Beethoven in Period Performances

Started by Que, April 07, 2007, 07:34:50 AM

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Bunny

#340
Quote from: traverso on July 01, 2008, 06:02:07 AM
Given the fact that Ronald Brautigam's much praised recording of Beethoven sonatas were (and are) done on fortepianos, it was surprising for me to learn that he and Andrew Parrott decided to record the concertos with modern instruments.   An interesting option, just like Andrew Manze's "Eroica."



Who knows, perhaps one day they will do the concertos with a period orchestra and fortepiano as well.  It is a bit of a disappointment as there are more than sufficient Beethoven concerto recordings on modern instruments.

Does anyone know what type piano Brautigam uses for the concertos?  Hopefully not another Model D.

In any event, you can still listen to Brautigam's BBC recording on a fortepiano of the 4th concerto with Charles Hazlewood and Harmonieband.  Of course, you also have to listen to the lecture... >:(

Or you can skip 26 minutes ahead to the recording. ;)

Bunny

As I was just listening to Brautigam's recording of Haydn piano concertos made with the Concerto Copenhagen (also on Bis) I just regret that the same forces didn't record the Beethoven.  What a lovely recording that is!


FideLeo

Quote from: premont on June 29, 2008, 05:07:24 AM
Splendid idea, and I think everyone of us sometimes plays with thoughts like this. But on the other hand: do you think the Graf would suit Kempffs playing style, - would he be able to play the Graf in a convincing way? Nor do I think, he would be interested, - his world of expression originated from the possibilities of the modern concert grand. Not HIP, but still great music-making.

The crossover efforts by Peter Serkin are actually very good as well - especially in the Hammerklavier sonata.
HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: premont on June 29, 2008, 05:07:24 AM
Splendid idea, and I think everyone of us sometimes plays with thoughts like this. But on the other hand: do you think the Graf would suit Kempffs playing style, - would he be able to play the Graf in a convincing way? Nor do I think, he would be interested, - his world of expression originated from the possibilities of the modern concert grand. Not HIP, but still great music-making.

Well, yes and no. Nearly all the great fortepianists started out on modern pianos. They just learned technique and got into it. One of the very first, and still among the very best, was Paul Badura-Skoda, and he plays both (a Bösendorfer when he feels like it) very well indeed. Your points are well taken, but I don't think it is out of the question for a great piaist to go both ways. :)

8)

----------------
Listening to:
Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture Op 49
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

FideLeo

#344
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 04, 2008, 07:05:20 PM
Paul Badura-Skoda, and he plays both (a Bösendorfer when he feels like it)

This is somewhat OT, but a Bösendorfer can also be a fortepiano.  Founder of the oldest piano manufacturer still producing its own instruments, Ignaz Bösendorfer was already making pianos in 1828.  Some of his creations have survived.  Wolfgang Brunner played a "Besendorfer" fortepiano on a Profil recording called "Friends of Schubert."



HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

FideLeo



Worth every penny of its purchase price -- well performed and wonderfully recorded.  :)
HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: traverso on July 04, 2008, 10:16:01 PM
This is somewhat OT, but a Bösendorfer can also be a fortepiano.  Founder of the oldest piano manufacturer still producing its own instruments, Ignaz Bösendorfer was already making pianos in 1828.  Some of his creations have survived.  Wolfgang Brunner played a "Boesendorfer" fortepiano on a Profil recording called "Friends of Schubert."


Yes, very true. But Skoda plays a modern Bösendorfer Imperial on his Beethoven sonatas set (which I believe Todd reviewed quite favorably). It's OK with me, although I'll take the version on the 3 different fortepianos. :)

8)



----------------
Listening to:
St George VCs - Nishizaki Köln CO / Müller-Brühl - Saint-Georges Concerto in G for Violin Op 8 2nd mvmt
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: traverso on July 08, 2008, 04:39:18 PM

Worth every penny of its purchase price -- well performed and wonderfully recorded.  :)

Applying the spurs, FT! :)  I still think I will wait for its appearance in the States before plunging in. I just wish it wouldn't take so damn long... :-\

8)

----------------
Listening to:
St George VCs - Nishizaki Köln CO / Müller-Brühl - Saint-Georges Concerto in G for Violin Op 8 2nd mvmt
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

FideLeo

#348
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 08, 2008, 04:46:51 PM
Applying the spurs, FT! :)  I still think I will wait for its appearance in the States before plunging in. I just wish it wouldn't take so damn long... :-\

Well I am sure you will love the recording (and performance) when you receive your own copy!  In any case, the alpha website has the entire first movement of the 6th uploaded for public previewing if anyone needs a bit of confirmation.  :)

HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: traverso on July 08, 2008, 04:55:13 PM
Well I am sure you will love the recording (and performance) when you receive your own copy!  In any case, the alpha website has the entire first movement of the 6th uploaded for public previewing if anyone needs a bit of confirmation.  :)



Alpha-prod.com has the finale to Beethoven's arrangement of the Violin Concerto on its site. (I consider it an affectation to call this arrangement the 6th Concerto; Beethoven did not do so.) Like its predecessor recording, it is overbalanced towards the winds and timpani, making it impossible to hear important upper string lines in heavy tuttis. And it sounds as if once again the performers think that the first and second violin parts should be given to solo players while they use two players on the lower strings. (Any beginning student of orchestration knows that violin 1 and 2 do not indicate individual players but two separate instrumental parts to be given to multiple players. If you have to limit the lower strings to two each, at least have two first violins and two seconds for balance.) The pianist is not as rhythmically sloppy as he is in the Emperor finale, but he once again shows as in the first movement of 4 that he hasn't the slightest idea how to create a cadenza. Hopefully he uses Beethoven's piano/timpani cadenza for the first movement, as that is the most interesting aspect of the arrangement. I wonder if the album notes once again spend more time discussing the uninteresting cover art than the music, but I don't intend to spend 19 euros to find out.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

FideLeo

#350
Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 05:56:59 PM
Alpha-prod.com has the finale to Beethoven's arrangement of the Violin Concerto on its site. (I consider it an affectation to call this arrangement the 6th Concerto; Beethoven did not do so.) Like its predecessor recording, it is overbalanced towards the winds and timpani, making it impossible to hear important upper string lines in heavy tuttis. And it sounds as if once again the performers think that the first and second violin parts should be given to solo players while they use two players on the lower strings. (Any beginning student of orchestration knows that violin 1 and 2 do not indicate individual players but two separate instrumental parts to be given to multiple players. If you have to limit the lower strings to two each, at least have two first violins and two seconds for balance.) (snipped) Hopefully he uses Beethoven's piano/timpani cadenza for the first movement, as that is the most interesting aspect of the arrangement. I wonder if the album notes once again spend more time discussing the uninteresting cover art than the music, but I don't intend to spend 19 euros to find out.

Well, Schoonderwoerd discussed in the booklet the reason why he used only 2 violins for accompaniment.  I consider his essay part of the value of the recording, and yes it's worth every penny I paid for it.  :)

EDIT: No he used a 5.5 octave instrument to play the 6th so Beethoven's own cadenza, composed later for a 6-octave fortepiano, couldn't be used. 
HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

(poco) Sforzando

#351
Quote from: traverso on July 08, 2008, 06:05:36 PM
Well, Schoonderwoerd discussed in the booklet the reason why he used only 2 violins for accompaniment.

Actually he doesn't. Nor does he explain why he lets his woodwinds so dominate in the tuttis in the finale of 5 that the sixteenth notes in the first violin are barely audible. (I'll have to upload a scan of the score or find the measure numbers if needed.) But his little room accommodating 24 players could have easily fit another two violins.

But the whole premise is faulty to start with, to my mind. As the booklet states, the idea of playing the concertos in small rooms came from Czerny, in direct opposition to Beethoven's suggestion that the Emperor be played in a large hall. And in fact the 4th concerto was first performed publicly in the Theater an der Wien - a particularly large hall - in 1808, along with symphonies 5 and 6 and the Choral Fantasy. Beethoven himself gives unmistakable clues as to the size of his orchestra for 6, in that the slow movement has parts for two solo celli along with the "tutti violincelli" - and so therefore common sense tells us Beethoven would have expected an orchestra with at least four celli, and other strings in proportion. It does make sense - and even Charles Rosen, no friend to HIP, concedes as much - to reduce the number of strings to one each during solo passages, and this works very well in the Alpha recording during the development section of 4, but not the tuttis. And if Beethoven himself favored a larger hall with presumably a larger orchestra for his concertos, then well -- duh . . . .
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

FideLeo

Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 06:25:50 PM
Actually he doesn't. Nor does he explain why he lets his woodwinds so dominate in the tuttis in the finale of 5 that the sixteenth notes in the first violin are barely audible. (His little room accommodating 24 players could have easily fit another two violins.)

He does in this one (nos. 3 & 6).  Check it out yourself.

HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: traverso on July 08, 2008, 06:28:10 PM
He does in this one (nos. 3 & 6).  Check it out yourself.

Only if I find it remaindered for pennies at a used CD store. I don't intend to throw away the equivalent of 19 euros - $30 American - to hear another of Sch.'s little noodling cadenzas, when I can pay far less to hear pianist on a modern piano play Beethoven's own.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

FideLeo

Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 06:34:03 PM
Only if I find it remaindered for pennies at a used CD store. I don't intend to throw away the equivalent of 19 euros - $30 American - to hear another of Sch.'s little noodling cadenzas, when I can pay far less to hear pianist on a modern piano play Beethoven's own.

I am not about to quibble with YOUR taste.  Suit yourself.
HIP for all and all for HIP! Harpsichord for Bach, fortepiano for Beethoven and pianoforte for Brahms!

(poco) Sforzando

#355
Quote from: traverso on July 08, 2008, 06:36:48 PM
I am not about to quibble with YOUR taste.  Suit yourself.

Quibble or not as you like. Schoonderwoerd's inadequate cadenzas for 4 are enough to compromise the recording for me, its other inadequacies notwithstanding. He takes the stance - perfectly reasonable on the face of it - that the soloist is free to create his own cadenzas. But for the first four concertos, Beethoven wrote cadenzas of his own, sometimes several for the same movement, and it's clear he felt sufficiently interested in showing what he expected a cadenza to be that late in life he wrote examples for 1 and 2, as the largest cadenza for 1 uses piano figuration derived from the Appassionata as well as a 6-octave keyboard.

Legalistically speaking, no performer is obligated to use Beethoven's cadenzas, though most are willing - and I daresay humble enough - to do so. But I would think even a master such as Schoonderwoerd would recognize that if Beethoven left cadenzas, he did so as a model for what he thought a cadenza should be. And in Beethoven's first movement cadenzas, these are not just figurations loosely tied to the material of the piece but elaborate, lengthy, highly modulatory virtuosic vehicles that serve both as codas to the movement and secondary development sections. The cadenza to 3 - I'm sure Schoonderwoerd doesn't use it - is in particular a masterpiece, revealing all kinds of new light on the primary material. But they are all fine examples.

The score of 4 gives yet another clue as to what the first movement cadenza should be like, which is that in the finale, Beethoven's instruction regarding its cadenza reads: "La cadenza sia corta." Obviously if the cadenza to the finale should be short, then the cadenza to the first movement should be - well, I won't even do the math for you. And Beethoven's surviving first movement cadenzas are between 3-5 minutes. (One could even say the ones for 1 and 2 are so elaborate and mature as to overwhelm these charming early works.) But Schoonderwoerd's two cadenzas to 4 are both about 30 seconds long, and show no sign of having learned from Beethoven's surviving models.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

(poco) Sforzando

Examples where an important 1st violin line is lost on this recording because the lone violinist cannot compete with the rest of the orchestra.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

M forever

Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 06:34:03 PM
Only if I find it remaindered for pennies at a used CD store. I don't intend to throw away the equivalent of 19 euros - $30 American - to hear another of Sch.'s little noodling cadenzas, when I can pay far less to hear pianist on a modern piano play Beethoven's own.

I would strongly advise you against spending even a single penny on that. In fact, after hearing Schoonderwoerd's recordings of the 3rd and 5th concertos, you would literally have to pay me large amounts of money to make me listen to more of this inadequate crap. And mind you, I am someone who has been extremely interested in HIP and other interpretive styles and approaches of all kinds and played both in period instrument and modern ensembles with period approaches for a long time. In theory, I found the idea of playing these works with a chamber-sized ensemble at least interesting, after all, I have myself organized and participated performances of several Beethoven symphonies and the violin concerto with an ensemble with as small a string section as 4-4-3-3-2, with some quite interesting and rewarding results.
But this here is simply nonsense from a musical and musicological point of view in theory and practice, and Schoonderwoerd is simply not good enough a pianist to play these concertos in public, let alone make recordings of them. Here we have the carricature of HIP at its worst. This is somthing that might have happened in the 70s and invited the at the time fairly typical comments that apparently only third-rate musicians use this as a vehicle to carve out a niche for themselves, and while back then, it was often an unfair attack levelled at musicians who really dared to challenge and experiment, in this case, it is true in every respect.
This is so bizarrely bad on so many levels that it is in a way even saddening to see that someone who is as inadequate a pianist, as untrustworthy as a scholar, and simply as irrelevant as a performing artist in this repertoire, manages to gain attention for his completely mediocre contributions.
And this after decades of very serious and very fruitful efforts by many very good musicians to seriously explore the possibilities and implications of period performance, with many highly interesting, stimulating, and challenging results. This stuff is none of the above. It is just plainly very bad.

Rod Corkin

Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 06:25:50 PM
Actually he doesn't. Nor does he explain why he lets his woodwinds so dominate in the tuttis in the finale of 5 that the sixteenth notes in the first violin are barely audible. (I'll have to upload a scan of the score or find the measure numbers if needed.) But his little room accommodating 24 players could have easily fit another two violins.


The reason he uses one instrument per part was that this arrangement replicates that of the very first (private) performance of the 4th Concerto. It is all a matter of the venue and it's acoustics, but I'd rather have a relatively small band than a huge orchestra for this music. Certainly I've never heard a grander and more effective performance of the 5th than Schoonderwoerd's with is tiny orchestra. Especially the first movement. Really this recording has no competition at the moment. It is the first choice for B's 5th concerto.

The 4th on this disk plods a bit in the first movement, and the second is under played, but the Rondo has some balls to it.

Overall worth buying just for the first movement of the 5th on its own!
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/classicalmusicmayhem/

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Rod Corkin on July 09, 2008, 05:50:49 AM
The reason he uses one instrument per part was that this arrangement replicates that of the very first (private) performance of the 4th Concerto.

He does not use one instrument per part. He uses one 1st violin, one 2nd, two violas, two celli, and a bass. What's the sense of that?
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."