing like that--oh, Leonhardt. Eighty plus, going strong, still concertising.

53Existanai
Mag 12, 2011, 10:43 pm

Thanks, Marie - fascinating. His long career reminded me of Mieczysław Horszowski, whom as you probably know passed away a week after his last concert, at nearly 101.

54Existanai
Giu 3, 2011, 12:45 am

I recently received the Leinsdorf '61 Walküre on Decca with Nilsson, Vickers, London, etc. and even before opening it, was beset by a burning question that I'm selfishly hoping will interest and amuse opera mavens here - if I wanted to put together a cycle using famous recordings of similar pedigree (50s-70s, major singers, and possibly a major Wagner conductor, all in good enough sound on a reliable label) what must-have performances/recordings that are not part of an integral cycle, each by a different conductor, would complete such a set? Incomplete cycles needn't be excluded, since this recording was in any case meant to be part of one, but installments from, say, the second '55 cycle by Keilberth don't count, because they were recorded as part of an integral cycle which will eventually be issued in its entirety (I suspect.)

The trouble here is that the field is a bit lopsided. There are several very well-known stand-alone "Walküres", at least going by the various accolades, but there are not as many similar Siegfrieds that one thinks of immediately (that I have heard of, at any rate.)

Here are a few contenders and examples of what I mean:

Schüchter '52 Rheingold on Gebhardt with Windgassen, Kuen, Schock, etc.
Karajan '51 Siegfried on Myto with Aldenhoff, Varnay, Lipp, etc.
Knappertsbusch '51 Götterdämmerung on Testament with Varnay, Mödl, Weber etc.

All of the above are live and the second two from Bayreuth, so a mix of other orchestras/venues or perhaps two separate lists, one studio and one live, would be interesting to peruse. I know of the online Wagner Discography but it doesn't provide enough information to gauge which comparable recordings would be worth owning, and it doesn't seem to have been updated since '06. I'm probably going for the Knappertsbusch in any case, but for the other two operas I'm a bit lost. And annoyed by what appears to be a strategy on the part of the labels to profit from confusion. (Reissues with minor alterations are another case of thriving on the narcissism of small differences, but it's pointless blaming the marketers when there are enough crazy people like me literally buying into the scheme.) Help a neophyte and an obsessive completist.

55LolaWalser
Giu 7, 2011, 6:57 pm

Wish I could help, but no. The Ring is to me some of the most boring music on record, not to mention the turbo-bloviation of the poetry/philosophy. That said, I do rather like Das Rheingold, and both the Solti and the Böhm recs of it I have (the latter, if memory serves, the very first Wagner I ever listened to... and obviously not to blame for my Ring antipathy). Both are oldish, 50s-60s.

56marietherese
Giu 7, 2011, 10:46 pm

Like Lola, I'm afraid I can't be of much help here. I actually like 'The Ring' but not obsessively (I like Wagner's stand-alone operas better) and I'm a singer-oriented rather than a conductor-driven listener (so many Wagnerites seem to talk only about the conductor, as if he were of primary importance, which just seems weird to me when discussing opera, even Wagnerian opera).

Anyway, of those you mention, I'd probably be tempted by the 1951 Testament Götterdämmerung, mainly because I like the singers (love Mödl!) and because I've found Testament to be a reliable label overall. The other two don't interest me much and if I were you I wouldn't buy them without "previewing" them first. Lately, it seems to me like there's a glut of not very good live recordings on the market (not every performance was meant to be commemorated for posterity!), stuff that would and should have been merely traded as bootleg mementos now getting the full official release treatment. Definitely a market where buyer beware applies!

57Existanai
Giu 8, 2011, 12:56 am

Thank you both for the responses. I have several complete cycles, from Moralt in the 30's to Levine in the 80's, though I must admit I have not yet listened to any of the cycles from beginning to end - and yes, I am one of those guilty of paying attention to the conductor first, singers second, though in a few cases the opposite is true. I simply do not know enough about the subtleties of singing. I just love a great voice, like Christoff's or De Los Angeles'. I guess I'm more of a lumbering Teuton than I imagined. Though I have been listening to a lot of French music of late - Saint-Saëns, Poulenc, Ravel, Hahn and Vierne. And looking forward to a CD of Debussy conducted by Cantelli...

58AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Giu 8, 2011, 7:39 pm

I guess I'm more of a lumbering Teuton than I imagined.

(I'm just quoting that phrase to savor it.)

Though I have been listening to a lot of French music of late - Saint-Saëns, Poulenc, Ravel, Hahn and Vierne.

I've been working through the Musica Antiqua Köln catalog, and just bought their French Baroque Concertos.

59Existanai
Modificato: Giu 8, 2011, 8:37 pm

I have a rather large and perfectly useless stockpile of deprecatory phrases, borne too late for the most part; I am reminded of Ridicule. Which reminds me of The Law, another witty, tragicomic film in which a central character is a naive engineer newly arrived to drain a swamp and improve local hygiene, with little understanding of the social relations in place. Based on Vailland's Prix Goncourt winning La Loi, directed by the masterful Jules Dassin, and starring Gina Lollobrigida, a fiery, appetizingly pneumatic beauty whose like is missing today - mais ou sont les seins d'antan?

60marietherese
Modificato: Giu 8, 2011, 11:13 pm

Existanai, I was just listening to Günter Wand's live recording of Bruckner's 4th with the Berlin Philharmonic this afternoon and thinking of you, wondering what your take on this performance would be. I like it quite a bit (particularly the final movement) but it's certainly a rather languid interpretation and I can understand those who might like a somewhat brisker reading.

If you're at all interested in French piano music, I highly recommend Laurent Wagschal's fascinating CD of piano music by Gabriel Pierné. This disc made it into my top classical recordings of last year. Really interesting, relatively little known repertoire.

61LolaWalser
Giu 9, 2011, 2:56 pm

Wagner is just one (at his worst) particularly pompous and fruity aspect of "German-ness". You never hear about lumbering Teutons adoring Schubert, for some reason. ;)

so many Wagnerites seem to talk only about the conductor, as if he were of primary importance, which just seems weird to me when discussing opera, even Wagnerian opera

Exactly! Although the modern fetishisation of the conductor's role didn't occur solely in regard to Wagner, it certainly fit into his cult as in no other case. The special theatre, the enlarged orchestra, the extreme demands on the singers, the promotion of a special Weltanschauung, blurrying into full-fledged mysticism--obviously the rite of attending the Ring demands a special high priest. So the cult of the composer blends into the cult of the conductor, who's practically... der Führer.

62Existanai
Modificato: Giu 10, 2011, 1:54 am

Marie, I don't mean to ruin your experience, but I'm surprised you like that recording. I know Wand is closely associated with Bruckner, having based his late career on and gained a following for his performances of the composer; I have a collection of his "Essential Recordings" on RCA downloaded from iTunes, which contains the same recording of the 4th, and on CD I have his live Lübeck Cathedral recording from '88, a very measured but intense and perhaps justly famous recording. However, some accuse him of being a little too stolid, and that is a somewhat appropriate label for the first two movements of this recording - in fact, everything on there seems to confirm your criticism of Bruckner (excessive repetitiveness, not enough editing, etc.) The second is taken much too slowly. It is only in the third movement that the cumulative effect of the repeated motifs/harmonies begins to have any effect, and in the last movement - as you so discerningly pointed out - there is finally some degree of invention and variation to make the proceedings interesting. Wand seems to have found the emotional core of the symphony, and all the warmth and delight of the music appears to be concentrated here. The sound engineering does not help much; it is all very clear but the dynamics seem to have been compressed so that the full bloom of the orchestral highs never seems to rise sufficiently above the lows or the median to make the contrast impressive.

You might recall that I'm not especially fond of this symphony, despite the claim it is the most popular of his works and the one that made him famous, so perhaps I was not prepared to like the recording - there are some slightly bathetic passages in the Wand that I find off-putting. Nevertheless, I followed up with other performances of the Bruckner 4th to refresh my memory - Matačić on Testament and the well-known Klemperer studio recording on EMI. It's a pity that I can't find samples of the Matačić online, but it is a brilliant recording, and from the very first bars the tension sets in, detail is accentuated, and the music is shaped. The sonics are actually pretty poor, and there is quite a bit of distortion at the top end. But the Sturm and Drang embedded in the symphony are made evident, and one can imagine this was the sort of performance that made Bruckner so grateful to Hans Richter. Wand's recording might be much closer to the score, and the edition is a different one, but successively listening to the two recordings dramatically emphasizes the difference a strong musical perspective/personality can make. The sonics do hamper the final movement of the Matačić however, and it isn't sufficiently differentiated from the preceding movements to make one perk up one's ears, so perhaps Wand has an edge over the others there, but otherwise I would encourage trying to borrow or otherwise listen to Matačić if the symphony interests you (he also has two memorable recordings of the 5th, one with the French National Orchestra on Naïve, and one with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on Supraphon.)

The Klemperer is also out of print, but it should not be hard to find cheap on the used market, and the digital version is widely available. The Klemperer is, as one might predict, very no-nonsense; what little there is of the marching and dancing Bruckner that makes one think of overfed milkmaids in headscarves and dirndls, or of processions through a medieval village, has been suppressed, and in its place are the exhilaration, dread and pathos that define the Romantic and the Existential sensibilities. This is Bruckner already solemn, and yet inventive or sophisticated enough to play it dumb around the condescending haut monde - in brief, it bears the stamp of Klemperer and of late Bruckner, and is better for it. Sonics are excellent. A substantial recording, but possibly not one that would appeal to all Bruckner listeners.

I also listened to the Tennstedt on EMI earlier today, though I was experiencing a bit of fatigue and was not paying enough attention, and I later started playing the live recording from the complete Andreae cycle on Music & Arts (the 4th was also sold as a separate CD by Orfeo, the only Andreae recording of Bruckner available until the cycle was released.) I tried to like the Tennstedt before, and it has its moments; a token amount of the Gemütlichkeit that was in Wand resurfaces here, but overall, as a reading, it seems to strike a very fragile balance between the literal and the inventive, never fully satisfying either urge. The Andreae, I think, I am a little biased towards, though I haven't finished listening to it, because his interpretative gestures simply strike me as being unexpected yet interesting. The sound is relatively thin due to the vintage of the recordings and possibly also on account of the orchestra and the environment, so one can't expect lush or booming climaxes, but there is such a lot of texture and/or drama that it doesn't detract from the performance.

63Existanai
Giu 10, 2011, 2:03 am

Since I'm blathering about conductors and Lola mentioned the cult of the conductor, I thought the broad range of comments by musicians following this article (which some might consider no more than a puff piece) illustrates how vexed and multi-faceted the issue of the conductor's importance can be: The role of the conductor is crucial to the performance of an orchestra. Of course there is the usual flaming and some clueless opining and so on, but I think the thread also reveals a diversity of opinion and practical realities that a mere listener like me would not typically be aware of.

64AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Giu 10, 2011, 2:19 am

And that's written in response to an earlier Guardian piece taking something of a contrary position.

The whole 'cult of the conductor' is why I'm predisposed to like the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra....

Later: Wow, you're right about the comments. (How refreshing to read non-toxic newspaper comments....)

65tomcatMurr
Giu 21, 2011, 3:50 am

interesting stuff on the cult of the conductor. What both articles didn't point out is that for most orchestral music, from the romantic age onward, the conductor is necessary as the orchestra expands, and the music becomes rhythmically more complex. In fact, there's a sense in which Western music can be regarded as the gradual fading of the beat. Baroque music, in which the beat is usually to the fore, and which employs small forces can be quite safely played with no conductor. But try playing Mahler's 9th symphony, the opening movement with no conductor, and it would be a catastrophe. Here a central figure signalling a beat which is largely unheard -at least at the beginning- and who can be seen by all players, is completely necessary.

of course, the growth of the size of orchestras and complexity of music also coincides with the growth of the cult of the conductor. A chicken and egg situation.

66tomcatMurr
Modificato: Giu 21, 2011, 3:57 am

Last night, inspired by this thread, and by Otto Bohler's silhouettes of Mahler conducting, which I saw in the Musee D'orsay in Paris last month, I watched this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMO12vFA3Q&feature=related

it has some useful insights into the necessity for a conductor, and what the job entails. Karajan, not to everyone's taste, but fascinating nonetheless.

67LolaWalser
Giu 23, 2011, 12:56 pm

I think one should differentiate between the function and its significance. It seems that too often one forgets that talking of "Solti's Ring" or "Karajan's Beethoven" or whathaveyou is a kind of abbreviation in which the function of everyone else contributing to the interpretation is obliterated. It's "Solti's Ring" plus hundred plus others and so on. I despise the mechanistic view of the orchestra as an inert instrument.

68marietherese
Giu 30, 2011, 1:41 am

Existanai, way back at #62: well, I have to admit that the Wand was a library recording and I only listened to it once (the day I mentioned it) and the last movement struck me as pretty good-at least for Bruckner ;-p

I do have a Karajan and an Abbado recording of the Bruckner 4th hanging around here somewhere. Should I dig them out? The Matačić sounds interesting and I may have to check that out.

For me Bruckner is to Mahler what Shostakovich is to Bartók. A second-best, an also-ran, a not quite good enough. Both are interesting and both can be rewarding to listen to but for me neither are geniuses or really, deeply essential. I don't think 20th or 21st century music would have developed in appreciably different ways without either of them, whereas I most certainly think Mahler and Bartók would have been missed and current musical repertoire would be vastly different than what we know without these two latter composers. That could well be a biased and unfair judgment though as both Mahler and Bartók are two of my favourite composers and I know their works so well, so intimately that I can see little bits of it in almost anything contemporary that I listen to (whereas, it's possible that I'm just not "hearing" the influence of the other two, because I don't love and know them in the same way).

Is the Debussy/Cantelli you bought the EMI recording with the Ravel added as filler at the end? I think I have that. Haven't listened to it in a long time though.

69marietherese
Giu 30, 2011, 1:43 am

And yes to everything Lola said in #67 (and not just because she managed to name two of my least favourite operatic conductors in a single sentence!)

70dcozy
Giu 30, 2011, 5:56 am

Marie Therese's comparisons of Mahler and Bruckner, Bartók and Shostakovich, seem to me just if we're talking, in the case of the last pair, only about their orchestral legacy. Shostakovich's quartets, and also the Preludes and Fugues, seem to me to essential, and wonderful, additions to twentieth century music.

71tomcatMurr
Giu 30, 2011, 6:36 am

yes, interesting comparison, but a bit harsh on poor old Dimitri, whose chamber music I think was quite significant.

I don't know Bruckner at all, apart from some choral anthems, and my knowledge of Bartok is restricted to the piano concertos.

Of related interest: a short survey of the history and current status of the orchestra.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/3985/full

72dcozy
Giu 30, 2011, 6:58 am

And when it comes to wit, I think Shostakovich had them all beat—but wit, of course, isn't everything.

73marietherese
Giu 30, 2011, 1:56 pm

For me, in terms of radical expansion of form and sheer musical genius, Shostakovich's quartets cannot hold a candle to Bartók's. Shostakovich's quartets are powerful, emotional and frequently lovely to listen to but they are not revolutionary in the way that Bartók's quartets are (and I would say this holds across all chamber music by these two composers).

I feel the same way about the Preludes and Fugues compared to the last books of the Mikrokosmos-just no comparison in terms of expanding existing musical vocabulary, pushing the boundaries of what classical music could be. I'll admit though, that I am biased towards Bartók: he is, for me, the greatest composer of the 20th century, bar none.

Murr, you can't really know Bartók without knowing the string quartets. I spent five years listening to at least one of them, and often all of them, every day. I still find something new in them each time I hear them.

74tomcatMurr
Lug 1, 2011, 6:13 am

MT, I've heard lots of things like that about them. I'm going to get them following your recommendation. Any suggestions as to which recordings are best?

75marietherese
Modificato: Lug 1, 2011, 11:54 pm

Murr, my first choice would be the 1963 Juilliard Quartet recording. This particular version of the Juilliard manages to get just about everything right and I find it the most satisfying Bartók string quartet cycle over all. It is a bit hard to find though (the 1981 Juilliard is not as good but is more readily available-I have no idea why).

The 1998 Decca Takács recording (not the older Hungarton one) is another really well-rounded set: rhythmic drive, intense feeling, attention to the score, this quartet has it all. I'm not super keen on the production values though. If you end up with the Takács and really like them, you might want to check out the Hungarian Quartet's historic recordings. I find them variable (sometimes a little sloppy) but there is a lot there to admire and, like the Takács Qt, they do seem to get some special Hungarian folk dance nuance that many other quartets miss. Another much admired historic recording is that made by the Hungarian Vegh Quartet. I find some of the Vegh interpretive choices questionable but they have many fans.

Since I think speed, drive and technical security are immensely important when playing these quartets (particularly in the hair-raisingly difficult fast movements), I also enjoy the remarkably virtuosic, multi-award winning 1989 Emerson recording but should note that some people find this recording a bit too polished, and I do understand where they're coming from. The Emerson is available everywhere and it's generally pretty darn cheap, so I'd recommend this as a good starter set (definitely over the Vermeer Qt on Naxos).

I'll think more about it but these are the first more or less available, frequently reissued great versions that came to mind.

(The next question is which quartet to start your listening experience with since I'm not sure the best way to introduce a newbie to these is chronologically. I often recommend starting with the 4th and 5th quartets because the interior slow movements have incredibly beautiful moments very reminiscent of Bartok's well-known 3rd piano concerto (the shimmering, shuddering strings that mimic cicadas and the deep, soulful melodies that bring to mind the Hungarian double-reed woodwind instrument, the tárogató) but there's something to be said for jumping right in to the deep end of the pool by starting with the brief, relentlessly spiky, intensely rhythmic 3rd quartet or perhaps just going waist deep and beginning with the 2nd, working one's way through to the 6th (which is actually more accessible than the middle quartets) and then finally circling round to 1, which is in many ways most interesting as a promise of everything that comes after. The Emerson recording orders the quartets on disc as 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, 6, which makes as much emotional sense as any other sequence, really.)

Any other Bartók obssessives...er,fans, on here with recommendations?

76marietherese
Lug 2, 2011, 12:28 am

Thinking more about it, I think maybe the 6th and last quartet (as counter-intuitive as that seems) is a good starting place. The 6th possesses all the elements that make the other quartets (particularly the more challenging 3rd, 4th and 5th quartets) great but it presents them in a generally more accessible, more emotionally open form. There are strong and clearly marked dance rhythms, moments of biting, sardonic humour and even an intensely personal, heart-wrenchingly sad and beautiful Mesto: Molto tranquilo* as the finale. While there are no rhapsodic, achingly beautiful moments inspired by the natural world as there are in the 4th and 5th's inner movements, I think maybe the whole of the 6th is easier to comprehend. It's a very great work, maybe a little unjustly over-shadowed by its more revolutionary predecessors

*Bartok originally intended this movement to be a lively dance but ended up writing an elegy following the death of his mother.

77dcozy
Lug 2, 2011, 12:32 am

The great thing about these discussions is that they remind one of music one hasn't listened to for a while. Thinking about Shostakovich sent me back to the Preludes and Fugues a couple nights ago (delightful), and now, reading marietherese's most recent posts, I'm headed to Bartok-land tonight.

I have the Novak Quartet—not, I gather, one of the great sets—but I've just ordered the 1963 Julliard's per marietherese's recommendation. It's not too hard to find and not to expensive in a French import version.

78tomcatMurr
Lug 2, 2011, 4:15 am

MT thanks for such a detailed response. I'm going to hunt these down. CDs are pretty easy to get here, and they have very good specialist classical CD stores.

dcozy, I love love love Keith Jarrett's preformance of the 24 P&F. Have you heard it?

79dcozy
Lug 2, 2011, 8:40 am

TCM: no. I haven't really listened to Jarrett, and wasn't aware he played Shostakovich. I recently became interested in Jarrett when I read Geoff Dyer's piece about him in his new collection, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition. Thanks for the recommendation (and I highly recommend the Dyer).

I enjoy Tatiana Nikolayeva's version of the Shostakovich.

80SilentInAWay
Lug 2, 2011, 3:10 pm

Wow, marie. Excellent post. I have always considered the Bartók string quartets to be among the few modern works that I consider to be truly essential (and one of my absolute favorites). It's also one of the few works that I always "push" to aspiring young musicians -- regardless of style or genre.

That said, I've somehow managed to survive with only three complete recordings (and for some reason, I've never been inspired to seek out others)...and you've mentioned all three of these in your post!!!

The 1963 Julliard was my first BSQs and is therefore, for me, the recording that started it all. I only own this performance on vinyl (its good to hear that it's now readily available -- when I checked a decade or so back, it had not been released on CD). When I listen to these records nowadays (too infrequently, I might add), they strike me as being extremely lyrical, heavily romanticized readings. I still love them, though, and they definitely set the bar for all other performances. I definitely need to track down a copy on CD.

The Emerson recording is definitely the one I listen to the most now (at least once a month, I would say). I too understand why this set has been criticized as being too clinical. On the other hand, it is probably the best set for coming to terms with the monstruous brilliance (or brilliant monstrosity) of this great work. I have told younger musicians that the entire history of music is encapsulated in the scope of these quartets (pace, aficionados -- I know the claim is bullshit, but it gets a point across).

The Takács recording sounds more spontaneous than the Emerson, and less romanticized than the Julliard; yet, to me, it is not as great as either of the other two. This is the only recording, however, where the Hungarian folk elements are brought to the fore, so it provides a necessary antidote to the mannerisms of the other two sets.

I don't believe any of this contradicts marie's comments above...so consider it an independent confirmation!!

81LolaWalser
Lug 2, 2011, 3:30 pm

I spent five years listening to at least one of them, and often all of them, every day.

Wowsie! Now that's absorbing! Gosh darn!

I haven't listened to much Bartok outside his piano stuff, solo and orchestral. But I shall put on the quartets as soon as I get home.

82SilentInAWay
Lug 2, 2011, 5:16 pm

I spent five years listening to at least one of them, and often all of them, every day.

I hear ya -- The CDs are pretty much permanently in my changer. I often put one of the disks on repeat all night as I sleep--talk about wild dreams!!

83AsYouKnow_Bob
Lug 2, 2011, 5:21 pm

Huh. I've heard the Emersons play these live, and was pretty much overwhelmed, to the point that I don't much find it necessary to listen to the CDs very often. (It seems to be one of those recordings that's it's good to have on the shelf for when you DO need it.)

84SilentInAWay
Lug 2, 2011, 6:50 pm

I've heard them performed live a couple of times as well, though not by the Emerson Q (to my eternal shame, I don't remember the names of any of the string quartets that I went to see during my 20s and 30s).

I agree that no CD--even a classic recording--comes close to approximating the experience of seeing the work performed live. Nevertheless, over the decades, I keep coming back to recordings of certain works--be it monthly, yearly or whatever. For me, the BSQs stand up to repeated listenings much better than many more "popular" works. I'm still hearing new things (or hearing things in new ways...)

85AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Lug 4, 2011, 11:12 am

(to my eternal shame, I don't remember the names of any of the string quartets that I went to see during my 20s and 30s).

Hey, me, too. My first string quartet was when I was about 23 - and all I recall is four elderly European gents. (Edited to note that the person I went with thinks it might have been the Borodin Quartet?)

86marietherese
Modificato: Lug 4, 2011, 2:27 am

Silent, I'm always thrilled to meet another Bartók enthusiast. He is, obviously, a very special composer for me. I really enjoyed reading your take on the Bartók string quartet recordings and I'm especially pleased to see that our impressions of some of the essential recordings are pretty much the same. There are a lot of wonderful and interesting recordings of these great quartets available but these are the three that I keep coming back to and that I believe make a great introduction to these remarkable works. I hope tomcatMurr and dcozy will enjoy them as much as we have!

Murr, I've heard good things about the Jarrett recordings of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues and I need to check those out. Like dcozy, I have the Nikolayevna interpretations and admire those immensely. Something really different that I've acquired recently and just love is a harpsichord version of a couple of the Shostakovich preludes and fugues included on Olga Martynova's terrific 'Everything You Wanted to Know About Harpsichord But Were Afraid to Ask' Hearing these pieces on the harpsichord gave me fresh ears for them and I find myself appreciating the craft in them more.

Since I am a major harpsichord aficionado, I should mention another amazing contemporary harpsichord player (and composer) who takes the instrument to strange new places as well as more familiar soundscapes: Jukka Tiensuu His three recordings, 'The Frivolous Harpsichord', 'The Exuberant Harpsichord' and 'The Fantastic Harpsichord' are all essential listening for fans of this instrument.

87tomcatMurr
Modificato: Lug 4, 2011, 6:17 am

Then you should check out Jarrett's harpsichord performance of Bach's French Suites. I'd love to know what you think of those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S7WFJ0fJms&feature=related

He also did some interesting and rather gorgeous improvisations on the clavichord: The Book of Ways

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDZPqhDhErE&feature=related

I like the way Jarrett performs classical music: he somehow strips it of all its historical associations and lets the music stand completely for itself. I've heard things in his Shostakovich that I have not heard in Ashkenazy's the only other recording with which I have any great familiarity. These things are in the score, but only jarrett really sounds them.

I also greatly enjoy his recordings of Bach harpsichord and viola duos with Kim Kashkashian, and his Handel suites (played on piano) are very very good.

Still hunting for Bartok. I've seen the Hungarian Quartet DG recordings, but I still have another couple of places to try to get the Emerson.

88LolaWalser
Lug 8, 2011, 2:11 pm

I only have one version of Bartok's string quartets--yes, the much-awarded Emerson Qt. At least that's all I seem to have around here. I hear Emerson Qt. at least half a dozen times live but not, as far as I remember, doing any Bartok. I wish I had my programme notes cache with me... Time was I thought I could remember EVERYTHING. *SIGH*

89AsYouKnow_Bob
Modificato: Lug 8, 2011, 8:52 pm

Time was I thought I could remember EVERYTHING. *SIGH*

Time was, you COULD remember everything.

{"Number of things one needs to remember"} increases over time
{"Number of functioning brain cells one can employ to remember things"} decreases over time.

As some point, those two lines inevitably cross. (For me, it was about the age of forty.)

(Edited to add:
Somewhere, SJ Gould tells the story that when Louis Agassiz came to Harvard, he refused on principle to learn the names of his undergraduates - - on the theory that each student name he learned would drive a species name out of his head.)

90LolaWalser
Lug 9, 2011, 3:54 pm

Heh, whatta charmer, Agassiz. But not wholly wrong.

91tomcatMurr
Lug 9, 2011, 9:07 pm

I have the Emerson recording of the Bartok quartets now, and am listening with interest. I"m going to take them slowly in chronological order, getting to know each one thoroughly before moving on to the next.

92marietherese
Set 2, 2011, 1:40 am

For anyone who likes Bartók, if you haven't already heard them, might I suggest the string quartets, quintets and other chamber music of Polish composer, Grażyna Bacewicz.

Despite the fact that she died in 1969 and was most active as a composer from the mid 1930s through the 1950s, Bacewicz is a relatively new discovery for me. Her work is profoundly influenced by that of Bartók (to the point that occasionally she includes fully-intentional, semi-humorous, absolutely dead-on imitations/parodies of his style in certain works) but she never seems to me to be mimicking the great Hungarian or piggybacking on his genius. Rather, it seems like in Bartók she discovered an inspiration and an encouragement, a composer who provided a natural vocabulary for her own ideas, a sort of musical, harmonic dictionary she could draw from to enrich and embellish her own unique melodic language.

Krystian Zimerman has recorded the Piano Sonata No 2 and the Piano Quartets 1 and 2 for DG and that's a very nice record but I'd recommend going for the three recordings by the Amar Corde String Quartet if you can find them. They include all the string quartets and the piano and string work as well and are really quite stunning. Great stuff that should be in the library of any chamber music aficionado.

93SilentInAWay
Set 2, 2011, 2:36 am

Grażyna Bacewicz

oooh...never heard of her...I'll have to chase down a recording or two...

BTW: are you familiar with Cantata Profana? It's an amazing work! -- and hands down the most difficult choral piece that I've ever performed (back in the day, that is...)

94marietherese
Modificato: Set 2, 2011, 4:04 am

Oh yes! I love the Cantata Profana. It's extraordinary!

In my late teens and early twenties, LPs were phased out and CDs became the standard. I was able to pick up recordings of virtually everything Bartók ever wrote by scouring Berkshire Record Outlet catalogs and buying vast quantities of cut-out Hungaroton LPs. Liszt, Bartók and Kodaly (along with some Dohnányi) pretty much comprised the entire classical output of that label (well, OK, there was an itty bit of Haydn and Mozart and stuff and a few very interesting ethnomusicological recordings but, still, the vast majority of the Hungaroton releases centered on those three famous Hungarians. Still does). Their Bartók series was justly famous and incredibly comprehensive. I'm not sure I've ever seen the children's and women's choral work recorded elsewhere; certainly not all of it all in one package.

Do you like 'Bluebeard's Castle'? I think it's an amazing opera, emotionally gut-wrenching and filled with the most extraordinary musical textures but so difficult to pull off well that I'm not sure it will ever really find a place in the standard operatic repertoire. Still, a great performance of the last act can raise the hair on my arms and the back of my neck like almost nothing else. Chilling, creepy and so very, very sad.

95handbagsome
Set 2, 2011, 4:14 am

Questo utente è stato eliminato perché considerato spam.

96marietherese
Set 2, 2011, 4:34 am

SIAW, another relatively little-known early to mid-twentieth century composer whose string quartets you may want to check out is Karl Amadeus Hartmann. I first heard Hartmann's chamber work on a recording by the Zehetmair Quartett of his first string quartet (written in 1933) and Bartók's fourth. I wasn't that impressed by the Zehetmair quartet's reading of the Bartók (it wasn't bad but it wasn't all that special or exciting) but the Hartmann was a great discovery. The influence of Bartók is a little stronger or, rather, more obvious, in Hartmann than in Bacewicz, the composer's voice seems less original, but the quartets are still really good and make for very interesting listening if you like this style of music (as I know you do).

97marietherese
Set 2, 2011, 5:11 am

Well, I just finished listening to the Zehetmair Quartett playing the Bartók 4th string quartet (on ECM) and I have to take back what I said above about their interpretation not being "that special or exciting". Theirs may not be the most polished performance I've ever heard nor the most intellectually probing but what it lacks in those two qualities it more than makes up for in sheer brutal head-long drive and enthusiasm. The final movement is taken at a remarkably rapid pace and played with intense gusto-really very exciting. I don't know what I was thinking or recalling before. My last listen must have been on a bad day. So, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

98SilentInAWay
Set 2, 2011, 8:28 am

California insomniacs unite!!!

99SilentInAWay
Set 2, 2011, 8:34 am

I've heard (and enjoyed) Bluebeard's Castle many years ago, but must confess to not owning a recording... ...something that must be remedied, it appears.

Thanks for the heads up on Hartmann and the Zehetmair...one more for my backlog...

100Makifat
Set 2, 2011, 11:13 am

A perfect morning to put on my old DG lp of Duke Bluebeard's Castle: a light rain falling, tinted tan by the dust. I picked this up years ago after seeing Jessye Norman in a Great Performances (I assume) production many years ago.

101SilentInAWay
Set 2, 2011, 12:20 pm

If your Deutsche Grammophon Bluebeard is the one from the 70s with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, then I think that it's the recording that I heard...on the radio, no less -- back when they'd sometimes play entire albums on the FM dial...

Do you have a preferred recording, marietherese?

102LolaWalser
Set 2, 2011, 4:17 pm

*butting in*

This is the only Bluebeard I have/have heard:

link to amazon

I haven't listened to it often or with much profit because it annoys me that I can't follow the text.