Idiosyncratic Performers

[Philo]

I'm looking for some recommendations for performers who take personal liberties with the material. Some examples might include:

Kuerti playing Beethoven
Afanassiev playing Schubert
Gould playing the piano

[Ken B]

I'm looking for some recommendations for performers who take personal liberties with the material. Some examples might include:

Kuerti playing Beethoven
Afanassiev playing Schubert
Gould playing the piano

Two canadians already.
Anthony Newman on organ

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Pogorelich's solo stuff. Although his way is very personal.

[Drosera]

Jean Guillou in anything

[Todd]

Russell Sherman, Eric Heidsieck, Anatol Ugorski, Jean Marc Luisada, Francois-Rene Duchable, and Ervin Nyiregyhazi all immediately come to mind among pianists.  Sherman and Heidsieck are among my favorite pianists, and both recorded superb LvB sonata cycles, and Sherman also recorded an outstanding LvB concerto cycle. 

[Mandryka]

In early music it's quite hard for me to say what's idiosyncratic and what's not, just because I have no idea what's known about correct performance. One question I have for the renaissance music mavens here - is Marc Mauillon's treatment of Machault's Loyeuté que point ne delay idiosyncratic on not? You remember. It lasts for over half and hour.

Someone mentioned Pogorelich. From the commercial recordings, the most idiosyncratic is Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

[North Star]

In early music it's quite hard for me to say what's idiosyncratic and what's not, just because I have no idea what's known about correct performance.

Pluhar is certainly idiosyncratic.
E: And Ensemble Organums's Machaut Messe de Notre Dame

[Cato]

First thing I thought of:




Actress Barbara Sukowa as the Speaker in Arnold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder as played by the Vienna Philharmonic and Abbado on DGG.

"Idiosyncratic" times 10!   

Whether she has repeated this performance on the newer Signum CD with Salonen, I have no idea.  One Amazon reviewer calls her performance "exotic."

[asin]B002LTJ2XY[/asin]

[Philo]

Thanks so much for the recommendations so far. Truly lovely. 

Feltsman playing Bach
Celibidahce conducting
Enescu playing Bach

[prémont]

Feltsman playing Bach

I own his Art of Fugue and do not find it that idiosyncratic.

On the other hand a relistening to the first vol. of Kei Koito´s upcoming Bach organ integral, reveals her to be as least as idiosyncratic as Guillou.

What is the difference between "idiosyncratic" , "mannered" and "contrived" ?  Not the semantic difference, of course, but the difference in daily practice.

[prémont]

In early music it's quite hard for me to say what's idiosyncratic and what's not, just because I have no idea what's known about correct performance. One question I have for the renaissance music mavens here - is Marc Mauillon's treatment of Machault's Loyeuté que point ne delay idiosyncratic on not? You remember. It lasts for over half and hour.

Difficult to answer. I have not studied performance practice concerning Machault. Listening to different respectable performers interpretation of Machault makes me think, that very little is known.

[Rinaldo]

What is the difference between "idiosyncratic" , "mannered" and "contrived" ?

The result.

[Mandryka]

On the other hand a relistening to the first vol. of Kei Koito´s upcoming Bach organ integral, reveals her to be as least as idiosyncratic as Guillou.

I enjoyed her Art of Fugue. The rest not at all.

What is the difference between "idiosyncratic" , "mannered" and "contrived" ?  Not the semantic difference, of course, but the difference in daily practice.

There's increasing pejoritiveness of course, and where you have value judgements you need to have a form of life to give them meaning. I suppose the most dominant form of life which underpins these valuations is in the conservetoirs, with all the weight of performance history.

I wonder if it goes like this: at the time of composition there were certain ways of interpreting the music. As time goes by new ways become acceptable, as a result of influential and imaginative performers (how they became influential is an interesting question.) It's like we have a chain of family resemblances, starting with performances contemporaneous with the composition.

The shifts are rarely revolutionary, in the sense of creating new pardigms for making sense of the music, but they can be. Leonhardt was probably the cause of a revolution.

I shoud warn you: I've never studied aesthetics.     These concepts - about values and forms of life -  are all from later Wittgenstein.

[North Star]

I wonder if it goes like this: at the time of composition there were certain ways of interpreting the music. As time goes by new ways become acceptable, as a result of influential and imaginative performers (how they became influential is an interesting question.) It's like we have a chain of family resemblances, starting with performances contemporaneous with the composition.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it worked the other way round too - acceptable interpretations becoming more limited later.

[Mandryka]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it worked the other way round too - acceptable interpretations becoming more limited later.

That's true. Maybe I shouldn't have written "new ways become acceptable" --  I should have written "different ways are supported by the establishment."

A comment that I heard Bob van Asperen make on Friday -- that Leonhardt was searching for the truth -- is interesting and bears on these difficult questions. As does this recent interview with Davitt Moroney, where he says some very well thought through things in my opinion

http://www.citedelamusiquelive.tv/interview/1015654/davitt-moroney-entretien.html