Thread: Who are these people?

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Post by Polly Nomial September 22, 2005 (21 of 38)
viktor said:

(And BTW the Stravinsky disc on PentaTone is sound wise a winner, but musically it is not even close to what Stravinsky wanted - and it is HIS music, not Järvis´)

This is an interesting point of view which is regularly discussed in the music press; the alternative view point is that once the ink is dry and the score published it, apart from the directions & notations in the score, is no longer Stravinsky's piece (other than that he wrote it).

Personally I think that there is a balance - no notation is perfect and that leaves some room for interpretative licence. Equally I think that one should respect the notes and directions employed by whichever composer is being performed (within the context of the era in which the composer lived in).

With particular reference to Stravinsky, his conducting was not (and don't think many would disagree) wonderful although the music he conducted was. Many composers are frequently startled by what other musicians find in "their" music and some like it a lot (one thinks of Horowitz playing Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto), some less so (Karajan's 60's Rite of Spring for example).

Post by viktor September 22, 2005 (22 of 38)
Polly Nomial said:

This is an interesting point of view which is regularly discussed in the music press; the alternative view point is that once the ink is dry and the score published it, apart from the directions & notations in the score, is no longer Stravinsky's piece (other than that he wrote it).

Personally I think that there is a balance - no notation is perfect and that leaves some room for interpretative licence. Equally I think that one should respect the notes and directions employed by whichever composer is being performed (within the context of the era in which the composer lived in).

With particular reference to Stravinsky, his conducting was not (and don't think many would disagree) wonderful although the music he conducted was. Many composers are frequently startled by what other musicians find in "their" music and some like it a lot (one thinks of Horowitz playing Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto), some less so (Karajan's 60's Rite of Spring for example).

Stravinsky gave lectures on how to perform his music. On how important the rhythm is, how to make it come to life, on the importance of the accents. On how not to drag. He also wrote a lot about this subject giving numerous examples of how he wanted it to be done. Last but not least, he recorded nearly all his music in what is for me in almost all the cases easily the best ever.

There is some very strange idea that Stravinsky was a bad conductor. He was not bad at all. He was no showman. Listen to him rehearsing, listen to him trying to make Philippe Entremont play rhytmically correct in the piano concerto rehearsals. Listen to him coaching Cathy Berberian in order to recieve the right accent. The horns at the beginning of the piano concerto etc. It takes an acute ear to do that.

Compare the opening of Histoire du soldat with Paavo järvi and the composer in his 1961 recording. The old man is sharp, alert and full of life. The young man is slow, lethargic and way off the mark. And so it goes on. Listen to the last movement in the Dumbarton Oaks concerto. Järvi is slow and lifeless, the composer is wonderfully alert.

A conductors job is to play the music as written by the composer. He/She has no right to rethink or rearrange according to his own whims. And since we are so lucky as to have Stravinsky´s thoughts on this it is in my opinion an insult to both listeners and the composer to produce something so bad as Järvis disc.

I don´t mean that you have to copy the old mans recordings, neither did he himself, but the spirit must be there. And it is there to get for anyone who has respect for Stravinsky.

"Interpretative license"... Stravinsky´s scores are full of markings, only a charlatan would fail to make this music come to life.

Post by Daland September 23, 2005 (23 of 38)
viktor said:

A conductors job is to play the music as written by the composer. He/She has no right to rethink or rearrange according to his own whims. And since we are so lucky as to have Stravinsky´s thoughts on this it is in my opinion an insult to both listeners and the composer to produce something so bad as Järvis disc.

Fidelity to the score (Werktreue) is a relatively recent concept. For centuries a composer's music was regarded as material that could be performed, reworked, rearranged or transcribed at will. There are no objective reasons militating against such an approach. Even now most conductors have their own thoughts about how a piece should be performed. Orchestral players add lots of markings to their scores which they either observe or not, depending on the conductor.It is often difficult to fathom a composer's intentions. What a composer said at one point may not be his last word on the matter or his real opinion (just think of Bruckner). Many composers used metronome markings only to discover (e.g. Brahms) that they were much too fast when they heard the piece performed in the concert hall.
But I have a lurking suspicion that your primary concern is not to secure respect for a composer's intentions but to pour venom on a conductor you thoroughly dislike. You remind me of two music critics here in Berlin who have decided between themselves which conductors are bad and then find fault with all their recordings. So I know beforehand that all recordings by Abbado, Barenboim, Boulez and Thielemann are awful, whereas those by Chailly, Norrington, Gardiner and Dohnanyi are excellent.

Post by viktor September 24, 2005 (24 of 38)
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Post by mandel September 24, 2005 (25 of 38)
viktor said:

You mention Brahms, why? I am talking about Stravinsky.

Possibly as part of an intellegent discussion and exchange of opinions, rather than just pandering to one person who wishes to use the forums as their own personal ranting space.

Post by viktor September 24, 2005 (26 of 38)
mandel said:

Possibly as part of an intellegent discussion and exchange of opinions, rather than just pandering to one person who wishes to use the forums as their own personal ranting space.

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Post by Castor September 24, 2005 (27 of 38)
mandel said:

Possibly as part of an intellegent discussion and exchange of opinions, rather than just pandering to one person who wishes to use the forums as their own personal ranting space.

Spot on mandel!!

Viktor
Why don't you accept that others have different views about conductors, music works, performances and recordings from you, and that what YOU write here is purely YOUR opinion?
There is no need to launch an invective against composers, conductors or, for that matter, members of this forum to make your point.

Post by Polly Nomial September 24, 2005 (28 of 38)
viktor said:

There is a world of difference between a score by an 18th century composer and one by Stravinsky. The latter is very clear about his intentions, the former relies on the musicians to do their part in the creative process.

No matter how clear a composer can be in their markings, there is still (a great deal of) room for differing opinions to be made. Sometimes, C20 composers ask for a certain "spirit" (for example) at particular moments. However, how one percieves such a spirit will, of course, depend upon the formative experiences one has had in the past - they will evolve from generation to generation and also differ within each generation.

Every generation of composers seems to be more and more precise but each generation of performers succeeds (more or less successfully depending on personal taste) at reinterpreting these self-same directions. I doubt very much that any composer/performer has completely consistently performed a particular piece in only one way.

I also do not believe that one can really say that X captures spirit of Y better than Z, because (frequently) Y may not be around to judge and/or their opinion may change from day to day. Everyone can, of course, have their own views about which does capture the spirit better for them but one must remember that this is an opinion (no matter how strongly held) and not a fact.

WRT C18 & Stravinsky, some would argue (from the HIP school of thought) that Mozart/Beethoven et al are all too clear about their intentions (just not as many directions) and that Furtwangler/Wagner/Liszt/Karajan/Klemperer grossly distorted these when performing C18 music and "do[ing] their part in the creative process". Equally, not even Stravinsky marks *every* single fluctation of phrasing, rubato, balance in - one can test this by listening to his own readings of his own scores and those that he approved of from other musicians; they are frequently markedly different, even though Stravinsky was "very clear about his intentions". Yet, despite these differences, Stravinsky recognised that many other performances were good.

More to the point, performing music (except when improvising/extemporising) is not a creative procress; it is a recreative process over which the composer (the creator), unless conducting/performing, has no control.

Post by ramesh September 24, 2005 (29 of 38)
An interesting case with regards to Stravinsky, is the RCA Monteux performance of the 1911 Pétrouchka/ Petrushka, which hopefully many readers may have obtained by now on SACD. Monteux conducted the first performances, when it was a ballet, and must've had intensive input from Stravinsky. The first section of the first scene starts off at an amiable amble, compared to all 'symphonic' readings of the score, and then there are tempo fluctuations a couple of minutes into the piece, which are underlined by the modest initial speed.

These disappear in the 1947 revision, so we have two versions; the first, a work influenced by its genesis as a ballet, the second making the work more 'symphonic' in terms of unified tempo relationships and less enthusiastic percussion, for posterity. Strangely, the smattering of 1911 performances I've heard, don't make as much of the rhythmic fluctuations as Monteux has done, presumably in part because tempo irregularities are often viewed by musicians and listeners as markers of incompetence.
It's a pity the French spelling of the name wasn't kept for the 1911 performance, for the Diaghilev performances were in France, and 'Petrushka' for the 1947 American Stravinsky. Interestingly, the separate volumes of the Craft/Stravinsky dialogues aren't in agreement as to the spelling.

As to Viktor's comment of Stravinsky as conductor, the history of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra states even without his reputation as one of the great composers, he was one of the very greatest musicians to conduct it ( the NZSO however usually didn't get the conductors signed up by the major record companies) ; with a most fastidious ear for intonation. He deeply impressed the musicians by his musical ability, even though his baton technique was average.

Post by viktor September 24, 2005 (30 of 38)
Castor said:

Spot on mandel!!

Viktor
Why don't you accept that others have different views about conductors, music works, performances and recordings from you, and that what YOU write here is purely YOUR opinion?
There is no need to launch an invective against composers, conductors or, for that matter, members of this forum to make your point.

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