The organ

[AdamSmith]

Katchen's Diabelli. Some have criticized the performance for "lack of surprise" but I quite like it.

 

[whipped guy]

Katchen's Diabelli. Some have criticized the performance for "lack of surprise" but I quite like it.

 

Well I offer the following assignment for our illustrious Mr. Smith. Identify the passage in Diabelli's original theme that Beethoven described as a "cobbler's patch" and then dicuss how in each variation Beethoven treated that specific passage and the techniques Beethoven uses to be quite creative compared to all the other composers who wrote variations on the same theme. Hint: it involves the tonic and dominant, but no gin, topping, or even submissiveness is involved... However, be forewarned that the whole project might just become a masochistic musician's dream.

[AdamSmith]

@whipped guy, does Katchen's piano sound sort of out of tune? Or at least weird acoustics in the room? On my vinyl it's not apparent, but this typically harsh & 'hyper-realistic' digital transfer brings that to the fore.

 

One recalls Serkin perennially irritating his label by insisting on recording at home in his apartment, with mediocre acoustics, without getting the instrument tuned if it was not yet time on his rigidly calendar-driven rather than sound-driven schedule. Several of his big-selling records feature some rather uproarious clinker and clunker notes jumping up out of the generally smooth performance line for that reason.

[whipped guy]

@whipped guy, does Katchen's piano sound sort of out of tune? Or at least weird acoustics in the room? On my vinyl it's not apparent, but this typically harsh & 'hyper-realistic' digital transfer brings that to the fore.

 

One recalls Serkin perennially irritating his label by insisting on recording at home in his apartment, with mediocre acoustics, without getting the instrument tuned if it was not yet time on his rigidly calendar-driven rather than sound-driven schedule. Several of his big-selling records feature some rather uproarious clinker and clunker notes jumping up out of the generally smooth performance line for that reason.

I listened to the first half yesterday and didn't hear the piano being "out if tune", bit I hought that the piano sounded dry. However, what one is hearing may be a combination of several factors. First there is the age of the recording to consider. Then the recording was definitely pieced together as a series of MP3's as I can hear the characteristic patching together of each individusl MP3 track between each variation. Then the whole thing was probably "MP3-ed" together for YouTube further denigrating the sound. The recording is very hissy as well and I suspect that it may have originated from an LP that was digitally processed. Not sure, but I hear some pops and clicks, or at least the remnants thereof.

 

Of course while writing the above I noticed that toward the end the piano did sound slightly out of tune as an example around 43 minutes the decay of the sound seemed to be unsteady. Not sure if it is from the original recording, the processing, or the piano itself.

[AdamSmith]

I listened to the first half yesterday and didn't hear the piano being "out if tune", bit I hought that the piano sounded dry. However, what one is hearing may be a combination of several factors. First there is the age of the recording to consider. Then the recording was definitely pieced together as a series of MP3's as I can hear the characteristic patching together of each individusl MP3 track between each variation. Then the whole thing was probably "MP3-ed" together for YouTube further denigrating the sound. The recording is very hissy as well and I suspect that it may have originated from an LP that was digitally processed. Not sure, but I hear some pops and clicks, or at least the remnants thereof.

 

Of course while writing the above I noticed that toward the end the piano did sound slightly out of tune as an example around 43 minutes the decay of the sound seemed to be unsteady. Not sure if it is from the original recording, the processing, or the piano itself.

Aha! Yes to several things. It is def a home digitization of the vinyl. And YES. Your description of that unsteady decay brought back the aural memory crystal-clear. That is on the vinyl. So it IS his piano that is a culprit in some part of this.

 

The record lieth currently with all the others, boxed up among those peacefully dozing vipers in the basement. Whose repose we would on no account disturb!

 

But if I concentrate, I can replay big chunks of it in memory. Your note triggered such a mental rehearing of that section.

[whipped guy]

Aha! Yes to several things. It is def a home digitization of the vinyl. And YES. Your description of that unsteady decay brought back the aural memory crystal-clear. That is on the vinyl. So it IS his piano that is a culprit in some part of this.

 

The record lieth currently with all the others, boxed up among those peacefully dozing vipers in the basement. Whose repose we would on no account disturb!

 

But if I concentrate, I can replay big chunks of it in memory. Your note triggered such a mental rehearing of that section.

The recording reminded me of an Angel Red Label mono recording that I had as a kid of Walter Gieseking playing Mozart that was part of his complete Mozart Sonata traversal. Gieseking died in 1956 and I am not sure of the recording date, but I would asume in the early fifties and as such would be somewhat contemporaneous with Katchen's Beethoven.

 

 

The piano sound likewise always sounded a bit "off" to me. It actually sounds better here than I recall. Incidentally, somewhere I still have the old corrupt Schirmer version of this Sonata where I corrected all the mistakes in their version using this recording most of which occur in this final movement. This Sonata and in particular this movement with its extended cadenza always reminds me of a mini Mozart piano concerto. Incidentally I have a copy of the Henley Edition of this Sonata and recently tried playing it. It was totally out of my fingers and to think I could play it in high school.

[AdamSmith]

Listening some more to the Katchen, occurs he is rather beautifully like Ansermet, in coming to a HIP mode through just innate aesthetic judgment about the piece.

 

Serkin for instance, and many other greats, perform it through a late-Romantic prism, pulling it out of shape with exaggerations of phrasing and rubato and on and on that Katchen beautifully eschews.

 

I had not really conceived of his achievement that way until just now.

[whipped guy]

Listening some more to the Katchen, occurs he is rather beautifully like Ansermet, in coming to a HIP mode through just innate aesthetic judgment about the piece.

 

Serkin for instance, and many other greats, perform it through a late-Romantic prism, pulling it out of shape with exaggerations of phrasing and rubato and on and on that Katchen beautifully eschews.

 

I had not really conceived of his achievement that way until just now.

You mentioned initially that it had a "lack of surprise". That could mean that it was not tampered with with any late-Romantic exaggerations and rubato that would pull it out of shape. So you really had a handle on things and didn't really realize it.

 

Of course some HIPsters can add surprises and exaggerations of their own simply to sound different and to "surprise", but the best can peal away encrustations of inappropriate traditions and present a piece in a manner that the composer theoretically might recognize.

 

As another example I was brought up on Bruno Walter's Columbia recording of Mozart's last six symphonies... that's the album that my dad got me for Christmas when I was a kid and in the early 1960's and that was a very apt choice. Nowadays other than the large orchestra it strikes a nice balance between the romantic and the classical. That Walter supposedly learned his Mozart from Gustav Mahler makes one wonder how Mahler would have conducted Mozart. If any composer can be considered late-Romantic it would be Mahler. Perhaps Gustav might have been ahead of his time regarding Mozart performance practices.

[AdamSmith]

You mentioned initially that it had a "lack of surprise". That could mean that it was not tampered with with any late-Romantic exaggerations and rubato that would pull it out of shape. So you really had a handle on things and didn't really realize it.

 

Of course some HIPsters can add surprises and exaggerations of their own simply to sound different and to "surprise", but the best can peal away encrustations of inappropriate traditions and present a piece in a manner that the composer theoretically might recognize.

 

As another example I was brought up on Bruno Walter's Columbia recording of Mozart's last six symphonies... that's the album that my dad got me for Christmas when I was a kid and in the early 1960's and that was a very apt choice. Nowadays other than the large orchestra it strikes a nice balance between the romantic and the classical. That Walter supposedly learned his Mozart from Gustav Mahler makes one wonder how Mahler would have conducted Mozart. If any composer can be considered late-Romantic it would be Mahler. Perhaps Gustav might have been ahead of his time regarding Mozart performance practices.

Actually I quoted that "lack of surprise" as what one critic said about it, that I thought was a silly irrelevance.

[AdamSmith]

Actually I quoted that "lack of surprise" as what one critic said about it, that I thought was a silly irrelevance.

Come to think, more than irrelevant, it's a critic's misguided wish for all that inappropriate slathering of late-Romantic interpretive over-expressivity. As you said.

 

He was criticizing exactly what's right about it.

[AdamSmith]

The memory of first hearing Serkin's recording comes back now. The longer I listened, the more irritating became his small but persistent era-inappropriate tamperings and over-dressing.

 

Small versions of how you described Sills's wildly context-free decorations.

[AdamSmith]

Funny how Serkin's high-Romantic dressings work perfectly well on his recording of the Emperor with Bernstein (and Bernstein's white-hot flailings as well, for that matter), where they are wholly intrusive and get in the way in the Diabelli.

 

Makes one see & appreciate the fairly direct linear descent of Diabelli from the Goldbergs in several respects.

 

(Despite my phrasing making them sound like the nice next-door Jewish family in Queens. )

[whipped guy]

I wonder about all those smaltzy romantic jestures. Are they are mostly early 20th Century "improvements"? Could it be possible that even Wagner and Brahms sounded more classical in their own time? Think how James Levine tends to push and pull certain bits of Wagner totally out of shape to milk it for all it's got such as after Woton's line, "der freier als ich, der Gott!" In the third act or Die Walküre. Not to mention Chopin and Liszt who are often presented through the prism of Rachmaninov. Such excesses often work, but it would be interesting to know if that's how it was really done. I recall how in music appreciation in college that the professor played the "Prelude and liebestod" from Wagner's Tristan and said it was the inspiration for Montovani!!! I wonder how many recordings (including the one he played!) were subsequently influenced by by Montovani!! LOL!

 

Of course the early romantics did distort the Baroque and classical era composers as they were attempting to make them relavant for their time. Think Mendelssohn and Bach in that regard. Actually Mozart already had attempted to make Handel's Messiah more relavant in the Classical era by reorchestrating it. The favor was then returned in the early Nineteenth Century where Mozart's operas were subject to certain revisions. And so it continued.

[AdamSmith]

All great points. Certainly the straighter Brahms is played, the better. The literal notes contain all the expression needed. The most severely classical performances are far the best.

 

His sublime, demanding symphonies, come to think, are a litmus test that sharply expose what Julia Child memorably called, in another context, "the flimsies" among conductors who import and impose superfluous elaboration.

[AdamSmith]

And Montovani! ROFL! Too true!

[AdamSmith]

And yeah, I wonder as you muse whether, for instance, HIP would reveal a better Emperor than the overwrought one we usually get? As I replay the Serkin/Bernstein recording in memory, it's not difficult to readily see any number of mannerisms they impose that could be stripped away with no loss, indeed very likely gain, as one starts to imagine and hear in mind something closer to the music simply as written.

[whipped guy]

I recall reading somewhere where George M. Cohen called a rehearsal for a Broadway show to remove the "improvements" that the cast had inflicted on the piece. Artists get certain ideas, the public accepts them, and then things can mushroom on from there.

 

A number of years ago the MET engaged Charles Mackerras to conduct Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor more or less "come scritto", that is as originally composed. Higher keys, no flute cadenza, only embellishments from the time of composition. They put a disclaimer in the promotional literature warning patrons that it would not be performed as expected. Of course they were wise enough to engage another conductor and singers that same season to perform the piece as traditionally performed so as to keep everyone happy.

[AdamSmith]

Reminds very much of the famous, even notorious Bernstein/Gould 1962 performance of Brahms's First Piano Concerto, where Gould's study of the score had convinced him the piece required far slower tempi in every movement than had been conventional.

 

Bernstein created a stir with his remarks from the podium beforehand:

 

Don't be frightened. Mr. Gould is here. He will appear in a moment. I'm not, um, as you know, in the habit of speaking on any concert except the Thursday night previews, but a curious situation has arisen, which merits, I think, a word or two. You are about to hear a rather, shall we say, unorthodox performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto, a performance distinctly different from any I've ever heard, or even dreamt of for that matter, in its remarkably broad tempi and its frequent departures from Brahms' dynamic indications. I cannot say I am in total agreement with Mr. Gould's conception and this raises the interesting question: "What am I doing conducting it?" I'm conducting it because Mr. Gould is so valid and serious an artist that I must take seriously anything he conceives in good faith and his conception is interesting enough so that I feel you should hear it, too.

 

But the age old question still remains: "In a concerto, who is the boss; the soloist or the conductor?" The answer is, of course, sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending on the people involved. But almost always, the two manage to get together by persuasion or charm or even threats to achieve a unified performance. I have only once before in my life had to submit to a soloist's wholly new and incompatible concept and that was the last time I accompanied Mr. Gould. (

The audience roared with laughter at this.

) But, but this time the discrepancies between our views are so great that I feel I must make this small disclaimer. Then why, to repeat the question, am I conducting it? Why do I not make a minor scandal — get a substitute soloist, or let an assistant conduct? Because I am fascinated, glad to have the chance for a new look at this much-played work; Because, what's more, there are moments in Mr. Gould's performance that emerge with astonishing freshness and conviction. Thirdly, because we can all learn something from this extraordinary artist, who is a thinking performer, and finally because there is in music what

Dimitri Mitropoulos

used to call "the sportive element", that factor of curiosity, adventure, experiment, and I can assure you that it has been an adventure this week collaborating with Mr. Gould on this Brahms concerto and it's in this spirit of adventure that we now present it to you.

[6]

[7]

 

That from Wikipedia's account of the whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Philharmonic_concert_of_April_6,_1962

[AdamSmith]

 

...Peter Schickele, in The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach, referred to this concert in his entry for P.D.Q. Bach's Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra; he then claimed that at the premiere of the P.D.Q. Bach concerto, the conductor, pianist, and concertmaster all turned to the audience, and in unison disassociated themselves with the piece itself.[13]

[whipped guy]

The Lenny comment reminded me of the time Lenny conducted Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at the MET in 1970 and decided to use slower and broader tempos among other things to perfectly replicate the score as originally conceived by the composer. The rub was that if one listened to Mascagni's own recording he takes a traditional route and does not really follow his own markings by dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" written into the score. Here is an excerpt from a contemporary review.

 

The conductor for the performance was Leonard Bernstein, and although there may be some reservations about some of his slow painstaking tempos, particularly in the famous Intermezzo, there can be no doubt that he had the orchestra pitched to peak form.

Interestingly while the opera was paired as usual with Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci the conductor for that piece was Fausto Cleva. Here is what the same reviewer said concerning Cleva's conducting.

 

Fausto Cleva does not depart from tradition in his conducting, and he proves nicely that traditional still can be effective.

 

 

 

[AdamSmith]

The Lenny comment reminded me of the time Lenny conducted Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at the MET in 1970 and decided to use slower and broader tempos among other things to perfectly replicate the score as originally conceived by the composer. The rub was that if one listened to Mascagni's own recording he takes a traditional route and does not really follow his own markings by dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" written into the score. Here is an excerpt from a contemporary review.

 

The conductor for the performance was Leonard Bernstein, and although there may be some reservations about some of his slow painstaking tempos, particularly in the famous Intermezzo, there can be no doubt that he had the orchestra pitched to peak form.

 

Interestingly while the opera was paired as usual with Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci the conductor for that piece was Fausto Cleva. Here is what the same reviewer said concerning Cleva's conducting.

 

Fausto Cleva does not depart from tradition in his conducting, and he proves nicely that traditional still can be effective.

 

 

 

 

There is of course abundant lore and evidence alike that composers are often the worst conductors of their own music.

 

For so many reasons.

[whipped guy]

There is of course abundant lore and evidence alike that composers are often the worst conductors of their own music.

 

For so many reasons.

Many composers were indeed not skilled as conductors.

 

As a prime example there is Stravinsky, about whom I think most would agree based on aural evidence was not the best exponent of his own compositions. On the other hand Mahler, at least based on contemporary writings, was considered to be a great interpreter of his own music. In fact Mahler was mostly renowned as a conductor in both the concert hall and the opera house in his lifetime. It was only after his death that his compositions were really given the recognition that they deserved.

 

Regarding Mascagni, in his lifetime he was highly regarded as both a conductor of his own music as well as that of others. He probably thrived on his conducting since while the operas he composed after Cavalleria Rusticana were indeed popular in Italy they never reached the word-wide popularity of his first operatic success.

 

Incidentally one of the operas that Mahler conducted was Cavalleria. It would be interesting to hear how that went as that verismo potboiler is not exactly like anything Mahler ever composed. Still, it might have gone well as Mahler, who never composed an opera, was quite active as a conductor of opera.

[AdamSmith]

Back to HIP thoughts. Having self-reared my Beethoven ear on the Ansermet symphony cycle, it was ever a jolt to first hear another conductor's version, even (often especially) the 'greats.'

 

I think it was no less than Solti's Third that threw me for several loops on first hearing, as his typically beautifully clear and articulate reading nonetheless kept 'bumping' (as Comey did the election with his repeated intrusions about Hillary) the intended score with what sounded, to the Ansermet-trained ear, like wholly superfluous, irrelevant and self-consciously mannered flourishes of timing, phrasing, and emphasis on the wrong sylLABle.

[whipped guy]

Back to HIP thoughts. Having self-reared my Beethoven ear on the Ansermet symphony cycle, it was ever a jolt to first hear another conductor's version, even (often especially) the 'greats.'

 

I think it was no less than Solti's Third that threw me for several loops on first hearing, as his typically beautifully clear and articulate reading nonetheless kept 'bumping' (as Comey did the election with his repeated intrusions about Hillary) the intended score with what sounded, to the Ansermet-trained ear, like wholly superfluous, irrelevant and self-consciously mannered flourishes of timing, phrasing, and emphasis on the wrong sylLABle.

Reading the above while half asleep this morning and with my eyes still blurry I struggled to think of a conductor or indeed any musician named Comey... not to mention a composition named Hillary. However, there is indeed a Hillary Symphony and was given its premiere last year.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/hillary_clinton_s_aipac_speech_was_a_symphony_of_craven_delusional_pandering.html

 

If this thread gets moved to the political forum don't blame me Mr. Smith started it!!!!

[AdamSmith]

The utterly visionary way he foresaw the whole of the Brexit follies...!