Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

[Mandryka]

I was so furious that I didn't speak to him for years afterwards. You don't mess with LvB.

Bostridge tells an anecdote about how he gave a Schubert recital and they decided to try a new interpretation of the rhythm in the piano prelude for one of the songs -- apparently the manuscript is unclear. Anyway, he said the audience was full of music professionals whom he knew, pianists and singers I guess, and he could see that some of them were following with an open score. His heart sank. Then, when the above mentioned prelude came up, he could see them looking shocked, mortified, scandalised, looking round at each other with raised eyebrows and grimaces . . .

[(poco) Sforzando]

Bostridge tells an anecdote about how he gave a Schubert recital and they decided to try a new interpretation of the rhythm in the piano prelude for one of the songs -- apparently the manuscript is unclear. Anyway, he said the audience was full of music professionals whom he knew, pianists and singers I guess, and he could see that some of them were following with an open score. His heart sank. Then, when the above mentioned prelude came up, he could see them looking shocked, mortified, scandalised, looking round at each other with raised eyebrows and grimaces . . .

Grimaces of course are always to be avoided. I'd be interested to see the original anecdote. But "deviation from the score" is not always a cut-and-dried thing, and the performer's relation to the score is something that could be discussed for hours on end.

Gunther Schuller, for instance, wrote a huge book excoriating every conductor under the sun for departing from the score in eight orchestral warhorses, and then "to show how it's done," he produced a CD of Beethoven 5 and Brahms 1 where the finale of the Brahms is the deadliest thing you'll ever hear. And then to show where fidelity to the score doesn't matter if it doesn't suit Gunther's taste, he leaves out the exposition repeat in the first movement of the Brahms because he doesn't find it convincing.

Minsoo Sohn's disciple, the brilliant Yunchan Lim, did Mussorgsky's Pictures this summer at Verbier in Switzerland, and on the whole his treatment of the score was far less interventionist than Horowitz's. Nonetheless, in the Baba Yaga section, he added two double glissandos (perhaps imitating the parallel point in the Ravel orchestration) that were positively thrilling. Definitely not what Mussorgsky wrote, but undeniably effective. On the other hand, the glissando that Pletnev throws in at the end of the Great Gate of Kiev sounds to my ears simply silly.

I also bought a set of the Beethoven symphonies, Vanska I think, where a certain spot in the rhythm in the introduction to Symphony 2 sounded different than I had ever heard it. I played that spot numerous times, listened to other versions too, and then looked at the score. I'd be damned, but this conductor got the rhythm exactly as Beethoven wrote it, however different from any other version I'd ever heard.

So the questions could be, What is the score? what constitutes departure from or fidelity to the score? are some departures justifiable, and does that depend on the attitude of the performer and for that matter the listener? 
 

[AnotherSpin]

Grimaces of course are always to be avoided. I'd be interested to see the original anecdote. But "deviation from the score" is not always a cut-and-dried thing, and the performer's relation to the score is something that could be discussed for hours on end.

Gunther Schuller, for instance, wrote a huge book excoriating every conductor under the sun for departing from the score in eight orchestral warhorses, and then "to show how it's done," he produced a CD of Beethoven 5 and Brahms 1 where the finale of the Brahms is the deadliest thing you'll ever hear. And then to show where fidelity to the score doesn't matter if it doesn't suit Gunther's taste, he leaves out the exposition repeat in the first movement of the Brahms because he doesn't find it convincing.

Minsoo Sohn's disciple, the brilliant Yunchan Lim, did Mussorgsky's Pictures this summer at Verbier in Switzerland, and on the whole his treatment of the score was far less interventionist than Horowitz's. Nonetheless, in the Baba Yaga section, he added two double glissandos (perhaps imitating the parallel point in the Ravel orchestration) that were positively thrilling. Definitely not what Mussorgsky wrote, but undeniably effective. On the other hand, the glissando that Pletnev throws in at the end of the Great Gate of Kiev sounds to my ears simply silly.

I also bought a set of the Beethoven symphonies, Vanska I think, where a certain spot in the rhythm in the introduction to Symphony 2 sounded different than I had ever heard it. I played that spot numerous times, listened to other versions too, and then looked at the score. I'd be damned, but this conductor got the rhythm exactly as Beethoven wrote it, however different from any other version I'd ever heard.

So the questions could be, What is the score? what constitutes departure from or fidelity to the score? are some departures justifiable, and does that depend on the attitude of the performer and for that matter the listener? 
 

The question can be posed broadly: does interpretation include only what is in the score, or something else as well?

[Brian]

This reminds me of a question I'd meant to ask you about the finale of the Waldstein. There's a moment in the final coda, I've just looked - bars 493 to 504 (this count includes the "introduzione"; pdf). Many many years ago, @Holden posted a video of a pianist who did not play this section as smooth slides up and down, but rather with thumb and pinky finger expressed every octave distinctly. The resulting sound was more staccato, more rhythmic. I'm remembering a discussion 15 years later, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember something like the idea being that that's how it's supposed to be played, but for most pianists it's too much work for too little gain so they "cheat".

Unfortunately the performance Holden posted was on a video service that no longer exists, so I don't know if I can point to an example of how it sounded different from the normal.

[prémont]

I believe most pianists nowadays play these parallel octaves with both hands, rather than performing a true glissando using only the thumb and pinky of the right hand.

On the other hand (not to be understood litterally) I listened to Sohn's interpretation of the Waldstein Sonata two hours ago, and it seemed as if he executed a true glissando with his right hand alone.

[Jo498]

Some people obsess about the octave glissandi (with bar numbers for the Rondo it's 465 ff).
Supposedly there were/are pianists who tried the piano before a concert and if it was not playable as slides on the instrument they would rather play a different sonata! It also might have been much easier on an old piano because of their lighter action.
All of this is over in less than 10 seconds and seems an utterly trivial detail to me.

[(poco) Sforzando]

This reminds me of a question I'd meant to ask you about the finale of the Waldstein. There's a moment in the final coda, I've just looked - bars 493 to 504 (this count includes the "introduzione"; pdf). Many many years ago, @Holden posted a video of a pianist who did not play this section as smooth slides up and down, but rather with thumb and pinky finger expressed every octave distinctly. The resulting sound was more staccato, more rhythmic. I'm remembering a discussion 15 years later, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember something like the idea being that that's how it's supposed to be played, but for most pianists it's too much work for too little gain so they "cheat".

Unfortunately the performance Holden posted was on a video service that no longer exists, so I don't know if I can point to an example of how it sounded different from the normal.

The octave passage you cite was definitely supposed to be played glissando (descending in the right hand, ascending in the left). We know this from the fingering Beethoven provided. There is another example in the first movement of the first piano concerto, and octave glissandi survive as late as Brahms in the Paganini Variations. These passages were far easier on the lighter actions of Beethoven's day, and while they're not impossible on later pianos, editors have gone out of their way to find substitute fingerings to bypass the glissandi. I agree that Sohn appears to be playing glissandi, and I'll have to check Badura-Skoda's recording on a period instrument.

Meanwhile, here is Yunchan in Mussorgsky. Baba Yaga starts at 22:07, with the glissandi at 22:51 and 25:12.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PogvM38aZ8&t=2s

I don't know if the above is a bootleg, but if so I'll delete the paragraph above and you can hear his recital if you subscribe to www.stage-plus.com.

[Mandryka]

I'd be interested to see the original anecdote. 

(Slightly different from how I'd remembered it!)


GOING TO A LIEDER RECITAL can be a little dangerous for your average audience member. Mostly, you're part of a compact group, well lit (so texts can be read or referred to in translation), easy to pick on if the singer wants to direct his or her emotional effusions directly to or at you. It's sometimes said that the measure of a great singer is that it feels as if he or she is singing to you alone; in somewhere like London's Wigmore Hall this can often be quite literally true, and this resource—the address to the individual as well as to the mass—is a crucial part of the aesthetic transaction.

It's odd for us singers that other instrumentalists—especially solo pianists, who look away from the audience and don't know singers well—don't realise this. How often have I been asked: "So, you recognise people in the audience?" Of course I do; and the psychological state one enters to process that recognition—"Why, there's mother!"—while staying in "character," is tricky to plumb. It must be a matter of layered (re)cognition.

It's particularly important to remember that if you're a well-known musician, or a colleague, and come to a recital in the Wigmore Hall, you have to come back afterwards and enthuse or at the very least engage, and perhaps lie. That is part of the etiquette, for if you don't come back (or at least send a note), every half-human singer will be convinced that you hated the performance.

Some time around the beginning of the millennium, I was performing all three Schubert cycles twice through, with Julius Drake, at the Wigmore Hall (not some strange endurance test, but spread over a couple of weeks). In one of the Winterreises I noticed that an exceptionally distinguished pianist, and great Schubertian to boot, was sitting at the end of row H on the right. I had recognised him fairly quickly as I scanned the hall in the moments before the cycle kicked off, making that initial visual connection with the audience that has become almost a ritual. Only a little later did I see that he was following the music with his score (always a little off-putting if you're singing something by heart) and that he was sitting next to another, younger, but also distinguished instrumentalist. As Julius launched into the first bars of "Wasserflut," the pianist in the audience—let us call him A—started to look with incredulity at the music. Shaking his head, he turned to his companion—let us call him B—and jabbed a finger at the notes. I don't remember B's reaction, but the coup de grâce came when A swung his body right round to communicate his artistic dissent, revealing that the person in the row directly behind him was another famous pianist, C, who seemed rather taken aback at the disturbance.

What was going on? Why was our harmless performance of this harmless little song causing such a fluster?

It's all about what is known as triplet assimilation. In the very first bar of this song, Schubert writes a triplet—three even notes—in the treble, upper clef, to be played by the right hand; in the same bar, in the bass, lower clef, to be played by the left hand, he writes a syncopated rhythm, a dotted quaver and a semiquaver, thus: . . . .

Brendel discusses the debate here

https://classicalmusicguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=52223

[(poco) Sforzando]

(Slightly different from how I'd remembered it!)
It's all about what is known as triplet assimilation. In the very first bar of this song, Schubert writes a triplet—three even notes—in the treble, upper clef, to be played by the right hand; in the same bar, in the bass, lower clef, to be played by the left hand, he writes a syncopated rhythm, a dotted quaver and a semiquaver, thus: . . . .
https://classicalmusicguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=52223

Ah yes, so-called triplet assimilation. Sometimes a matter for debate.
1) Have you ever heard a performance of the last movement of Brandenburg 5 that was not actually played as if it were in a 6/8 rhythm, with the dotted-eighth - sixteenth being treated as quarter - eighth triplets?
2) Have you ever heard a performance of the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata in which the dotted eighth-sixteenths were not distinct from the triplets?

Conventions of notation change, and the Schubert may be a case for a judgment call on the part of the performers.

[prémont]

Ah yes, so-called triplet assimilation. Sometimes a matter for debate.
1) Have you ever heard a performance of the last movement of Brandenburg 5 that was not actually played as if it were in a 6/8 rhythm, with the dotted-eighth - sixteenth being treated as quarter - eighth triplets?

Yes, Casals e.g.

But he is of course wrong.

[kapsweiss2021]

Now that the scientific method has yielded the most perfectly accurate ranking known to man, it's time to publish the results:


......


Second Tier - Remainder (in alphabetical order)

.......
Daniel Barenboim (EMI, 2005)
.......



Third Tier (in alphabetical order)

.......
Daniel Barenboim (DG)
Daniel Barenboim (EMI, 1960s)
....


Fourth Tier (in alphabetical order)
.......

Daniel Barenboim (DG, 2020)
.......

I think Barenboim's DG cycle (1984) is not the same as the three video blurays published by Euroarts (Metropolitan Munich)

The first one was recorded between (1981-1984) in Paris Mutalité.
The second one was live recording from Palais Lobkowitz, Palais Rasumowsky, Palais Kinsky and Schloss Hetzendorf, Vienna (1983-1984) - Jean Pierre Ponnelle.
Timings and sound are slighty different. I prefer Euroarts sound. DG one is a bit dry and brilliant. Overall, musical performace is very similar.




So, Daniel Barenboim would have 5 complete cycles.
1.- EMI/Warner
2.- DG (80's)
3.- Euroarts (Video 80's)- Blurays
4.- Decca (Beethoven for all)/EMI DVD's
5.- DG (2020)/ Unitel Blurays

[Todd]

I think Barenboim's DG cycle (1984) is not the same as the three video blurays published by Euroarts (Metropolitan Munich)

This topic was covered several years ago in this thread.

[kapsweiss2021]

This topic was covered several years ago in this thread.

Thanks. Do you know in which page?

Some Timings:

- Op. 10/1 Sonata piano 5 Do m (1795-98)
EuroArts   Barenboim           5'50+08'52+4'48               
DG            Barenboim           5'54+08'28+4'46   

- Op. 10/3 Sonata piano 7 Re M (1795-98)
EuroArts   Barenboim           7'15+11'19+3'00+4'08   
DG            Barenboim           7'08+10'03+2'52+4'07   

-Op. 13 Sonata piano 8 Do m "Pathetique" (1798-99)
EuroArts   Barenboim           09'40+5'11+4'31               
DG            Barenboim           09'29+5'20+4'48               

The biggest difference is in the slow movements.

[Todd]

Thanks. Do you know in which page?

Why on earth would I know that?  The search function is designed for this.

[kapsweiss2021]

Why on earth would I know that?  The search function is designed for this.

Ok. Excuse me. I have used "search function" and I haven't found it.

[Brian]

Ok. Excuse me. I have used "search function" and I haven't found it.

I sometimes have better luck, compared to our poor search function, using a custom search on Google with site:good-music-guide.com followed by the various search terms.

[kapsweiss2021]

I sometimes have better luck, compared to our poor search function, using a custom search on Google with site:good-music-guide.com followed by the various search terms.

I'll try It. Thanks.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'll try It. Thanks.

I would suggest using the Print function, which won't send anything to your physical printer but loads the entire thread into memory. Then just use CTRL+F (if you're on Windows, or equivalent for Mac) for the term you want.

[ritter]

Ok. Excuse me. I have used "search function" and I haven't found it.

There's no need for you to apologise for the gratuitous rudeness of other members.

[DavidW]

Ok. Excuse me. I have used "search function" and I haven't found it.

I found that if you search the thread, the search won't work, but if you search the entire forum, there is no problem.

Please don't mind, Todd; the rest of us don't expect you to know that something had been discussed a decade ago or exhume it. Some of us have been posting here for 20+ years, and if we insist on only discussing what had not been discussed before, we would be left with only the current listening and purchase threads.