Recordings of Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis

Started by Mandryka, January 09, 2016, 08:24:43 AM

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Mandryka



The above image is of Pavel Zarukin's performance of an orchestral transcription, using a synthesiser.

Basically what the transcription does (I think) is give each voice its own timbre, with all the obvious consequences for clarity. 

With Zarukin, mostly I don't feel I'm hearing a particularly original piece of music. I keep hearing intimations of Prokofiev, shades of Mahler and Weill. Somehow he's made it sound fun, and  tame and mainstream, more so than I recall from any piano recording. It may just be me who is more familiar with the music than before of course, but I doubt it.

I said "mostly" because some of it stands out as a bit special: the fugues in A flat and B for example, and the postlude. I think the fugues benefit more from the transcription than the interludes. 

Zarukin is, I think, quite clearly a fine musician: he plays with energy and swing. I like him most when he plays fast.

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premont

#1
Quote from: Mandryka on January 09, 2016, 08:24:43 AM

Basically what the transcription does (I think) is give each voice its own timbre, with all the obvious consequences for clarity. 

I think the fugues benefit more from the transcription than the interludes. 

Not so long time ago we discussed Ludus Tonalis, and I wrote, that it might (just for fun) be interesting to hear the fugues played on the organ. In the meantime an organ version of the interludes has been published (Kirsten Sturm - filler to her recording of Hindemith´s organ sonatas for Naxos). I find the result rather unconvincing, because the interludes (together with the prelude and the postlude) are the most piano-idiomatic parts of the work,
Whether I would appreciate a synthetizer rendering of the fugues I do not know. I think I can read between your lines, that it after all is´n but of passing interest.
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Mandryka

Quote from: (: premont :) on January 09, 2016, 11:14:58 AM
I think I can read between your lines . . .  passing interest.

Yes, I think so. It's a bit like Joel Spiegelman's Goldbergs in that respect.

What was interesting is that it made the music sound so close to Prokofiev and Weill - just an informal impression, you understand, but it had never occurred to me before.
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Mandryka

#3


What is special about Siglind Bruhn's recording is the emotional volatility. She doesn't have the burnished colourful timbres of a great pianist at her disposal, nor a great variety of attack, so from that point of view the performance is limited. The recording, which is a bit too close for me, like you've got the perspective of the page turner, may not help. But from the point of view of ideas - locating LT in the expressionist tradition of Mussorgsky, Ravel, Berg and Schonberg, this is interesting. And from the point of view of inspiration too - you can tell that Bruhn is really inhabiting the music.
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Mandryka

#4


Prepare yourself for a rave.

Listening to this again I was struck by these things, all of which are characteristic of Richter's (late) music making:



  • The sense of epic journey, epic in the sense of long, and epic in the sense of an important and eventful journey of discovery
  • How distinctive and how attractive Richter's touch is, strong like a lion.
  • The trance like quality of so much of the music making - a sort of psychological depth there
  • The sense of a mind grappling to get every bit of meaning from the music
  • The Apollonian vision - there certainly is no sense of emotional volatility here
  • The sense of seriousness
  • Never fast and furious
  • The way he finds a distinctive voice for Hindemith - Richter's Hindemith sounds like no one else. And the way Richter feels so at home with that voice
  • That I'm listening to a performance by a great pianist, with all that means about tone. touch, attack and control

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that this is an essential performance to know. Listening to it reminded me how fine a musician he was. And how fine Hindemith's music is.

Recording quality is OK IMO, some unimportant background noises, even a brief bit of distortion, but the piano sounds good to me, SR can certainly drive it, and the recording captures it well, without any unflattering perspectives. It is live in more than one sense: the performance was a concert deep in the French countryside, and the music comes alive.
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Mandryka

#5
Just some comparative timings.

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Mandryka



One thing that impressed me about Bernard Roberts's is the voicing of the fugues.
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snyprrr

Quote from: Mandryka on January 17, 2016, 07:14:09 AM


One thing that impressed me about Bernard Roberts's is the voicing of the fugues.

+1

Mandryka

#8


Siegfried Mauser's tone is often hard. His timbre is monochrome. Not shades of grey, just grey. He occasionally plays fast, but when he does it sometimes sounds clumsy and heavy and always sounds joyless. In fact, joyless isn't quite accurate because emotionally it is the void. There just is no expression, though there is occasionally some intrusive and unnatural rubato. His sense of voicing is completely equal, like a computer performance from the score. He often plays loud, and it sounds brutal when he does. He likes powerful sforzandi.  He rarely plays softly.

Maybe, and this is a complete guess, Mauser was trying to make out a relation between Ludus Tonalis and Christian Wolff's preludes. Anyway - I leave the thought with others to explore further. But there must be some reason why Mauser chose to play it the way he does.

I am listening to it through spotify, and it is perfectly possible that their poor sound does not do justice to Mauser's art.
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Turner

#9
I have the Mandl Supraphon LP of the work, and skipped an old LP with Jane Carlson as a soloist (EMI, I think - not MHS). But it´s not a work I´ve listened intensively too, so far it hasn´t grabbed me. Mandl did an OK LP with some early Hindemith piano works as well.

premont

Quote from: Mandryka on February 13, 2016, 10:08:25 AM


Siegfried Mauser's tone is often hard. His timbre is monochrome. Not shades of grey, just grey. He occasionally plays fast, but when he does it sometimes sounds clumsy and heavy and always sounds joyless. In fact, joyless isn't quite accurate because emotionally it is the void. There just is no expression, though there is occasionally some intrusive and unnatural rubato. His sense of voicing is completely equal, like a computer performance from the score. He often plays loud, and it sounds brutal when he does. He likes powerful sforzandi.  He rarely plays softly.

Maybe, and this is a complete guess, Mauser was trying to make out a relation between Ludus Tonalis and Christian Wolff's preludes. Anyway - I leave the thought with others to explore further. But there must be some reason why Mauser chose to play it the way he does.

I am listening to it through spotify, and it is perfectly possible that their poor sound does not do justice to Mauser's art.

I own Mausers CD, and my impression from this is precisely what you describe. I can say that he bores me.
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premont

Quote from: Turner on February 13, 2016, 11:07:39 AM
I have the Mandl Supraphon LP of the work, and skipped an old LP with Jane Carlson as a soloist (EMI, I think - not MHS). But it´s not a work I´ve listened intensively too, so far it hasn´t grabbed me. Mandl did an OK LP with some early Hindemith piano works as well.

Hans Petermandl's supraphon recording was what made me interested in this work maybe 40years ago. I think his newer recording is better, more integrated.
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Mandryka

This is Lukas Geniusas playing it, possibly worth hearing, possibly not. It's all there.

https://www.youtube.com/v/cBm9TE2Lcyg
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Karl Henning

I believe I just saw the Jn McCabe recording at BRO.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Turner

#14
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 24, 2017, 10:09:43 AM
I believe I just saw the Jn McCabe recording at BRO.

Have since acquired Dieter Goldmann´s recording on CD (Point Classics), but it´s rather mainstream I think.

Mandryka



The transfer was released last year, good sound, expressive. She studied it with Hindemith.
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premont

Quote from: Turner on August 24, 2017, 11:28:19 AM
Have since acquired Dieter Goldmann´s recording on CD (Point Classics), but it´s rather mainstream I think.

Well, good solid mainstream at least. But for some strange reason the prelude is missing - probably the result of bad editing.
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premont

Quote from: Mandryka on May 27, 2020, 08:46:34 PM


The transfer was released last year, good sound, expressive. She studied it with Hindemith.

Yes, expressive. Not so much in the details as in the general character she chooses for the individual pieces.
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Mandryka

Quote from: Mandryka on May 27, 2020, 08:46:34 PM


The transfer was released last year, good sound, expressive. She studied it with Hindemith.

Who was I talking about?
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Mandryka

#19
Quote from: Mandryka on May 27, 2020, 08:46:34 PM


The transfer was released last year, good sound, expressive. She studied it with Hindemith.

Who was I talking about? Was it Alena Cherny?
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