The 'Benchmark' Problem

[Brian]

But you're still a young man, Brian, with limited listening experience. Come back in 40 years and I bet few of those versions will still be your top choices.

Edit: which is basically what you said in your second paragraph. I should have read the entire post before replying!

Sarge

Glad I escaped that critique. 

Karl, I am sorry I misunderstood your meaning of 'benchmark'! 'Imprinting' is the verb I remember...

[Sergeant Rock]

Maybe I should be grumbling on Cato's thread, but for me "benchmark" should be something which has some objective status, although it is being discussed here as a personal choice, really not distinct from a personal favorite.  Something like Solti's Ring, Harnoncourt's first Brandenburg set on original instruments, Karajan's '63 Beethoven set, maybe one of those Tebaldi recordings every gets worked up over.  Something that people would agree is significant even if they don't actually like it.

Yeah, Sid's definition (if benchmark is the word he used) means favorite...at least that's the way I understood it. Your definition--and list of recordings--makes more sense. Furtwängler's Tristan and Schumann Fourth (the recording I dubbed "definitive" once upon a time to my detriment ) might be two more.

Sarge

[DavidW]

I think that this imprinting is a fiction.  I also hear recordings that I don't like right off the bat, just because it's a first doesn't make it a favorite.  And even if I like it, it doesn't change the fact that many times I found another recording that I prefer later.  Also I don't expect the other recordings to sound like the first I heard, nor do I necessarily want it.

[karlhenning]

Definition of 'benchmark': Macarreras version of Janacek's Sinfonietta.

Oh? Why not Ančerl's?

[Brian]

Oh? Why not Ančerl's?

I'll save Sarge the trouble of asking: or Szell's?

[karlhenning]

I think that this imprinting is a fiction.  I also hear recordings that I don't like right off the bat, just because it's a first doesn't make it a favorite.

That's been my experience as well (as I said earlier).  But I can entertain the idea that an eager listener who avidly enjoys a piece on first hearing 'fixes upon' certain aspects of that inaugural recording.

[karlhenning]

Karl, I am sorry I misunderstood your meaning of 'benchmark'! 'Imprinting' is the verb I remember...

No apology needed, Brian! We're all mates kicking a verbal football around . . . .

[karlhenning]

Maybe I should be grumbling on Cato's thread, but for me "benchmark" should be something which has some objective status, although it is being discussed here as a personal choice, really not distinct from a personal favorite.  Something like Solti's Ring, Harnoncourt's first Brandenburg set on original instruments, Karajan's '63 Beethoven set, maybe one of those Tebaldi recordings every gets worked up over.  Something that people would agree is significant even if they don't actually like it.

Agreed.

Thus (and in line with Gurn's earlier remarks) not every piece of music will have "benchmark" recordings. Perhaps very few will.

[karlhenning]

[cross-post]

. . . I have multiple recordings of most pieces I like because I don't want to be "imprinted" on one recording.  When I listen to it, I want it to be something novel, not a repeat of the version that rests in my memory.  I feel this helps me focus on the music rather than a specific performance of the music.

Good.  Also you seem to me to present one reasonable counter-remark to something the OP said, to the effect of "why should I listen to many recordings of a piece I already know well?"

Doesn't to hurt to challenge what one supposes oneself already to know very well.

[Gurn Blanston]

Oh? Why not Ančerl's?

Which is exactly where the subjectivity comes from. I have Ančerl's coupled with his Bartok C for O, and it's hard to imagine another version better for either of them. Imprinting is surely a better word to use, although my whole being rails against the concept of 'my favorite is the best' sort of thinking. My favorite may very well not be the best, but it's still my favorite. Seems like that statement is damned hard for some people to utter, judging by what I read on GMG...

[DavidW]

That's been my experience as well (as I said earlier).  But I can entertain the idea that an eager listener who avidly enjoys a piece on first hearing 'fixes upon' certain aspects of that inaugural recording.

Yeah I was really just reacting to the way that Sid said it you know.  I mean it happens but it's not as common as I think he makes it out to be.

[karlhenning]

Quite a few pieces, of which the first recording I heard is arguably better than average (in a field, as mentioned earlier, which generally cannot have many genuine duds), I did not "fix" upon.  Could be that at the time that I did much listening, I had already been at Wooster a while, and so even my inaugural hearings were partly conditioned by The Study of Musick.

That first performance I heard of the Shostakovich Tenth, now (Cleveland Orchestra and Rattle) might well have become an imprint for me, if I had had it in recorded form, and thus had opportunity to play it to destruction ; )

[Brian]

I'm listening to "Carnival of the Animals" right now, in the ratty el-cheapo Soviet recording my parents had when I was a kid, and I realize hearing the "cuckoo" section that if I ever hear a performance where the pianos supporting the cuckoo are in tune, my brain will rebel because it's been so familiar for so long with the sound of the pianos being out of tune.

Imprinting does strange things sometimes!

[snyprrr]

Oh? Why not Ančerl's?

ok, I was going to comment here, but I can see that you've gotten yourself in a name-changing-frenzy here. Are we having an ID crisis, haha?

I get the feeling that you'll be back to the cummings soon enough.

Have you been revising your Works, also,...hmm??

DON'T TOUCH THAT,... IT'S DONE!!!

[Mirror Image]

This is an interesting thread to say the least! The topic is quite a fascinating one. Here's my take on it:

I don't believe in "benchmark" performances. I think they don't exist because one conductor's interpretation is not the final word on the work you're listening to in my opinion. This goes for first listens. As much as I love say Alun Francis's Milhaud symphony set, in my mind, I know that there could be so much more done with these works that, while I enjoy the performances, I know there's another conductor's interpretation lingering around the corner. When I hear, say Bernstein's Tchaikovsky, I hear masterful performances, but they are not the final word on the composer because we're hearing what Bernstein thinks of the music. This is how it is with me. How can I say that Dohnanyi's performance of Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin is really above Boulez's or Fischer's. I know I said I prefer the Dohnanyi, but his approach to the score isn't the only valid one.

So I don't agree with Sid's opinion (wherever he may be now) for the simple fact that different conductors will bring out more revealing aspects of the music in their own unique ways, so therefore, dissolving all notions of "benchmark" performances.

[starrynight]

Maybe it depends on how long you have lived with that initial recording.  But sometimes it can be quite refreshing hearing someone with a different approach which is also sympathetic to the piece.  It can be like you are hearing a new piece really, so in that sense it doesn't compete with the more nostalgic version.  There could be something you really like in the first version and if you don't hear it in the second it could put you off, but that could be balanced by new interpretive insights.  And maybe a recording you have heard lots of times could end up sounding a bit stale compared to a fresher (to you at least) and good alternative.

[Guido]

I have to say I'm completely guilty of this. There are some CDs that I am completely wedded to, but, it's always to the benefit of the music - in every case it's because I adore the music - so in my mind and ears this special performance becomes a supreme instance of that particular work and my admiration for one feeds the other. With pieces I'm less connected to, I'm less interested in exactly who is performing them.

Sometimes I grow out of it, sometimes I don't. There are of course also pieces that I love, where I think there isn't any completely adequate performance of it.

[starrynight]

Some records when first released maybe get a lot of press, perhaps some awards, some influential critics might give it their highest rating and then others agree with that.  Then over time it will gain more authority as newer critics feel they should recommend what others have recommended before.  Then it can gain the authority of being a classic as it is an standard recording with the authority of quite a few years behind it.  But it's certainly important not to be stuck with just one view like that.  Some things such as improvements (or maybe better to just say changes) in technology and new ideas in interpretation through scholarship or just a new individual interpreter could shift people's view to something different. 

I'm not sure if there would ever be an end to new interpretations.  Perhaps if it is based purely on a scholarly accuracy to the music as originally performed there could be, but I think every age will want to re-interpret the music in its own way and maybe that will need to be done?

[jwinter]

When I was first exposed to classical music as a kid, the vast majority of my listening came via cassettes from the local department store that my grandmother would buy for me.  They had a large number of old CBS/Sony recordings in the $3.98 bin (hey, they had to be Great Performances, it said so on the cover... )

I thus ended up imprinting on (or benchmarking) a great many works through either George Szell or Bruno Walter.  I think to a large extent that's where I got my initial ideas not only on particular works, but on orchestral playing in general -- ie that's how an orchestra was supposed to sound, and if the beats weren't as dead-on precise as what Szell could generate, then it just wasn't as good.

It took me a long while to get away from that, to really grow to appreciate and enjoy other ways of doing (and hearing) things... although I'll still take the Wagner recording above against any other versions I've heard.     As years go by, very few of those old recordings are still my absolute favorites; but they had a profound influence in forming my personal taste.

I'm definitely a member of the multiple versions club.  For me, since I'm not a trained musician and can't read music, it's the way that I can best try to get inside a work, both to understand it structurally (to the admittedly limited extent to which I'm able), and to appreciate the subtleties and nuances between various interpretations/performances.  You can pretty much look at my CD collection and tell which works I like, and which ones are truly special for me, by the number of versions I have of a given work.  If I've only got one, I probably don't care for it that much, or more likely I just haven't gotten around to seriously exploring it yet.  I'm with Sarge -- one version is almost never enough.

[zamyrabyrd]

Without the benefit of statistics, explained music, as from Music Appreciation class, frequently turn into benchmarks. Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, the Nutcracker Suite, Symphonie Fantasique, even operas, once they become intelligible are enshrined forever in the listener. 

ZB