Classical Instruments: Historical or Modern?

[xaviescacs]

If anyone is interested in historic temperament here is good video about it:

That perfect third sounds so good compared to the equally tempered piano one...

 

[xaviescacs]

Thanks for your nice words. I have a little project about writing reviews with some colleagues about performance we attend to, and to me this little text was a sort of training. In that context your words are encouraging.

Yes, this is one of problems with playing on piano music written especially for harpsichord. Counterpoint in such pieces is quite dense and if notes are sustained too much they collide with "harmony".

What I like about Gould is that he is well aware of this, and tries to respect this property of the music. He knows that music and adds his style and philosophy to it, one can like it or not, I most of the times I do, but one can't say he doesn't respects the music.

I am always steering away form statement like "nature of music" or "this was composer intention" [there are some instances when we can be sure of it but they are quite rare]

Agree. I'm on slippery ground every time I use these or similar expressions, for good or for bad. I didn't use "this was composer intention", this is too much even for me , but I did use "nature of the music", and while it's a bit subjective, what I mean by it, roughly,is how it sounds if one plays it exactly as it's written, like in a exercise. I believe every performance should start from here, and then explore.

Regard to intentions, it's quite fun actually because in many of this baroque keyboard compositions, the author is the first to warn the reader to don't expect nothing very deep but just a collection of pieces to learn, practice and have fun.

 

[SMc]

this could also be of intrest:

recordings from the beginning of the 20th century are compared to modern ones. it's a whole diferent world if you ask me. classical music was much more alive, more "pop". modern interpretations are very heavy and strict. I would love to hear modern recordings of classical pieces played in this lighter, more free, more artistic style. imo classical music would be more popular if it would still be played like that.

Nice talk but he overstates the differences between older and newer recordings. Read Harold Schonberg for a different view of the romantic piano. The vocal performances are susceptible to cherry-picking, of course. Patti's performance sounds of the salon to me. (The comments about vibrato are problematic due to the frequency range limitations of the recording.)

 

[xaviescacs]

Hello @xaviescacs,

I thank you indeed for your really intensive insights, thoughts and listening to these piano and harpsichord performances of wonderful works of Couperin and Bach; I am deeply impressed by your detailed descriptions which you shared with us.

At least myself, I am not so strict as you are in "analyzing" performances and historic background of the music and performances. For me (as an naive classical and early music enthusiast), both of the piano and harpsichord performances are just really enjoyable, if I feel comfortable and agree with the approaches and understandings of the playing artists as well as with the recording quality in audio listening with my audio setup and room acoustics.

I feel really fortunate that I am living in the era where I can enjoy these wonderful performances with historical/period instruments (in this case harpsichord) and also modern piano both in digitally recorded formats for easily repeated listening; I can also occasionally attend the live concerts (piano or harpsichord) of these talented artists; wonderful music experiences.

For my profound fascinations to excellent harpsichord performances, you would please also refer to my post #122 above.

In any way, I fully agree with your point of "it’s a different music", and the amazing music works written by Couperin and Bach, and by other great composers, are still vividly alive even now as "world music heritage" to be played by period and modern instruments, in my humble opinion.

Thank you again, and let's enjoy wonderful music...

To me, nothing deserves more respect than someone who loves music and shares this love with others. It's a pleasure to share this time and space with you.

And, my increasing fascinations on French baroque music which I recently started to share on my remote thread entitled "Lute Music and Other Early Music: Stunning Recordings We Love" could be partly supported and explained by your point.

I guess I can say I'm on a similar process, loving more French Baroque than German one, mainly through to Savall in my case, as a starting point. French love him because he has given a new life to composers like Marais!

(For me too, English is not my mother language, and Japanese is much far away from English compared to Spanish. I always a little bit struggle about how I can describe my thoughts properly in English.)

My first Language is actually Catalan, which is closer to French than Spanish, which is the main source of many English words and expressions, so it's a hair easier to me than for a purely Spanish speaker. From Japanese perspective all those differences and nuances must look insignificant

 

[xaviescacs]

(sorry I do not know how to quote it properly)

Just underline with the mouse (or finger) the part of the post you want to quote, and a little "reply" button will appear, just click it and the quoted text will appear in you current draft at the point were your pointer is or, there is no draft, it will create a new one with the quoted text at the beginning. I think you can also create a quote from scratch using the markdown rules, but the highlight method is more than enough.

 

[dualazmak]

I guess I can say I'm on a similar process, loving more French Baroque than German one, mainly through to Savall in my case, as a starting point. French love him because he has given a new life to composers like Marais!

Really interesting to know that we are similar voyagers into French Baroque music. Yes, for me too, Savall has been one of the great guides/pilots to the ocean of French Baroque. I will soon touch on this on my lute and early music thread.

 

[posvibes]

many of Gould performances are hard to justify but what he is doing is so logical as entity and well balanced that I treat is as one of the most convincing interpretation of Bach pieces on piano.

When I listen to Gould's Goldberg Variations recording from 1955 to me they feel like he is composing them as opposed to just playing them, as if he has taken on the Bach persona, you can almost hear the hesitations in the next note played, then a sort of boost of confidence as if fitting the right jigsaw piece in place. I wonder sometimes if Bach had moments of inspired noodling on the keyboard looking for the correct, right, best variation.

 

[PatF]

New recording of Handel Coronation Anthems - natural trumpets inside

 

[posvibes]

Roger Norrington: ‘I’ve been trying to play Mozart for 60 years. On this, my last recording, I think I’ve finally cracked it’

Mozart’s sublime music is deceptively difficult to play. Conductor Roger Norrington explains how the composer’s own father helped rewire brains and eradicate wobble

www.theguardian.com

 

[dasdoing]

he overstates the differences between older and newer recordings.

well, I heard what he showed. that sure doesn't mean those recordings are fully representive for that period and even less that they are for the period before.

 

[dasdoing]

If anyone is interested in historic temperament here is good video about it:

I had piano lessons as a teen. the chords would drive me crazy cause they always sounded off. And our piano was professionaly tuned. Only decades later I learned that they really are.

 

[Digby]

recordings from the beginning of the 20th century are compared to modern ones. it's a whole diferent world if you ask me. classical music was much more alive, more "pop". modern interpretations are very heavy and strict.

The word I would use is colour. Some occasionally used too much colour (Mengelberg), but from this listeners point of view, a lot of classical music today is seen as an exercise in academic rigour, rather than an exercise in music making/interpretation.

The typical modern interpretation is much more flat with regards to colour, tempo changes, dynamics...you name it.

Who can tell one modern conductor, pianist, violinist from the next? Yes, it can be done, but it takes minutes, rather than seconds. Compare Furtwangler and Toscanini, Hess and Rubinstein, Heifetz and Kreisler - the difference is immediate and obvious, and often with no true superior, just different interpretations/understandings.

I'm convinced most audiences find this, how shall we say, flat modern approach, rather dull. Give me crackly old 78s, distinctly not hi-fi, over clean and pure (and often inexorably dull) modern takes.

 

[Robin L]

Compare Furtwangler and Toscanini,

Both essentially wrong but in divergent ways. One of Toscanini's biggest problems was a less than stupendous instrument in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, another the conductor's insistence on dry, boxy sound. He treated his orchestra like crap, the results usually feeling very nervous. Furtwängler had much better luck with choice of orchestra and quality of recording---some of the very first tape recordings are of Furtwängler conducting Bruckner 1944/45. Furtwängler never let anyone forget that Furtwängler conducted that piece. No matter how much pushing and pulling of tempo it was going to take.

Meanwhile, Beethoven's Eroica performed by a world class ensemble in a friendly acoustic at the tempi suggested by the composer's metronome markings. This goes back about ten years. Compare and contrast to any of Furtwängler's or Toscanini's efforts in the same music:

 

[PatF]

Nice article and very true: https://www.classical-music.com/fea...b7dvDS1ZDR9lEXgFaFsDE1ipLLrG3oI14FLUcT_PRF25E

 

[PatF]

I had piano lessons as a teen. the chords would drive me crazy cause they always sounded off. And our piano was professionaly tuned. Only decades later I learned that they really are.

Yea one of the most striking discoveries . I often stun people when I tell them that piano is the most out of tune instrument we have ...

 

[PatF]

Roger Norrington: ‘I’ve been trying to play Mozart for 60 years. On this, my last recording, I think I’ve finally cracked it’

Mozart’s sublime music is deceptively difficult to play. Conductor Roger Norrington explains how the composer’s own father helped rewire brains and eradicate wobble

www.theguardian.com

For sure approach to Mozart on this recording is different form usual modern instrument performances and this is interesting experience. Still woodwind and brass wind creates much different sound and balance than period instruments...

 

[Digby]

Both essentially wrong but in divergent ways. One of Toscanini's biggest problems was a less than stupendous instrument in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, another the conductor's insistence on dry, boxy sound. He treated his orchestra like crap, the results usually feeling very nervous. Furtwängler had much better luck with choice of orchestra and quality of recording---some of the very first tape recordings are of Furtwängler conducting Bruckner 1944/45. Furtwängler never let anyone forget that Furtwängler conducted that piece. No matter how much pushing and pulling of tempo it was going to take.

Probably you are right, they are essentially wrong. I admit being ignorant enough about music that I don't know how such and such composers music should be played, if going by the score & time period, and do you know what, I feel all the better for it.

My non-musician take is, if I'm not playing the music, then I'd rather be ignorant and listen to these incorrect interpretations without feeling the music has been desecrated (as some seem to feel). In a number of ways, I feel they musically hit the spot more so than modern orchestras that play like metronomes, always on the beat, always the same (often abbreviated) note length, nothing goes ahead, nothing drags behind, all of a similar colour throughout.

I do wonder if we were to ask Beethoven himself whether he wanted such interpretations, that he had a singular idea of perfection for a certain piece, that not only could be attained, but should be attempted in more or less than same way by all conductors and orchestras, whether he would say yes. I don't know, but my feeling is that the playing of today is not really any less peculiar/particular to a time than that of the 1930s and if we had Beethoven to refer to, he'd likely find them equally foreign to how music was played within his lifetime.

One of Toscanini's biggest problems was a less than stupendous instrument in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, another the conductor's insistence on dry, boxy sound. He treated his orchestra like crap, the results usually feeling very nervous.

But isn't that some of the point of music, a little sense of the nervous, of the immediate, of a creation happening right now, rather than something honed to a sharp point over endless rehearsals. Another issue I have with modern orchestration is that it all sounds like they have played it 1000 times before, there is no element of risk, no chance of a violinist or flutist holding a note too long or coming in at the wrong time and this seems to give the music a static feeling. To my mind there is such a thing as being too perfect and it can kill music. Without any sense of risk, is it really music?

Listen to this Brahms violin concerto with Toscanini and Heifetz. They seem to be fighting throughout over tempo. Toscanini wants to go slower and Heifetz, as per usual, wants to race ahead. The two titans are butting heads, but this sense of tension, at least to me, is magic. Yes, it is scattershot, yes, it is haphazard, yes, all kinds of liberties might be being taken, but it is living, breathing music, not something suspended in aspic.

 

[PatF]

Nice article and very true: https://www.classical-music.com/fea...b7dvDS1ZDR9lEXgFaFsDE1ipLLrG3oI14FLUcT_PRF25E

One comment to this article. Author is mentioning David Munrow and his fresh and extraordinary performances of medieval music also he states that we do not have today nothing similar... It is not true we have few quite outstanding ensembles playing medieval/early renaissance music in very interesting way.

 

[xaviescacs]

One comment to this article. Author is mentioning David Munrow and his fresh and extraordinary performances of medieval music also he states that we do not have today nothing similar... It is not true we have few quite outstanding ensembles playing medieval/early renaissance music in very interesting way.

Is this music intended for dance? This doesn't sound old to my ears, it sounds like the music I hear in every traditional popular festival, it sounds like home. This is more "cult" and refined, but the instrumentation and the harmony is essentially the same.

 

[PatF]

Is this music intended for dance? This doesn't sound old to my ears, it sounds like the music I hear in every traditional popular festival, it sounds like home. This is more "cult" and refined, but the instrumentation and the harmony is essentially the same.

Yes a lot of this music is intended for dance or outdoor festivals, events like tournaments. Alta Band (2 shawms and Bucin [long medieval trumpet]) was typical ensemble for such music. Most probably creation of Alta Band was influenced by Saracen military bands seen during crusades.