Shoo, Schoonderwoerd?

Started by Rinaldo, January 21, 2022, 07:11:50 AM

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Rinaldo

First, a review.



Then, some (actually, a lot of) good ol' Dave Hurwitz.

https://www.youtube.com/v/uPyM57xG__M https://www.youtube.com/v/PiTmAM_81Nw

And finally, a confession: I love, love, love Schoonderwoerd's recordings of the Beethoven PCs. They are so delightful, so life-affirming like a winter morning bathed in sunlight, which is something we experienced here in Prague today and it made me immediately recall this set.

https://www.youtube.com/v/XpA25dG8XlU

Is it the perfect interpretation? Hah, of course not. Is this guy's approach highly debatable? Hah, of course it is. The only thing that's certain: I'm gonna continue to enjoy every single creaky, clanky, cheery second of it. Any Schoonderwoerd fans over here? Haters? Does he deserve that much flak? I've enjoyed O'Hanlon's takedown, even though I obviously disagree with him – give me 'skeletonised' Beethoven over pompous exuberance any day.

Que

Quote from: Rinaldo on January 21, 2022, 07:11:50 AM
And finally, a confession: I love, love, love Schoonderwoerd's recordings of the Beethoven PCs. They are so delightful, so life-affirming like a winter morning bathed in sunlight, which is something we experienced here in Prague today and it made me immediately recall this set.

https://www.youtube.com/v/XpA25dG8XlU

Is it the perfect interpretation? Hah, of course not. Is this guy's approach highly debatable? Hah, of course it is. The only thing that's certain: I'm gonna continue to enjoy every single creaky, clanky, cheery second of it. Any Schoonderwoerd fans over here? Haters? Does he deserve that much flak? I've enjoyed O'Hanlon's takedown, even though I obviously disagree with him – give me 'skeletonised' Beethoven over pompous exuberance any day.

I know we are in a minority, but I'm with you my friend!  8)

Gurn Blanston

Me too. Perhaps not my favorite set (not sure what that is, really), but one I have enjoyed many times over the years. Perhaps it is our perverse natures?   :o ;)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Rinaldo

Quote from: Que on January 21, 2022, 08:10:14 AMI know we are in a minority, but I'm with you my friend!  8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on January 21, 2022, 08:26:48 AMMe too. Perhaps not my favorite set (not sure what that is, really), but one I have enjoyed many times over the years. Perhaps it is our perverse natures?   :o ;)

Huzzah! Perverts rejoice! >:D That said, unlike the PCs, Schondy's Eroica is too sparse for me. A fun experiment, but it seems even my perversion has its limits.



C-M carries an expectedly scathing review.


JBS

I don't remember liking the set when I listened to it.
But I don't remember anything that would justify all the negativity...

Time I suppose to put it on the Listen Pile.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Florestan

I'll let (poco) Sforzando express my thoughts exactly on the issue.  ;D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

amw

I found Schoonderwoerd's pianism to be underwhelming; I'm not sure whether it's that he's not up to the technical demands of the Beethoven piano concerti, or whether he actually has some historically informed reason for preferring unevenness in tone and rhythm when playing, plus slower tempi than specified by Beethoven or his students, plus a lack of concern for note-perfect accuracy. For whatever reason though, the result sounds like piano playing by a moderately gifted amateur, rather than a professional piano virtuoso (which Beethoven was). Ensemble Cristofori on the other hand seemed fine, well-drilled and sounding pretty good, and I don't remember having any major objections to them, either in the concerti or later on in the Eroica, except for still being too slow.

For a better exemplar of small-ensemble Beethoven piano concertos, at least from a pianophilia perspective, I recommend Robert Levin's recording of the Fourth with string quintet, here.

The new erato

I'm just happy someone dares to do some thing different, and found the set far more illuminating than yet another glitzy big band issue which have been done to death a zillion times.

Crudblud

I'm listening to the Schoonderwoerd Beethoven PC4 and enjoying it a lot. I love the timbres in this more "intimate" setting.

Rinaldo

Quote from: amw on January 21, 2022, 12:50:24 PM
I found Schoonderwoerd's pianism to be underwhelming; I'm not sure whether it's that he's not up to the technical demands of the Beethoven piano concerti, or whether he actually has some historically informed reason for preferring unevenness in tone and rhythm when playing, plus slower tempi than specified by Beethoven or his students, plus a lack of concern for note-perfect accuracy. For whatever reason though, the result sounds like piano playing by a moderately gifted amateur, rather than a professional piano virtuoso (which Beethoven was).

I guess one could say the piano isn't Schoonderwoerd's forte...

Thanks for the Levin recommendation!

Quote from: Florestan on January 21, 2022, 10:49:50 AM
I'll let (poco) Sforzando express my thoughts exactly on the issue.  ;D

Bracing for impact :D

Ras

Strange with me and Schoonderwoerd: I don't like any of his recordings except his Mozart "Requiem", which happens to be my all time favorite, beating all the other hipsters that are more famous.
"Music is life and, like it, inextinguishable." - Carl Nielsen

Rinaldo

Quote from: Ras on January 25, 2022, 05:18:36 AM
Strange with me and Schoonderwoerd: I don't like any of his recordings except his Mozart "Requiem", which happens to be my all time favorite, beating all the other hipsters that are more famous.

Interesting! Now I have to check it out.

(poco) Sforzando

#12
I am responding only because my friend Florestan invited me to. Some years back on the Beethoven in Period Performances thread, I gave my opinions on Sch's piano concertos, which I considered a disaster for numerous reasons. You may look up my comments on that thread. Hurwitz also gave these renditions a 1 out of 10 on Classics Today, and while Hurwitz pisses me off for numerous reasons, he is surely correct here. Now Sch's Eroica is available on YouTube, and the best that can be said for it is that he is not playing the piano, something he does not do very well. But the performance (I gave up after the 18:30 first movement) is plodding, undramatic, and as unheroic as can be, lacking in any of the "brio" (spirit, vivacity, verve) Beethoven specifically calls for. And the instrumental balances, with only a single violin for each of the parts, remain absurd and contrary to all historical documents concerning the forces composers of this era would have expected. I don't care if the performance is supposed to imitate the first reading held at some nobleman's palace where they could fit only 35 players in the room. Always, always, there were more players for violins 1 and 2 than for the middle and lower strings.

But Sch, like the rats on the New York City subway, simply won't Shoo and he continues to clog the catalog with his clumsy amateurishness. I have not heard his Mozart Requiem, but on another thread, we were told his Mozart Sonata K. 332 was "fabulous." Not wanting to waste my money, I found this on YT as well, and those so inclined can enjoy his relentless, graceless pounding, his inability to shape a phrase, and his technical insufficiency. It is not that I object to period instruments per se (compare for example Bilson/Gardiner on the Mozart concertos, or the somewhat later instrument Penelope Crawford uses for her marvelous versions of the later Beethoven sonatas.) But Sch's instrument is downright ugly, his playing is painful to hear, and the dim recording does not help.

Never one to give up, however, Sch has also gifted us with his take on the Chopin Ballades, music for which his pianism is totally inadequate, and recorded on a far less beautiful instrument than used by Crawford or by Badura-Skoda in his Beethoven period performances. Come on now, even if you want to use a period instrument, no one before Chopin fully recognized the beauty of the expanded range of the piano and the sonorities of its multiple registers, so a fine instrument is essential. But Sch's "Chopin" is again available on YT, so that you can hear for free his clumsy banging through the difficult codas of Ballades 1 and 4.

Bottom line in my opinion is that Arthur Sch should not be allowed inside a recording studio, and if there were any justice, within 10 feet either of a piano, period or modern.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on February 10, 2022, 08:46:13 AM
I don't care if the performance is supposed to imitate the first reading held at some nobleman's palace where they could fit only 35 players in the room.

Does this Eroica also break down in the middle of the first movement, so that they have to start the performance again? Cuz that's what happened during that first reading held at some nobleman's palace.

It's always interesting to see just how far HIPsters will take their quest for authenticity!
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Archaic Torso of Apollo on February 10, 2022, 09:07:58 AM
Does this Eroica also break down in the middle of the first movement, so that they have to start the performance again? Cuz that's what happened during that first reading held at some nobleman's palace.

It's always interesting to see just how far HIPsters will take their quest for authenticity!

It's all smoke and mirrors. Supposedly they couldn't fit the audience for that Eroica in the same room as the players. Certainly the audience was all aristocrats. It was probably sight-reading or under-rehearsed. But even if you used 25 players, the strings could be allocated a sensible 3-3-2-2-1, and 4-4-3-3-2 for 30 players.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

amw

#15
I don't even think there would be a major issue with having the string parts one player to a part (or two to a part except for the bass) if the performances weren't a) under tempo by so much and b)—the most important aspect overall, I think—obeyed basic rules of phrasing and interpretation, such as bearing in mind that a long line exists and then subdividing the long line into two- and four-bar units. There are times where it feels as though the performers are playing each note as though it were completely independent of all of its surrounding notes. In other words it sounds like they're sight-reading, and not very well.

I think almost any other objection could also be dealt with if this issue was not present. For example Schoonderwoerd's Mozart sonatas have many technical errors and a tendency towards choppy, uneven playing (which may be historically accurate to some extent, but probably not to this extent). Badura-Skoda has the exact same problem, but Badura-Skoda is not only much more listenable but at times even revelatory, as in K331. Why? I think for me it does come down to phrasing and its effect on interpretation: Badura-Skoda sounds like someone who has not only lived with the Mozart sonatas for a very long time but also understands them on a fundamental musical level; Schoonderwoerd sounds like someone who doesn't have any idea what's going on in the sonatas at any level. And I assume he does in fact understand the music (he is a professional musician who studied music for a long time before becoming a performer after all) which is what makes his macro- and micro-phrasing decisions so inexplicable to me, and why I speculate (but will never have proof, of course) that these decisions are unintentional and a result of him, e.g., not practicing the piano enough or in a sufficiently effective manner.

In this sense it's easier for me to explain John Khouri, another musician whose potential insights are buried under an inability to shape any phrase, but there it's understandable: Khouri is a self-professed amateur whose main interest lies in collecting and restoring historical instruments; he does not, as far as I know, market himself as a professional. (The distinction between amateur and professional is in part that an amateur practices until he gets the notes right; a professional practices until he never gets them wrong.) I'm comfortable with a wide range of technical mishaps, poor-sounding instruments, and unusual interpretations, and all of these can happen to any professional, but one thing professionals do gain from their practice, hours per day for months on end, is the overarching sense of the shape of a piece and of each individual phrase in it. No interpreter can succeed without that, I think.

Florestan

I sampled his Mozart sonatas (he recorded them all, go figure!). They're not simply bad, they're bad in a fascinating sort of way.

I didn't have the guts to sample his Chopin yet.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

(poco) Sforzando

#17
Quote from: amw on February 10, 2022, 09:39:56 AM
I don't even think there would be a major issue with having the string parts one player to a part (or two to a part except for the bass) if the performances weren't a) under tempo by so much and b)—the most important aspect overall, I think—obeyed basic rules of phrasing and interpretation, such as bearing in mind that a long line exists and then subdividing the long line into two- and four-bar units. There are times where it feels as though the performers are playing each note as though it were completely independent of all of its surrounding notes. In other words it sounds like they're sight-reading, and not very well.

I think almost any other objection could also be dealt with if this issue was not present. For example Schoonderwoerd's Mozart sonatas have many technical errors and a tendency towards choppy, uneven playing (which may be historically accurate to some extent, but probably not to this extent). Badura-Skoda has the exact same problem, but Badura-Skoda is not only much more listenable but at times even revelatory, as in K331. Why? I think for me it does come down to phrasing and its effect on interpretation: Badura-Skoda sounds like someone who has not only lived with the Mozart sonatas for a very long time but also understands them on a fundamental musical level; Schoonderwoerd sounds like someone who doesn't have any idea what's going on in the sonatas at any level. And I assume he does in fact understand the music (he is a professional musician who studied music for a long time before becoming a performer after all) which is what makes his macro- and micro-phrasing decisions so inexplicable to me, and why I speculate (but will never have proof, of course) that these decisions are unintentional and a result of him, e.g., not practicing the piano enough or in a sufficiently effective manner.

In this sense it's easier for me to explain John Khouri, another musician whose potential insights are buried under an inability to shape any phrase, but there it's understandable: Khouri is a self-professed amateur whose main interest lies in collecting and restoring historical instruments; he does not, as far as I know, market himself as a professional. (The distinction between amateur and professional is in part that an amateur practices until he gets the notes right; a professional practices until he never gets them wrong.) I'm comfortable with a wide range of technical mishaps, poor-sounding instruments, and unusual interpretations, and all of these can happen to any professional, but one thing professionals do gain from their practice, hours per day for months on end, is the overarching sense of the shape of a piece and of each individual phrase in it. No interpreter can succeed without that, I think.

I agree that phrasing is the most important consideration. But gifted amateurs can phrase well too, as a result of absorbing a sense of musicality from teachers and hearing performances. Of course one needs at least some basic technique to achieve one's ends.

But the instrumental balances are not just a pedantic detail. In the early symphonies of Haydn, the strings are normally set against 2 oboes, 2 horns, and a bassoon reinforcing the bass line. With a few exceptions, by the time of late Haydn and Mozart, as well as almost all of Beethoven, the woodwind consort had expanded to 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Unless the upper strings are reinforced against all these treble wind instruments, they will be inaudible against the winds in a tutti playing en bloc. (I demonstrated this problem when analyzing Sch's Emperor.) Beethoven also gives several clues as to how many strings he expected: in VI:2, he asks for two solo celli against the others; in VlnCon:1, he calls for divided violas; in PfCon4:3, he calls for a solo cello at times. Mozart, too, requires divided violas in the first movement of the G minor.

"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Florestan on February 10, 2022, 09:51:18 AM
I sampled his Mozart sonatas (he recorded them all, go figure!). They're not simply bad, they're bad in a fascinating sort of way.

I didn't have the guts to sample his Chopin yet.

Well, if I had the guts, why shouldn't you.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

inquieto

There are many people more highly qualified than O'Hanlon and Hurwitz to offer a clear review of these recordings. Hurwitz' I-don't-like-it-because-it's-different attitude in his reviews and childish disdain for historical scholarship is embarrassing.

These recordings are not my favourite of these pieces (even amongst HIP recordings); however, the histrionics spewing from these tired men is unwarranted. I really enjoy hearing these pieces this way not just for the fast that it could be closer to how Beethoven intended/performed them, but because it's just nice to hear them with this level of clarity and directness. No one should feel strange for enjoying them.