Prokofiev's Paddy Wagon

Started by Danny, April 07, 2007, 09:29:23 AM

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North Star

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 24, 2012, 11:59:31 AM
Have you by chance heard this recording, Karl? Looks tempting...

I'm not Karl (although the difference is only one letter...), but it's absolutely fantastic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_-6HEw3e00

[asin]B003W16TBS[/asin]
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Karl Henning

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 24, 2012, 11:59:31 AM
Have you by chance heard this recording, Karl? Looks tempting...

Karlo is right, it is an entirely splendid box.

Quote from: North Star on May 24, 2012, 12:07:37 PM
I'm not Karl (although the difference is only one letter...), but it's absolutely fantastic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_-6HEw3e00

[asin]B003W16TBS[/asin]
a
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

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: North Star on May 24, 2012, 12:07:37 PM
I'm not Karl (although the difference is only one letter...), but it's absolutely fantastic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_-6HEw3e00


Hmm...short clip but it does sound ravishing! Thanks, North Star.



Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

TheGSMoeller

Copy and pasted this from listening now thread, wanted to share it in the Paddy Wagon...





Symphony No. 4, Op. 112
Symphony No. 4, Op. 47
Symphony No. 3, Op. 44
Symphony No. 5, Op. 100


Did quite a bit of driving today at work, so grabbed this set to keep my ears busy. The more time I spend with this Gergiev set, the more I enjoy it. Some truly animated performances, especially for both 4ths. Both Andante tranquillo are delicate and the finales of both do a superb job of maintaining it's playfulness while continuing to drive towards their respectively intense endings. The 3rd is a little bland with the climax seeming to arise during the third movement leaving the finale to feel rushed. The 5th is very good, brisk tempi throughout which eliminates any chance of dragging, which I prefer, particularly for the third movement Adagio. For the rest of the set, the 1st symphony is passable, 2nd is good, the 6th might be the best of this set, and the 7th (original ending) gets a highly enjoyable reading. But lookout for Gergiev being Gergiev, interesting but sometimes distracting and jarring interpretation choices, some breakneck speeds (which most of the time for Prokofiev can sound very appealing) and the occasional moaning from the conductors podium. Is that a toothpick he's conducting the coda of No. 5 with?
But most importantly, you get live recorded performances from the LSO with great sound quality, they sound precise but loose, accurate but playful, but always phenomenal. I will also note that the piano and harp make a very strong presence throughout, two instruments that easily get drowned in other Prokofiev symphony recordings.

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2012, 12:19:55 PM
Karlo is right, it is an entirely splendid box.


Thanks, Karl!


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Pierre

I seem to remember that Glenn Gould wrote a liner note about Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 where he said he didn't understand how the central 'Andante caloroso' movement fits in the rest of the work. I don't have a copy of his recording: does anyone here, and if so could they post the relevant sentences he wrote about that movement?

Thank you.

Sergeant Rock

#1046
Quote from: Pierre on May 29, 2012, 01:31:22 AM
I seem to remember that Glenn Gould wrote a liner note about Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 where he said he didn't understand how the central 'Andante caloroso' movement fits in the rest of the work. I don't have a copy of his recording: does anyone here, and if so could they post the relevant sentences he wrote about that movement?

Thank you.

Here's a scan of the CD liner notes; a reproduction of the original LP back cover. Left click to enlarge. It doesn't have what you remember.




Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Karl Henning

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 31, 2012, 02:21:39 AM
Here's a scan of the CD liner notes; a reproduction of the original LP back cover. Left click to enlarge. It doesn't have what you remember.



Well. It's not every day you read liner notes that begin with the single word, Well : )

Thanks for your pains, Sarge, that is a fascinating snapshot upon The Mind of Glenn Gould.  Disappointed to find that he echoes the snobbery (which still has not fallen entirely out of fashion) against the Leningrad Symphony.

Interesting, too, that our Pierre misremembers, though not completely.  He remarks on the sonata's heterogeneity, and finds the theme of the Andante caloroso "cloying."

Where, personally, I find his quotation-marks-and-hyphens characterizations not merely eccentric (which one expects from the source) but tendentious.  Again: a fascinating snapshot of a curious artistic personality.
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

Karl Henning

Meanwhile, there has come in György Sándor's volume 2 of the piano solo music:  to-day is the day I listen at last to Choses-en-soi!
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

kishnevi

Quote from: karlhenning on May 31, 2012, 04:44:06 AM
Well. It's not every day you read liner notes that begin with the single word, Well : )

Thanks for your pains, Sarge, that is a fascinating snapshot upon The Mind of Glenn Gould.  Disappointed to find that he echoes the snobbery (which still has not fallen entirely out of fashion) against the Leningrad Symphony.

Interesting, too, that our Pierre misremembers, though not completely.  He remarks on the sonata's heterogeneity, and finds the theme of the Andante caloroso "cloying."

Where, personally, I find his quotation-marks-and-hyphens characterizations not merely eccentric (which one expects from the source) but tendentious.  Again: a fascinating snapshot of a curious artistic personality.


Gould was actually an excellent essayist; if you can find them,  grab it; they're well worth reading both for the musicianship and for the command of English style.  Many of them were simply his liner notes for various recordings.   I once found a group of them in the library in a volume titled "The Glenn Gould Reader".  Don't know if there are more out there.

Of course, de gustibus rules in writing words as much as music.  What you found tendentious I read as grade A quality snark.  He was, after all, writing at the height of the Cold War.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: karlhenning on May 31, 2012, 04:44:06 AM
Well. It's not every day you read liner notes that begin with the single word, Well : )

The "Well" acts as a link between his first and second paragraphs, and of course gives us a hint of Gould's attitude  ;D  The entire scan is linked below if you want to read the part I cropped out. His essay on Scriabin is interesting too (and in the same style, like it or not  ;) ):

http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/apr12/img146_crop.jpg


Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

kishnevi

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 31, 2012, 07:51:49 AM
The "Well" acts as a link between his first and second paragraphs, and of course gives us a hint of Gould's attitude  ;D  The entire scan is linked below if you want to read the part I cropped out. His essay on Scriabin is interesting too (and in the same style, like it or not  ;) ):

http://photos.imageevent.com/sgtrock/apr12/img146_crop.jpg


Sarge

"Russian music's chief tourist attraction."

I'll have to remember that line.

Karl Henning

Thanks again, Sarge!

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on May 31, 2012, 07:15:03 AM
. . . What you found tendentious I read as grade A quality snark.

Emendation gratefuly accepted.
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

Karl Henning

"Motoric monstrosity" is good, too — though he seems to say it like it's a bad thing. For is not the Precipitato (as the Op.11 Toccata) a beautiful motoric monstrosity?
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

not edward

Had, for once, the time to spend an afternoon with a long-ish piece of music today, and as I'd just acquired the Noseda recording, it was a great opportunity to hear The Tale of the Stone Flower for the first time. First impressions were more favourable than I'd expected, having heard a lot of negative things about the work (and having not been impressed by Jarvi's extracts on the disc with the October cantata).

Karl made a good point about the unfamiliar story--I know I had very little idea of what action the music was representing--and it's probably true that the writing is softer-edged and less tense than in Romeo and Juliet. But I didn't find the longueurs that I was expecting, and at this point I'm very much thinking of it as--like the 7th symphony--another underrated work from the final years of his life.

I think there's another sense in which the comparison to Romeo and Juliet is cruel to this work: simply put, the earlier ballet is one of the defining masterpieces of the genre. If it's true that Prokofiev didn't manage to reach the same level in Cinderella or The Stone Flower, it'd be easy to argue that no other 20th century full-evening ballets did (perhaps Schnittke's Peer Gynt comes as close as any, and it makes no attempt to hide its Prokofievian inheritance).
"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

Karl Henning

Quote from: edward on June 03, 2012, 05:43:22 PM
[...] I think there's another sense in which the comparison to Romeo and Juliet is cruel to this work: simply put, the earlier ballet is one of the defining masterpieces of the genre. If it's true that Prokofiev didn't manage to reach the same level in Cinderella or The Stone Flower, it'd be easy to argue that no other 20th century full-evening ballets did (perhaps Schnittke's Peer Gynt comes as close as any, and it makes no attempt to hide its Prokofievian inheritance).

Word.

Not sure just why it is that the Järvi excerpts don't persuade . . . .

Separately, I've had to return the vol. 2 of piano solo music played by Sándor;  disc skipped several times in the Op.11, drat it!  Found what ought to prove a suitable replacement . . . just the waiting . . . .
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

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2012, 07:32:28 AM
Separately, I've had to return the vol. 2 of piano solo music played by Sándor;  disc skipped several times in the Op.11, drat it! 

;D Of all the works.


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Karl Henning

Aye!

The immediate and obvious annoyance, though, was balanced by the fact that I knew right away that the album needs to be returned ; )
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

Karl Henning

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on May 31, 2012, 07:15:03 AM
Gould was actually an excellent essayist; if you can find them,  grab it; they're well worth reading both for the musicianship and for the command of English style.  Many of them were simply his liner notes for various recordings.   I once found a group of them in the library in a volume titled "The Glenn Gould Reader."

Thank you, Jeffrey, and thank you, Sarge. I've scared up a copy of this very book.
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

Karl Henning

Revisiting Slava in the Shostakovich Fourth & Thirteenth, plus Greg's enthusiasm for his recording of the Prokofiev Sixth ... and what should I chance upon at BRO but his set of the symphonies for $20.
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