Franz Schubert

Started by Paul-Michel, April 25, 2008, 05:54:19 AM

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SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on January 05, 2019, 02:26:57 PM
A lot weaker? Beer in the U.S. is around 5% alcohol.

I will grant you that beverage-like concoctions like "Coors Light" do a creditable job approximating "small beer" or, as has been remarked upon occasion, "the only successful attempt at diluting water".

But back to Schubert and all his symphonies... :-) http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-survey-of-schubert-symphony-cycles.html

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on January 06, 2019, 01:13:12 AM
Goethe apparently drank like two bottles of wine a day and lived a highly productive life of 82 years.

He must have drunk only high quality wine.  ;)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka



An extremely turbulent, tragic, epic, intense, violent, jolting, clashing, stormy and stressy performance of the G major quartet, well worth hearing and well worth reading the booklet.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#523


I just listened to the D 840/i here and in Uchida'a recording. Leonhardt lets the left hand music sound as important as the right hand - there's not so frequently a sense of secondary accompaniment and primary melody. And for some reason the harmonies sound less white note than I recall in other performances - I can't find out about the temperament of her piano, I don't have the booklet, but I bet it's not equal. Whatever it is it is a great help in this repetitive and often static music.

In fact what Leonhardt does is far from static, it's thrilling. On the basis of this one movement, she's part of the new wave of Schubert performance, as exemplified by musicians like Tetzlaff and Helmchen. She stresses the way the collisions, harmonic and rhythmic, in the music, the restlessness, so that the result is more turbulent and stormy than lyrical and sweet.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

amw

#524
I played through Schubert's D960 at what I thought were "moderate" tempi and ended up with total timings of 17:56 / 12:24 / 3:46 / 8:34. It may take some work to de-Schnabelise myself.

(Have to find a normal-to-slow version of the first movement that actually convinces me—I have Eschenbach (III?), Lonquich, Takahashi and Hamelin queued up, also giving some consideration to Lars Vogt.)

Todd

Quote from: amw on February 16, 2019, 04:59:22 AMHave to find a normal-to-slow version of the first movement that actually convinces me—I have Eschenbach (III?), Lonquich, Takahashi and Hamelin queued up, also giving some consideration to Lars Vogt.


Is that Eschenbach the Harmonia Mundi one?  I've not heard that one.  Typically, he does well when he plays slow, if you like his style.  If you like the opener more moderate, I'm not sure any pianist will convince when dragging it out.
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Brian

Count me on team fast (or fastish) for 960/i. I'm now curious to read amw's history and see any favorites you might have with that approach. (Well...Schnabel.) It is interesting, amw, that with that "moderate" tempo in the first movement, you then turn around and play the second so slowly! As a fan of big contrasts (and a believer that Schubert was too - D. 956, the piano trios), I probably would have enjoyed being in the room...

Florestan

Quote from: Brian on February 16, 2019, 07:32:20 AM
Count me on team fast (or fastish) for 960/i.

How fast could Molto moderato be? Like, not fast at all?  :)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jo498

"moderato" is not adagio. (tbh it is usally used as a modifier, it does not make much sense on its own therefore it is not implausible to think of it as "(allegro) molto moderato", i.e. allegro but considerably slower than a usual allegro would be.
Cf. the main theme to the beginning of Beethoven's Archduke trio (1st mvmt). It's probably supposed to be clearly slower than Beethoven's "Allegro moderato" but it is not slow. It is still a moderately fast movement. As such it is played by most older pianists, especially those with a Austro-German background (Schnabel, Badura-Skoda, probably Erdmann, I am not a collector of the piece).
Then came some Russians and suggested to play it very slowly and it kinda stuck.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Todd

Quote from: Jo498 on February 16, 2019, 08:19:29 AM
Then came some Russians and suggested to play it very slowly and it kinda stuck.


I think it could be interesting to do comparative timings pre- and post-Richter. 
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Florestan

Quote from: Jo498 on February 16, 2019, 08:19:29 AM
"moderato" is not adagio. (tbh (1) it is usally used as a modifier, it does not make much sense on its own therefore it is not implausible to think of it as "(allegro) molto moderato", i.e. (2)
allegro but considerably slower than a usual allegro would be.

(1) Why didn't Schubert wrote Allegro molto moderato?

(2) considerably slower --- how much considerably and how much slower?

QuoteCf. the main theme to the beginning of Beethoven's Archduke trio (1st mvmt). It's probably supposed to be clearly slower than Beethoven's "Allegro moderato"

Probably supposed by whom?

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

Mandryka

#531
I like it slow, and at the moment I'm liking this very poised and sane reading -- Andrei, this is maybe your sort of thing, given what you said about Perahia.



My opinion of Hamelin in C 19 music -- Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven and now Schubert is growing rapidly.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

#532
Quote from: Mandryka on February 16, 2019, 10:17:12 AM
I like it slow,

Well, I like it Molto moderato:D

That is, rather slow than fast.

Quote
and at the moment I'm liking this very poised and sane reading -- Andrei, this is maybe your sort of thing, given what you said about Perahia.



My opinion of Hamelin in C 19 music -- Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven and now Schubert is growing rapidly.

Blimey, Howard (it is Howard, right?)! Hamelin is the last name I would have thought of! Could you please let me have it, if you can? TIA.

Poised and sane --- yeah, that's my thing alright as of late --- probably due to some personal issues I can't stand in-your-face heroism and angst anymore --- not that I ever stood them but nowadays more than ever I find them obnoxious.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Mandryka

Quote from: Florestan on February 16, 2019, 10:35:15 AM
Well, I like it Molto moderato:D

That is, rather slow than fast.

Blimey, Howard (it is Howard, right?)! Hamelin is the last name I would have thought of! Could you please let me have it, if you can? TIA.

Poised and sane --- yeah, that's my thing alright as of late --- probably due to some personal issues I can't stand in-your-face heroism and angst anymore --- not that I ever stood them but nowadays more than ever I find them obnoxious.

Your inbox is full (again)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

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

amw

Quote from: Todd on February 16, 2019, 07:15:11 AM

Is that Eschenbach the Harmonia Mundi one?
Yes. I already have the early DG/Brilliant one, which is surprisingly not-slow. My assumption had always been that there was a second recording from the EMI/Warner years before the Harmonia Mundi one, but it appears he might have just recorded the 4-hands repertoire then.

Quote from: Brian on February 16, 2019, 07:32:20 AM
Count me on team fast (or fastish) for 960/i. I'm now curious to read amw's history and see any favorites you might have with that approach. (Well...Schnabel.) It is interesting, amw, that with that "moderate" tempo in the first movement, you then turn around and play the second so slowly!
I grew up with the Schnabel recording and it seems to have imprinted. It's still my reference in most respects. Strangely this hasn't been true of its discmate D959 though, which I "should" have likewise imprinted on, but didn't. (my reference version is currently the first Imogen Cooper on Ottavo)

With the first movement, I think part of the issue is the time signature. Schubert wrote C, or 4 beats to a bar—and at four moderate beats per bar the music is indeed very slow. However, the only source for the sonata (and D958 & 959) is a fair copy autograph manuscript; Schubert didn't live to proof it for publication, and he was known to leave out the line (Ȼ) and other such details as he wrote very quickly. (A lot of editorial work was done by the editors of the first editions, including Brahms, and only undone in the new Bärenreiter critical edition.) If you look at the music of the first movement itself there are many passages where it's very clearly in alla breve time—two moderate beats to a bar—e.g. this is quite obvious in the development section. A tempo that has two "very moderate" beats to the bar would come to something like 𝅗𝅥 = 66; four "very moderate" beats, ♩= 66 or similar, would come out at ~30 minutes, slower than all existing recordings. (The slow tempo of someone like Richter or Korstick is about ♩= 80. In Schubert's time, this tempo would be approximately an "Allegretto"; "Moderato" is probably intended to be slower.)

"Andante sostenuto" for the second movement implies a slower tempo than a Moderato; so if the Moderato is around 66 BPM, Andante might be around 60, and with the "sostenuto" closer to 54. I think I played it so slowly just because I was playing the first movement at about 54 already (because I'm not a very good pianist) and don't think the second movement should ever sound faster than or in the same tempo as the first movement.

Quote from: Florestan on February 16, 2019, 08:31:55 AM
(1) Why didn't Schubert wrote Allegro molto moderato?

(2) considerably slower --- how much considerably and how much slower?
"Allegro molto moderato" was a different tempo for Schubert than "Molto moderato". A standard Allegro in Schubert's time was about 132-138 BPM, and a standard Allegretto about 76-80 BPM, so he & Beethoven created a whole gradation of tempi in between those two—Allegro non tanto, Allegro ma non troppo, Allegro moderato, Allegro molto moderato, Allegretto vivace, roughly in order. The "Allegro molto moderato" of the 15th quartet resolves to a tempo of about MM 96 in most performances, which is also more or less the fastest tempo at which the movement could be played intelligibly. It seems that Schubert went further by introducing "Moderato" and "Molto moderato" as intermediate tempi between Allegretto moderato (MM 72ish) and Andante (MM 60ish), and did so particularly in the first movements of piano sonatas in alla breve time (2/2 or 12/8).

Charles Rosen's chapter on tempo in Beethoven's Vienna in his companion to the Beethoven Piano Sonatas is a useful reference.

Quote from: Mandryka on February 16, 2019, 10:17:12 AM
I like it slow, and at the moment I'm liking this very poised and sane reading -- Andrei, this is maybe your sort of thing, given what you said about Perahia.



My opinion of Hamelin in C 19 music -- Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven and now Schubert is growing rapidly.
It probably shouldn't be a surprise that the world's best active pianist makes good recordings, but I think all the flashy stuff he plays has served to distract us all from that.....

(Has he played any Beethoven? Apart from the Alkan transcription of the 3rd Concerto)

JBS

Re Hamelin Beethoven
At least some of it is in his repetoire
https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/08/review_pianist_marc-andre_hame.html

And Google shows some things on Youtube. But apparently no CDs yet.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

#537
I have recordings of him playing op 110 and op 111 in 2004 and the appassionata in 2017.

Listening again to his 960/1 the word which popped into my head was "pastoral" , like the expression of untroubled harmony. The rumbles in the left hand have lost their menace, and become more like a contented lion's purr.

Someone else was praising his Chopin op 58 recently, and it is indeed very good indeed.

Did you play all D960, amw? The reason I ask is a friend of mine tried recently and found that he just didn't have the physical musicular strength, just too tiring!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

amw

Yes but I don't find it as difficult as your friend evidently—for me the most punishing Schubert sonatas are D850 and D894 as well as the tarantella finale to D958. These things are always subjective.

Hamelin's 960 is good but I'm not sure I have much to say about it from one listen whilst not in the best mental state—will revisit. I also listened to his Op. 109 on youtube. It would be a competitive version if he took it to the studio, but evidently has his own reasons for not doing so (even if just that he feels there's too much competition out there...)

Mandryka

#539
He's so good at playing the piano, Hamelin is. Just the way he can make the voices seem to float over each other and the way he can make colours appear. It's a wonderfully indulgent sensual experience. I thought I was becoming blasé about that sort of thing - like, 30 years ago I remember thinking the same about Arrau and Richter but there's been so much water under the bridge since then that I wouldn't have thought I could still have that feeling of listening to someone with superpowers. But no, my jaw dropped to the floor: Hamelin has the magic touch.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen