Vaughan Williams's Veranda

Started by karlhenning, April 12, 2007, 06:03:44 AM

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Lethevich

Quote from: scarpia on August 18, 2008, 08:10:09 AM
In Barbirolli recordings, the grunting, moaning, or humming along of the conductor is an essential part. 

So that is what foreign RVW performances have been lacking ;D Colin Davis is another master of this dicipline...
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

scarpia

Quote from: Lethe on August 18, 2008, 08:15:45 AM
So that is what foreign RVW performances have been lacking ;D Colin Davis is another master of this dicipline...

Yes, that is the essence of the Brittish idiom, podium grunting.  Can you imagine Karajan grunting? 

greg

Quote from: M forever on August 18, 2008, 07:56:33 AM
So, since sound67 can not answer the question, can anybody else explain, is there a specific recognizeable VW "idiom", and what consists "idiomatic" playing of his music?
It's very, very Antarctican.

drogulus

#543
Quote from: M forever on August 18, 2008, 07:56:33 AM


Well, of course, we know, there is no answer - it is already totally obvious that that was just one of sound67's hollow phrases. When someone says something vague but hinting at specialized knowledge like "they don't understand VW's idiom", then I find that interesting and want to know more about that.

So, since sound67 can not answer the question, can anybody else explain, is there a specific recognizeable VW "idiom", and what consists "idiomatic" playing of his music?


      It's mostly just a question of tradition and how interpretations are passed down, and from the standpoint of the listener you get the impression that certain orchestras and conductors have that measure of experience that you don't get elsewhere. It's not (at least to my knowledge) a matter of mistakes so much as familiarity. I hear it with American and British music that doesn't get played often outside of the home countries. There may be, in addition, objective differences that are specific to how musicians play, but that would not have to be the case. If it sounds idiomatic in some way that would be enough. Special knowledge in listening amounts to no more than that. I don't think my American identity gives me any edge with Copland or Harris, except to the extent that I like some of their music and have listened to many recordings and a few performances. That isn't very specialized knowledge, it's just experience that many others don't have.
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scarpia

Quote from: drogulus on August 18, 2008, 02:33:27 PM
      It's mostly just a question of tradition and how interpretations are passed down, and from the standpoint of the listener you get the impression that certain orchestras and conductors have that measure of experience that you don't get elsewhere. It's not (at least to my knowledge) a matter of mistakes so much as familiarity. I hear it with American and British music that doesn't get played often outside of the home countries. There may be, in addition, objective differences that are specific to how musicians play, but that would not have to be the case. If it sounds idiomatic in some way that would be enough. Special knowledge in listening amounts to no more than that. I don't think my American identity gives me any edge with Copland or Harris, except to the extent that I like some of their music and have listened to many recordings and a few performances. That isn't very specialized knowledge, it's just experience that many others don't have.

I hate to turn into M forever here, but could you formulate a more vague set of truisms than that?

eyeresist


Thanks to scarpia and drogulus for getting us back on topic. Could we please avoid tedious flaming in future?

Re the English (British?) idiom, it's honestly not something I've thought about. So few non-Brit orchestras have tackled the repertoire that general comparisons may not be possible. Brit orchestras can do a pretty good impersonation of German or Russian, but tend to need a native conductor to bring that out. As drogulus said, familiarity also has a lot to do with it, and that works both ways - the CPO are surely very familar with Dvorak, but then perhaps their way with the music has become so ingrained that we think it's THE way.

M forever

Quote from: eyeresist on August 18, 2008, 07:17:21 PM
Thanks to scarpia and drogulus for getting us back on topic. Could we please avoid tedious flaming in future?

Yes, indeed. Thanks. I think my question was a valid one. We now know sound67 doesn't want to (read: have to) say anything about that, but I think we have the basis for a new branch of the discussion now.

drogulus: you are indeed being very vague here. You are defining what could in general be described as "idiomatic", but in very general terms. We want to find out what that could be in this particular music.

I have a few more thoughts myself, but M has to go to bed now! Oyasumi.

vandermolen

I hate to interrupt the heart-warming banter going on here but did anyone else hear the great performance of VW's Piano Concerto from the Proms? Sadly I couldn't make it to the concert but I thoroghly enjoyed the performance on the radio today. Such an important and underrated work. I like it more and more.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

drogulus

#548
Quote from: scarpia on August 18, 2008, 03:02:26 PM
I hate to turn into M forever here, but could you formulate a more vague set of truisms than that?


     No, I don't think I could. Does it need to be more vague? It certainly doesn't need to be more specific. From the standpoint of a performing musician there are perhaps nonvague differences in the way phrasing is done. For the listener it's mostly a matter of the music sounding like the player is aware of a performance tradition. Recently I attended a performance of Vaughan Williams (Serenade to Music) where the singers were accompanied by a piano instead of orchestra. The pianist played as though she had never encountered this music before, and the notes were delivered in what sounded like a mechanical fashion. Was this complete unfamiliarity? Was it poor musicianship, or was it merely unidiomatic? I don't know, nor do I have any idea how I could tell just by listening.
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scarpia

Quote from: drogulus on August 19, 2008, 12:42:02 PM
     No, I don't think I could. Does it need to be more vague? It certainly doesn't need to be more specific. From the standpoint of a performing musician there are perhaps nonvague differences in the way phrasing is done. For the listener it's mostly a matter of the music sounding like the player is aware of a performance tradition. Recently I attended a performance of Vaughan Williams (Serenade to Music) where the singers were accompanied by a piano instead of orchestra. The pianist played as though she had never encountered this music before, and the notes were delivered in what sounded like a mechanical fashion. Was this complete unfamiliarity? Was it poor musicianship, or was it merely unidiomatic? I don't know, nor do I have any idea how I could tell just by listening.

No, it could scarcely have been more vague and I think it needs to be more specific.  The question was "what constitutes an idiomatic Vaughan Williams performance?"  The question wasn't "what constitutes an idiomatic performance in general?"  I think everyone knows that an idiomatic performance is by definition one that respects performance traditions.  The question was, what distinctive performance traditions are associated with Vaughan Williams.  The answer to that question has some chance of being interesting.

drogulus

#550
Quote from: scarpia on August 19, 2008, 02:52:55 PM
The question was, what distinctive performance traditions are associated with Vaughan Williams.  The answer to that question has some chance of being interesting.


     Could you be a little less vague? What do you mean by the vague phrase "performance tradition"? If you look again at my answer you'll see that I'm casting doubt on the meaning of this term "idiomatic". I think it's a catchall for what works*. I'm embarrassed to say I've used the term in posts occasionally, so I'll just say it's likely that other people use it the way I do. If a precise meaning is to be had I'll be glad to learn it.

     So far no one has offered anything specific about Vaughan Williams. I'd like to know, for example, just what it is that makes the Haitink recording of Sinfonia Antartica "unidiomatic" but nevertheless a convincing reading, and in fact one of the most well regarded among the many recordings available. The answer might indeed be interesting, but I'm willing to bet it will be uninformative, because "idiom" isn't a real distinction for Vaughan Williams. Perhaps it is for......Bruckner. We'll see if anyone is willing to commit themselves on this. So, I'll stand pat and wait for the answer man, who has been delayed for some reason.

     *I should have said "what has worked".
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eyeresist


Maybe "idiomatic" is code for "sounds like Boult"  :P

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: eyeresist on August 20, 2008, 06:07:50 PM
Maybe "idiomatic" is code for "sounds like Boult"  :P

An exaggeration with a kernel of truth.

English music has 'traveled' too little. Ideas of what constitutes 'an idiomatic performance' can only really come about through comparison. If, say, German, French, Dutch orchestras and conductors had taken up RVW, then we could judge Boult's and others' approaches better, especially if those non-British performances were very different but just as satisfying. It would have sharpened our ideas of what RVW's music is and is capable of. Now we are simply used to the British way of playing him. (I leave it to others to explain the details to M.) It is as if you could listen to Sibelius played only by Finnish orchestras. 'Authentic', perhaps. But I am glad Karajan did the Fourth. (Although I have my problems with Haitink in RVW!)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

sound67

#553
Quote from: Jezetha on August 21, 2008, 12:39:20 AMEnglish music has 'traveled' too little. Ideas of what constitutes 'an idiomatic performance' can only really come about through comparison. If, say, German, French, Dutch orchestras and conductors had taken up RVW, then we could judge Boult's and others' approaches better, especially if those non-British performances were very different but just as satisfying

When all is said and done though, I think "idiomatic" simply boils down to "good". Many German orchestras have a darker string sound than e.g. the BBC orchestras - which would affect the result even if they play the music along the same interpretive parameters. Would that mean it'd be less "idiomatic"? Was Vaughan Williams' music composed with the sound of British orchestras (often referred to as brass bands with string attached) in mind? I don't think so.

Sadly, as you pointed out, a true comparison is not possible because there are so few recordings of RVW by German, or other central European orchestras. And the ones there are are let down by untidy ensemble (as the Bavarian RSO's of the 6th, especially in the brass - no, m-forever, I can't be more specific, it's tugged away in a packing case) or were done by less distinguished orchestras and conductors (such as the RVW 5th from Frankfurt/Oder).

Thomas 
"Vivaldi didn't compose 500 concertos. He composed the same concerto 500 times" - Igor Stravinsky

"Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time and are meaningless to ours." - Norman Lebrecht

vandermolen

Quote from: sound67 on August 21, 2008, 01:05:51 AM
When all is said and done though, I think "idiomatic" simply boils down to "good". Many German orchestras have a darker string sound than e.g. the BBC orchestras - which would affect the result even if they play the music along the same interpretive parameters. Would that mean it'd be less "idiomatic"? Was Vaughan Williams' music composed with the sound of British orchestras (often referred to as brass bands with string attached) in mind? I don't think so.

Sadly, as you pointed out, a true comparison is not possible because there are so few recordings of RVW by German, or other central European orchestras. And the ones there are are let down by untidy ensemble (as the Bavarian RSO's of the 6th, especially in the brass - no, m-forever, I can't be more specific, it's tugged away in a packing case) or were done by less distinguished orchestras and conductors (such as the RVW 5th from Frankfurt/Oder).

Thomas 

In view of what you say, I wonder what this CD is like:

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Lethe on August 18, 2008, 08:15:45 AM
So that is what foreign RVW performances have been lacking ;D Colin Davis is another master of this dicipline...

Speaking of Sir Colin, does anyone know why he's never recorded any of the RVW symphonies? Has he performed them in concert? The only RVW work I can think of that he has recorded is The Lark Ascending with Hilary Hahn. Seems odd when you think of his status as a British conductor.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on August 21, 2008, 05:28:27 AM
Speaking of Sir Colin, does anyone know why he's never recorded any of the RVW symphonies?
Uhh, maybe he doesn't like them? Just because he is British doesn't mean he is obliged to perform works by British composers. There are American conductors who wouldn't touch American music with the proverbial 10 foot pole so this phenomenon is not limited to Sir Colin.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on August 21, 2008, 06:00:14 AM
Uhh, maybe he doesn't like them?

Uh, ya think?  ;D  I was looking for a more specific reason; hoping someone might have read or heard him discussing Vaughan Williams.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

lukeottevanger

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on August 21, 2008, 06:00:14 AM
Uhh, maybe he doesn't like them? Just because he is British doesn't mean he is obliged to perform works by British composers. There are American conductors who wouldn't touch American music with the proverbial 10 foot pole so this phenomenon is not limited to Sir Colin.

You probably didn't mean it, but the wording here comes close to confusing 'Vaughan Williams' with 'British music'. Colin Davis, one of the greatest exponents of e.g. Tippett, would disagree strongly that he 'wouldn't touch British music with a 10 foot pole'.  :)

sound67

#559
A while ago I listened to Colin Davis conducting RVW's 4th on the radio, with the Bavarian RSO.

You can hear parts of the symphony in this audio podcast on Bayern radio (about 40% into the sound file):
http://www.br-online.de/bayern4klassik/galleria/audio-williams-sinfonie-ID1218876987968.xml

Davis also discusses the music - in German!

Also: http://www.newberkshire.com/7bso-boston-symphony-colin-davis.php

Thomas
"Vivaldi didn't compose 500 concertos. He composed the same concerto 500 times" - Igor Stravinsky

"Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time and are meaningless to ours." - Norman Lebrecht