Unaccomplished Ear?

[Wunderhorn]

I often get completely obsessed with a recording and can't seem to dislodged its ideal presence from my brain: Barenboim's M7 has made me dismiss other recordings as mono-rythmic while Barenboim invents new speeds and mannerisms for each separate music idea, i.e. (The Finale).

I have the Kubelik and Bertini Cycles, but am waiting for someone to release the only actual complete set since Bernstein/DG with the Song Cycles; Does anyone know of plans for any conductor to do this?

[Ivor]

  Firstlt, I don't know.

  Second, it's interesting how people read a message and don't leave a response. This has had 12 reads and no posts by now.

  third, if i have played one performance a lot, it hasn't, for me, become an ideal. Instead, it helps me to hear what all other performances are up to, because of the myriad ways they diverge from the 'template'.

  Re M7, Bernstein and Rattle are two who respond sharply to the music, as did Mitropoulos, tho' there's no M7 conducted by him in the Mouret discography.

 I don't know the Barenboim.

 Pedant alert - "rhythmic" and I write as someone constantly mistyping.  not.


   Ivor

[Wunderhorn]

I'm sorry but people spend too much time fussing over a plethora of recordings when simply a few fine ones are plenty! I don't understand why conductors are so prized anyway, their a speak of dust compaired to the person who actually composed the music; I also believe composing has more to do with mastery than genius. I do see it as a 'personal ideal' when the performance moves me more than any previous recording I've heard, such as with the Barenboim, but conductors sometimes over-think performances simply to be original instead of actually preforming the music the way the composer intended, this explains quite simply and accurately why there is so many bad performances.

P.S. (80% of artistic bravura is simply that, BRAVURA!)

[Jot N. Tittle]

... it's interesting how people read a message and don't leave a response. This has had 12 reads and no posts by now.  Ivor

Yes, Ivor, it is an interesting ratio that, overall, seems to be more than ten readers to each respondant. Perhaps some member of the Bored with a statistical turn of mind will provide a table of odds or some such.

     . & '

[Ivor]

  I agree, wunderhorn, that the composer is more the point than the conductor. I',ve made the point  before here.

  Despite my sniffiness about conductoritis, I do like hearing lots of different performances. I do sometimes get a different feeling from another performance. And of course we caome across performances that simply are the way to do it for us.

  it was interesting in a prog about conductors (available on video) hearing one orchestral player saying , c.1993, that were only about 2 real conductors living. No, alas, he didn't name 'em.


  It would be a different thread about which conductors one thought were genuinely special, really were required listening.

  i'd say Furtwangler, Toscanini, Cantelli and Kl;emperer are the obligatory ones because they are on a par in their profession with the greatest composers.

 And I did like it at the Prom performance of M7 that Horenstein did, th't during the ovation, he held up the score. I've heard of that as a cheap trick or often done. It was the only time in 100s of performances for me. I agreed with Horenstein's message.


     Ivor

[Leo K]

Ivor, were you there at that Proms concert?  Sounds like a great experience. 

Music will necessarily always be a "relational" art, so if the music is to be heard instrumentalists and conductors will factor in the listening experience. The other option is to read from the score directly, as Arnold Schoenberg did, but how many can really do this nowadays? I prize conductors because, good or bad, they actually enter the consideration to the point of dedicating their lives to music as a career...I don't understand the "conductor as scapegoat" phenomenon that sometime occurs...criticism is of course fine and a part of the experience, but like many group related enactments of music or drama, it inevitably takes a kind of "director" figure to run the proceedings.   I do not believe they are a "speck of dust” for bringing a great musical composition to life, which without the players, conductor or hall is only an object made of paper, ink and glue only existing conceptually, if at all. Good and bad performances contribute to the performance tradition and make life interesting.

The score, no matter how detailed, can never hold every key to the treasure, so I allow certain "ideas" or interpretations to be considered in judging a performance, and of course some ideas are more convincing than others. On the other hand, the score is the only context on which to judge the performance if we want to accurately review the performance. Still, there is absolutely no "perfect" way to perform a piece, nor is there a recorded performance that truly reveals a work in the exact way a composer had intended, so generalized complaints over this issue are not as interesting to me as a detailed comparison between different interpretations, or even a thoughtful paragraph or two on a listener's personal experience with a recording or work.

--Leo

[Ivor]

  Yes, Leo, i was at that M7 Proms performance, a highlight of my concert-going.

   two things about it I particularly remember (usually I can't remember a thing years later.)

   one was the the orchestro and horenstein wore white jackets (it was hot), pretty unusual even in the swingin' 60s  (nb. not "60's" - just 60s - simple plural.    )

   The other was how, on the penultimate, decrescendo, chord, Horenstein very expressively turned, nay swivelled away from the orchestra and made himself smaller, turning back suddenly for the last crash.

   And I wouldn't swear to it, but possibly the first audience yelp after , is me. I was so taken by the swivel, I might not have been first out.

   I quite miss what's going on in a perfomance interpretation-wise because my attention keeps being with  the music; with what the composer is saying rather than the performer.

   Maybe that's why I have few interpreter favourites. They really have to be special before I notice.

    I get to notice most with direct comparisons, as in the BBC's Builing a Library programme on rasio 3 - then I can hear it; or if I've got to know a perticular performance very well.



     Ivor

[Leo K]

Ivor, Thank you very much for your first hand account of that concert...I love the recording...it's amazing to read the details of how Horenstein conducted this work...again, thank you 

--Leo

[Ivor]

   My pleasure and thanks.

    played it again today. The brass was rather annoyingly off-form, like right at the start and at the end, yet it's a performance of character, reach I prefer over great technique and fantastic sound but merely efficient account.

    I'm even quite at home with the "unsuccessdul"(cpt.  D.Cooke) finale. And it's lovely having performances greeted with lots of enthusiasm.
 

[Wunderhorn]

  I agree, wunderhorn, that the composer is more the point than the conductor. I',ve made the point  before here.

  Despite my sniffiness about conductoritis, I do like hearing lots of different performances. I do sometimes get a different feeling from another performance. And of course we caome across performances that simply are the way to do it for us.

  it was interesting in a prog about conductors (available on video) hearing one orchestral player saying , c.1993, that were only about 2 real conductors living. No, alas, he didn't name 'em.


  It would be a different thread about which conductors one thought were genuinely special, really were required listening.

  i'd say Furtwangler, Toscanini, Cantelli and Kl;emperer are the obligatory ones because they are on a par in their profession with the greatest composers.

 And I did like it at the Prom performance of M7 that Horenstein did, th't during the ovation, he held up the score. I've heard of that as a cheap trick or often done. It was the only time in 100s of performances for me. I agreed with Horenstein's message.


     Ivor

I just get offended by all the pompousness of the arts. I am a simple folk, the fact is I still love classical, and as a simple folk I believe every can love it. There is also sothing intensely spiritual and single about music that shouldn't become dogmatic.

[Ivor]

  I agree with you, Wunderhorn. Everyone can enjoy classical music  Well, most, at least. It is intensely spiritual.  There is far too much pomposity in the arts generally.

  If I come across as pompous, do please let me know, publicly or privately. I assure you th't that is absolutely fine with me.

  Dogmatism is out in my book, too. I do my best to say 'I feel', 'I think','IMO', rather than sound as if I'm delivering a judgment from on high.

  For example,  In my opinion, there not only isn't but couldn't be any such thing as a definitive performance.
 

[Jot N. Tittle]

There is far too much pomposity in the arts generally.

Amen. Has it always been so, or is it a modern affectation? Does the pomposity you have in mind occur regularly--I mean with regularity--or in episodes? Is it equally encountered geographically, or does it tend to be more common in urban settings? In the US, is pomposity more common in the coastal cities--Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco--than in the inland ones--such as Cleveland, Chicago, or Houston?

And what is the relationshiip, if any, between pomposity and arrogance?

Geez, I didn't know there was that much to it.

     . & '