The Romantics in Period Performances

Started by Que, April 09, 2007, 07:07:54 AM

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Mandryka

Is this true?

Quote

On the earliest
recordings this means that the performers do not
play together in an exact manner. That was certainly
part of the idea: a free and easy association with
tempo and notation was self-evident – anyone who
was incapable of doing this just wasn't a proper musician!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on August 01, 2019, 07:34:04 AM
Is this true?

What's the context of this quote? Who said that and referring to what?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

Quote from: Florestan on August 01, 2019, 10:34:19 AM
What's the context of this quote? Who said that and referring to what?

It's from Leila Schayegh's essay on interpreting the Brahms sonatas in the release we were discussing, it's taken from the bigger quote I posted.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on August 01, 2019, 11:36:50 AM
It's from Leila Schayegh's essay on interpreting the Brahms sonatas in the release we were discussing, it's taken from the bigger quote I posted.

Thanks. Will read that longer quote asap and comment upon it.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

Another challenging comment from Schehnegh, this time about portamento

QuoteWe modern violinists attempt to change posi- tion as discretely as possible because we feel the sounds of sliding to be too affected, too Romantic. And there's the problem: portamento is Romantic and forms part of the expressive repertoire of this era. If one is going to take ownership of the violinist tech- nique of the period, one has no alternative than to make the change of position discernible. Indeed, the bow must be held in a position that alters neither the pressure nor the speed through a slur. At the same time, one must let the fingers of the left hand rest as much as possible on the strings being played, even when changing position. The combination of con- stant bow contact in the right hand and finger pres- sure from the left necessarily entails a portamento, no margin being left for concealing what is thought to be undesirable.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

milk

#665

I can't tell what's going on in this recording (on period instruments). Maybe I'm in a bad mood. This is recorded badly: too much reverberation or maybe they recorded this in a subway station. But it inspired me to go back and enjoy two period recordings of the cello works: Sergei Istomin and Viviana Sofronitsky's and Christian Poltera and Ronald Brautigam's. The Poltera/Brautigam is perhaps the more inspired. 

Mandryka



Noone can say whether you'll like the voice or not, but the performance seems sufficiently original in the current context that it's well worth a listen I'd say.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

milk

Quote from: Mandryka on September 13, 2019, 06:44:01 AM


Noone can say whether you'll like the voice or not, but the performance seems sufficiently original in the current context that it's well worth a listen I'd say.
I should give that another listen. BTW: Is Brautigam the only one who recorded the complete "Songs Without Words" on period instruments?

JBS

Posted this last night on the WAYLT2 thread

Quote from: JBS on October 18, 2019, 06:23:13 PM
This landed today
[asin]B075FLXZ3Z[/asin]
The premise is that while he was writing his last works, Beethoven used a Broadwood to which some sort of apparatus was attached that allowed the composer to hear, in some degree, himself play the instrument. Beghin and his associates tried to recreate the apparatus (on which information is a bit sketchy), put it on a modern replica of the Broadwood, and record the result. I am not sure whether the result is meant to be what Beethoven might have heard, or what a listener in the room would hear. The CD comes in a little book with photos and essays, and directions to a website with videos of the sonatas being played, a full length documentary, and other goodies.   The booklet provides a password (individualized for each CD, I think) that allows access to all this. (The website is Insidethehearingmachine.com) Have not read the booklet or visited the website, so I don't know yet what Beghin's intentions were.

Without that background info, the recordings seem middle of the road, non virtuosic readings recorded reasonably close, but not too close on a modern fortepiano clone, although the upper registers may be a little more "tinkly" than usual.

Update for this thread:
After posting I read through the booklet, which clarifies that the sonics are meant to replicate what the pianist (a person with normal hearing, not a person with Beethoven's deafness) hears as he plays with the "hearing machine" in place.

I have yet to watch the videos or the other material at the website, but the booklet by itself is rather interesting.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

#669
I thought the "gothic" op 110/iii was a bit special. In fact there's a few things in that recording which I think are interesting.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

San Antone

That Beghin Beethoven recording is not for me.  The sound of the piano is not something I wish to hear playing this music.

amw

I wasn't a big fan of the ornamentation and found the interpretation somewhat pedestrian in other ways, if I recall correctly, with rubato and changes in tempo seemingly substituting for any real expression. I may listen again eventually to see if I was wrong.

milk


I know of Giacometti but hadn't know of this ensemble before. Apparently they've done Beethoven and Mendelssohn trios too.

vers la flamme

Any love for Tobias Koch? He is something of a Schumann specialist and has recorded a lot of Schumann's lesser known piano music on old pianos. I just picked up this one:



I have to say the piano is one of the best I've heard from this era, but I'm not a period instruments purist, nor do I like the sound of most fortepianos that I hear.

Moreover I am a big fan of Genuin's packaging here. There is a lot of information about the instrument used and the pieces performed. Also included are album leaves by Brahms, Theodor Kirchner, and one Woldemar Bargiel, whom I've never heard of.

Florestan

Quote from: vers la flamme on December 23, 2019, 02:22:45 AM
Any love for Tobias Koch? He is something of a Schumann specialist and has recorded a lot of Schumann's lesser known piano music on old pianos. I just picked up this one:


I have this and a few other Schumann discs of his and he's indeed very good.

Quoteone Woldemar Bargiel, whom I've never heard of.

Clara Wieck's half-brother.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

milk

#675
Quote from: vers la flamme on December 23, 2019, 02:22:45 AM
Any love for Tobias Koch? He is something of a Schumann specialist and has recorded a lot of Schumann's lesser known piano music on old pianos. I just picked up this one:



I have to say the piano is one of the best I've heard from this era, but I'm not a period instruments purist, nor do I like the sound of most fortepianos that I hear.

Moreover I am a big fan of Genuin's packaging here. There is a lot of information about the instrument used and the pieces performed. Also included are album leaves by Brahms, Theodor Kirchner, and one Woldemar Bargiel, whom I've never heard of.
His recording of Schumann's violin and keyboard, I believe the violinist's name is Landgraf, is one of my favorite recordings.

vers la flamme

#676
Quote from: Florestan on December 23, 2019, 02:30:18 AM
I have this and a few other Schumann discs of his and he's indeed very good.

Clara Wieck's half-brother.

Wow! Lot of composers in that family. I managed to get the disc for very cheap and I'm happy I did, I don't think it's something I would have sought out if it were at full price, but I'm tempted to seek out more of his work now.

@milk, that sounds great, I'll have to check it out. I have Isabelle Faust and Silke Avenhaus playing the violin sonatas and I'm happy with it, so the Koch/Landgraf will have to really bring something new to the table for me to take much interest in it.

edit: I see now that there is much more included than just the three violin sonatas here. So maybe it will be a worthwhile investment...

Brian


Brian

This just barely qualifies as part-HIP:



Modern Steinway
Violin with three gut strings and one steel

Horns:
Scherzo & Sonata: Paxman triple horn, London c. 1970
Trio: Raoux-Labbaye natural horn, Paris c. 1871—76, with piston-valve section by William Brown. Built in France as a natural horn, it was imported to London where a detachable valve-block was added. In possession of the Brain family and used by kind permission of Tina Brain and the Royal Academy of Music.

Note from the performer:
"Why Brahms favoured the Waldhorn over the horn with valves is often misunderstood. He wrote that if 'the wind player is not compelled by the stopped notes to play gently, then also the piano and violin are not obliged to conform to him. All the poetry is lost and the sound is coarse and repulsive from the very beginning.' To modern ears, the defining characteristic of the natural horn is its hand-stopped notes, as opposed to the exclusively open tones of the modern horn. Yet in his letter Brahms is not insisting on the stopped sounds but rather on the horn playing softly (sanft) and the colleagues balancing down to match. Orchestral valve horns in use in Germany in the 1860s tended to be much heavier and louder than the Waldhorn. So no wonder Brahms was apprehensive about hearing his Trio performed on one of those. The French instrument I use is, by contrast, light in sound, and in design comes very close to the natural horn.

"This is the very same instrument that can be heard on Aubrey Brain's seminal 1933 recording of the Trio with Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin. This horn connects to the sound-world of early recordings, helping to evoke a certain nostalgia and perhaps even a 'romantic sonority' for audiences today."

milk

#679


A romantic's take on Bach with some Chopin, Mozart and Beethoven too. The concept is that this is all done on Chopin's upright piano. Its's quite an interesting sounding thing, too. This isn't really like anything else I can think of. This is really feeling Bach in a new way. I know Bach has been recorded in a romantic fashion before. But this is special.  I can see myself listening to this a lot in the future.
ETA: in the B minor prelude , the piano almost sounds like an acoustic bass on the left hand. The harmonics of this instrument give everything a different effect than a modern piano or period harpsichord would. It's haunting and engaging. I want more Bach on an instrument like this. I know maybe three or four recordings that do use a fortepiano. This is quite a different sounding instrument though.