Elgar's Hillside

[karlhenning]

An impression formed after hearing her recording of the Bach violin concerti (if I recall correctly).  Sounded like a midi sound file to me.  I could be way off base.

Depends on one's expectations.  If one is fond of the Romantified Bach (once the only lens through which Bach was viewed), e.g., a variety of attempts to "get back" are going to seem less "vivid" in some ways.

A heretical thought, Elgarian, but are you aware of a recording of the concerto which goes with Elgar's first thoughts, without the cadenza?

You know I'm waiting for more, Sara! ; )

[Scarpia]

Depends on one's expectations.  If one is fond of the Romantified Bach (once the only lens through which Bach was viewed), e.g., a variety of attempts to "get back" are going to seem less "vivid" in some ways.

About 98% of my Bach recordings are HIP, so I am not accustomed to Romanticized Bach.  But according to the school of HIP religion I subscribe to (the Harnoncourt variety) the Baroque scores assumed that the performer would take certain liberties.  Hahn played with (according to the memory of my impression) absolute rigidity and uniformity of perfect articulation.  Like a perfect machine.

[kishnevi]

Kennedy makes me want to poke my eyes out, even in this piece where most people love him. I would try a different approach before deciding you don't like the piece - as it really is wonderful. Maybe come back to it later...

I don't have Kennedy's Elgar.  Come to think of it, I don't have Kennedy's anybody

But I do have for the Elgar VC Gil Shaham with Zinman conducting the CSO (on Canary Classics), and like that well enough that I'm no hurry to look up an alternative.

[karlhenning]

About 98% of my Bach recordings are HIP, so I am not accustomed to Romanticized Bach.  But according to the school of HIP religion I subscribe to (the Harnoncourt variety) the Baroque scores assumed that the performer would take certain liberties.  Hahn played with (according to the memory of my impression) absolute rigidity and uniformity of perfect articulation.  Like a perfect machine.

Mine was but one example, and I did not necessarily impute it as pertaining to you.

BTW, it is a commonplace to derogate a performer whose style one does not respond positively to, as mechanical.

[karlhenning]

But I do have for the Elgar VC Gil Shaham with Zinman conducting the CSO (on Canary Classics), and like that well enough that I'm no hurry to look up an alternative.

In my ears, Shaham suffers from (what is to him in any events a bonus) the fact that a half dozen of his recordings are (or were) staples on WCRB.  Unfortunately (and one understands that even a fine artist is not always at his best) these recordings struck me as a violinist who was phoning it in.

That overall impression lingers, even though I have in the interim heard Shaham play live. (It was a good, but not a great performance.)

[Scarpia]

BTW, it is a commonplace to derogate a performer whose style one does not respond positively to, as mechanical.[/font]

I don't find it commonplace at all.  I don't think Kennedy is mechanical at all, for instance. He is overwrought and self-indulgent, in my impression.   In any case, I have a few Hahn recordings on the pile that I have not gotten around to yet, but not Bach.   (Excerpts of her recent recording of obbligato violin parts in Bach soprano arias left me equally cold.)

[karlhenning]

I don't think Kennedy is mechanical at all, for instance.

Reverse fallacy. (Just saying.)

[karlhenning]

Fair disclosure: I haven't yet heard a Hahn recording to impress, so my part in the discourse is not a 'defense' of La Hahn.

[Elgarian]

Have you given the Hahn recording a spin yet, Alan?

No I haven't, Karl - too strapped for cash at the moment to get more than a small fraction of what's caught my eye. And also there's now competition from the new version by Zehetmair, with Mark Elder and the Halle (though for different reasons).

[Elgarian]

A heretical thought, Elgarian, but are you aware of a recording of the concerto which goes with Elgar's first thoughts, without the cadenza?

Not sure if you're saying that such a recording exists, and asking have I heard it (no - I haven't), or if you're asking if such a thing exists (I don't know.)

I think I'd be surprised to learn if such a 'first thoughts' score existed (if it did, Elgar clearly wasn't satisfied with it). My understanding is that the cadenza wasn't tagged on as an afterthought, but something that developed naturally as he worked on the finale. At the time he was working on it, he described it in a note to a friend as 'the solo violin thinking over the first movement' - presumably as he himself was doing. He seems to have worked out a lot of it with the help of Billy Reed (Leader of the LSO), who came round to play it through with him - Reed writes: 'Passages were tried in different ways: the notes were regrouped or the phrasing altered. The Cadenza was in pieces; but soon the parts took shape and were knit together to become an integral part of the concerto.' Obviously they were working specifically on the cadenza on the occasion described in that anecdote, but I'm not aware that there was ever a time when anything like a self-contained version of the last movement existed without the cadenza.

So please tell me more, if there's more to tell.

[Lethevich]

Oh, non - it was wishful thinking, as it felt as though the cadenza may have been added after other copies were made if not published. It intrigues me because, as you implied in your wonderful earlier posts on the piece, it would give it an entirely different mood - tighter, more self-consciously ticking the correct boxes for the template. I don't know why, but I have something like Dvorak's VC in mind as something it could be like with a textbook energetic finale, but with the cadenza I can't mentally tie the movement (or the entire piece) together in my head. I guess I have no imagination

[Elgarian]

Oh, non - it was wishful thinking, as it felt as though the cadenza may have been added after other copies were made if not published.

Ah, right, I understand. I think I can clear that up with a few dates. Billy Reed first went to visit on 28 May 1910, and 'found E. striding about with a lot of loose sheets of music paper, arranging them in different parts of the room. Some were already pinned on the backs of chairs, or stuck up on the mantlepiece ready for me to play. ... we started work without losing a moment. What we played was a sketchy version of the Violin Concerto. He had got the main ideas written out, and, as he put it 'japed them up' to make a coherent piece.'

Nothing had been published at that stage, though it's doubtful whether the cadenza existed in anything but the sketchiest form, if at all. Elgar sent the violin and piano score of the first movement to the publisher on 1 June - there was no orchestration at that stage.

Reed then recalls going again on 12 June when 'the slow movement and the first movement of the concerto were almost finished; and the Coda was ready.' And on 30 June he was with Elgar sorting out the Cadenza (the passage I quoted in my previous post).

So this was all coming thick and fast, and the whole thing coming together through the month of June. Certainly there was no published 'early cadenza-less version'. If there was ever a cadenza-less version of any sort, it could only have existed for a few days, on multiple scraps of paper.

with the cadenza I can't mentally tie the movement (or the entire piece) together in my head. I guess I have no imagination

I don't think your imagination is in question! I just think it's a very idiosyncratic piece of music, and enormously worth persisting with. For years I thought it was just too darned long, but then I hadn't recognised the crucial importance of the cadenza, myself. Let's suppose he'd cut it out. So instead, when he starts to close down the shop about 9 minutes into the last movement, suppose he actually had chosen to close it down then and there, with a nice optimistic quasi-blustery ending, rather as it does, in fact, end. Well, we'd have a nice half-hour long concerto, packed with great tunes, with a meltingly lovely slow movement, and a feel-good ending to boot. And very nice too.

The fact that he could have done that so easily, but didn't, is a testament to his integrity I think. When the music pauses after those first 9 minutes and doesn't go on to the rousing finale, but instead dives down with the remembered windflower tunes into the pit of the cadenza, he's deciding not to pretend that he's sorted it all out. It's like writing an autobiography and deciding NOT to go for the pat, upbeat ending, but to face up to some pretty serious stuff instead. So then, when he does at last reach the (somewhat) upbeat ending, he does so after having faced things down squarely, and able to recognise that the upbeat stuff is really pretty fragile. Perhaps a bit of a bluff, even.

But look, this is just my personal reading of it. I've listened to it so many times down the years that I'm probably just stuck in my own groove. All I can say is that as the years go by, I find more and more to unravel, it gets more and more beautiful and moving as its musical symbolism seems to penetrate deeper into the human condition; and my perception of its giant stature steadily increases.

[eyeresist]

Elgar tells us that life is not optimized. It's full of repetition and redundancy and we better accept it.

That's an ... interesting way of defending Elgar! Makes him sound more like Philip Glass.

[karlhenning]

Elgar tells us that life is not optimized. It's full of repetition and redundancy and we better accept it.

It's all right that life is like that.

If art is too much like that, gawd it's teejus.

[Sergeant Rock]

An impression formed after hearing her recording of the Bach violin concerti (if I recall correctly).  Sounded like a midi sound file to me.  I could be way off base.

I don't like Hahn's Bach either. It sounds mechanical to me too, with tempos tending to be way too fast.

Kennedy...is overwrought and self-indulgent, in my impression.

Then you will probably prefer Hahn. Compared to Kennedy she is cooler (although no ice maiden either). The requisite emotions are there, not short-changed...at least that's the way I hear her. I do love what she and Davis do with the work but I seem to be a minority...me and the Hurwitzer 

Edit: Looking at some Elgar VC reviews in Gramophone (boy, the Brits really hate Hahn's Elgar ), I read a rave about the James Ehnes performance, Andrew Davis conducting on the Onyx label. Ordered it. Has anyone heard it? 

Sarge

[DavidRoss]

I don't like Hahn's Bach either. It sounds mechanical to me too, with tempos tending to be way too fast.

Then you will probably prefer Hahn. Compared to Kennedy she is cooler (although no ice maiden either). The requisite emotions are there, not short-changed...at least that's the way I hear her. I do love what she and Davis do with the work but I seem to be a minority...

The Hahn/Kahane Bach VCs are not my faves, either...but may be overdue for another hearing.  I do like her Elgar--not as much as her Mendelssohn or Beethoven--but the real treasure on that disc is her Lark Ascending.

[Sergeant Rock]

The Hahn/Kahane Bach VCs are not my faves, either...but may be overdue for another hearing.

Yeah, I should give it another listen too. Sometimes first impressions don't make the best, uh...first impression 

Sarge

[DavidRoss]

Yeah, I should give it another listen too. Sometimes first impressions don't make the best, uh...first impression 

I've probably heard their Lark nearly two dozen times.  It is my favorite recording of the piece among the half-dozen I own, all acquired incidental to the purchase of other works.  I listened to it last night, in fact, before bed, wanting to hear something serenely beautiful to set my troubled mind at ease.  But, as usual, I skipped the Elgar VC that precedes it on the same disc.

Perhaps I'll follow through with the Elgar later today...?  Though it's hardly my favorite VC and one I almost never reach for except after discussions like this! 

[Scarpia]

I came to the Elgar concerto with a strong positive disposition, but I remain pessimistic that this work will ever win me over.  I don't find that the "romantic" violin concerto is one of my favorite genres, the exceptions are the Brahm, Beethoven and Sibelius.   Baroque, Classical or neo-Classical VCs are more to my liking (Bach, Martinu, Stravinsky, Hindemith, etc).

My characterization, too many notes, still holds, too much incessant figuration from the violin.  My favorite concerti don't have that.  The idea of a 10 minutes cadenza doesn't make any sense to me.  There is a 100 piece orchestra sitting there cooling it's heels and I should be listening to a single violin squawking away (even if it's not Kennedy)?  I am interested in thematic contrasts and development that people have described, but I wish Elgar had put them into a third symphony instead of this monstrosity!

[karlhenning]

Interesting.

Now, for me, it's the symphonies which are borderline monstronsities . . . where the Concerto I like very well.