Musical Conservatism.

[Mandryka]

Someone asked here about the consensus about the best recent recorded performances of a couple of popular composers.

Some people responding by suggesting that there was little or no consensus.  Brian in the course of his post made this interesting claim about a recording:

. . . the pianist is deliberately very eccentric. [H]e is best for connoisseurs who like hearing eccentrics. . .

I think the idea behind this post may be as follows, maybe Brian will correct me

There's an orthodox way of playing the music which has arisen over many many years of performance. Righteous people play within the boundaries set out by this tradition. Loonies Eccentrics break the rules, and we really shouldn't listen to them too much until our judgements have been securely grounded by the orthodoxy.

I wonder what members think about these ideas.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I have never actually been aware of conservatism in the interpretation of music.  What one may consider to be a more 'standard' interpretation may result from a the pressures of perfection since recorded music and greater availability of recordings that musicians may be influenced by. When someone asks 'what is the best recording of....' then usually responses to that question will be influenced by things such as the closest a performance can get to 'perfection,' musicological studies which influence interpretation at different points in time (who is more popular for beethoven these days out of Furtwangler or Gardiner?), and record labels which have become particularly well known for their ability to sell certain musicians  (ahem, Deutsche Grammophon).

I wouldn't say there is such thing as a consensus for anything really, but there are always certain trends in interpretation throughout history. 60 years ago it would have been considered eccentric to perform Bach on instruments of his time with interpretative techniques derived from treatises of his time and place, but these days it would be rare to see a performance of Bach's 3rd Brandenburg concerto played by a string ensemble of 50 musicians. Both interpretations may come from very different angles, and by saying 'which is better' or ' what is the general consensus' then we will see what sort of things are currently in vogue based on the research of the musicians and the things that influence them most directly.

[Jo498]

I am not sure but I think there is a certain dialectic with very frequently played and recorded pieces. From about the middle of the 20th century or maybe a little later, basically as soon as LPs became really widespread and many musicians would be as famous (or more, e.g. Gould) through recordings than via live performances until the 1980s or so there seems to have been a tendency for "streamlining". I.e. the "wilful" or wildly creative performers of former times became a relic of the past (sometimes celebrated, like Horowitz).
But after several decades of streamlined studio perfection, people tend to get bored with it. I have the impression that some collectors who have heard many dozens of certain pieces (sometimes) tend to go for the excentrics or at least the extremes, maybe simply because they know the range of "normal" interpretations so well that they are bored by them.

Edit: This is of course not a universal rule. E.g. if one looks at Todd's Beethoven top 10 (out of >100) about half of them could be described as fairly straightforward performances (Gulda, Backhaus, Kempff and Annie Fischer). Kempff, Gulda, Backhaus are also "conservative" choices as they have been standard recommendations for decades.

Of course for pre-Beethoven music there is another dialectic in place, namely the sometimes crooked course of about 60 years of research and use of old instruments and ways of playing.

[Mandryka]

What's interesting about these responses is the connection between orthodoxy and "perfection"

[jochanaan]

Interesting that Furtwaengler is now considered "perfection" by many; even in his own lifetime many considered him eccentric.

However, I tend to agree more with Gustav Mahler's saying, "Tradition is laziness."  And that of Arturo Toscanini: "Tradition is the last bad performance."  Even in the accepted canon, there is still room for experimentation and re-study.  Example: Brahms' Fourth Symphony's second movement is marked Andante moderato, yet many top conductors play it as if it were Adagio lamentoso[/i].  (Note: I have not yet been able to find a recording of either Carlos Kleiber or Sir Charles Mackerras leading this symphony.  One might think that those two legendary conductors, with their reputation for following their own study rather than tradition, might play this movement at something like the indicated tempo...)

[Jo498]

What I meant is that roughly until Furtwängler's time (who reputedly hated working in the recording studio) both spontaneity as well as local traditions and "schools" of playing, sound, interpretation were common. Live concerts dominated music, not recordings. Some musicians might have been considered more excentric than others but even heavily editing, almost "re-composing" music (like Rachmaninov did to Carnaval and other pieces he played) was not beyond the pale.
The prevalence of recordings, so that things were fixed forever, could be checked for mistakes or excentricities lead to in many respects to more streamlined performances. Sure, recordings were probably not the only factor but I am quite certain they were an important factor.
Of course then a prevalence of streamlined "studio perfection" (Karajan might be the most obvious case for this, but there are many other recordings from the 1960-70s one could claim this about) could provoke excentrics again, although more in solo or in niches (like baroque music).

[Monsieur Croche]

Maurizio Kagel's alternate ego plays Beethoven's Waldstein

https://www.youtube.com/v/_-KoEofNim4

[Mandryka]

Maurizio Kagel's alternate ego plays Beethoven's Waldstein

https://www.youtube.com/v/_-KoEofNim4

Why have you posted this? I'm just not sure what you're saying. Elly Ney certainly was a conservative. Politically.

[zamyrabyrd]

Why have you posted this? I'm just not sure what you're saying. Elly Ney certainly was a conservative. Politically.

Er, she must have had a different score than Urtext. Also yours must be a different definition of political "conservative", commonly understood to preserve traditional values that include religion and individual freedom.
There is some resemblance to Florence Foster Jenkins in Ney's approach and general frumpiness.

[Jo498]

Ney was an oddball Nazi (AFAIK including vegetarianism and other "countercultural" quirks exhibited by some fraction of that movement), hardly a conservative in the usual sense.

[Mandryka]

Sure, I was thinking conservative = right wing, but I really don't want to dig myself in any deeper.