New Releases

[Roasted Swan]

Here's Fur Elise. I wouldn't put it on heavy rotation, but I rather like it.

Everything old is new again.......  I can always live without the grimacing as though in some way it proves the artists is communing with a higher plane.....

[ritter]

Here's Fur Elise. I wouldn't put it on heavy rotation, but I rather like it.

Bach on the harmonica suddenly isn't sounding that bad anymore... 

[prémont]

Looking at architecture and furniture may help us to get a handle on how transitions were managed in the 18th century. The transition from adagio to rondo is analogous to the transition from entrance hallway to the first floor. In their best, most prized, art and architecture, did they deal with it abruptly or did the lead in a less coarse way from one part of the building to the next?

Are you suggesting that the transitions in architecture affect the transitions in music of the era in question, or did I get you wrong?

[prémont]

So?  Mozart has been dead for centuries.  Living people play his music now, while the dust of what used to be Mozart's corpse does not.  What living people do is more interesting than what reactionaries think Mozart may have done.

To me the question of what the composer did always will have decisive weight. What inventive people today pluck out of thin air of more or less plausible ideas is usually quite uninteresting.

[prémont]

Taking this logic to its conclusion, Mozart keyboard works should never be played on modern grands.  That will not do. 

AMEN

[Todd]

To me the question of what the composer did always will have decisive weight. What inventive people today pluck out of thin air of more or less plausible ideas is usually quite uninteresting.

The literal definition of reactionary thinking.  Thank you.

[prémont]

The literal definition of reactionary thinking.  Thank you.

This is only about music - you may add art in the widest sense, but especially not politics.

[Todd]

This is only about music

Correct.

[ritter]

Is it really necessary to use ad hominem arguments and resort to name-calling in this discussion?

[Mandryka]

Are you suggesting that the transitions in architecture affect the transitions in music of the era in question, or did I get you wrong?

I'm suggesting that the way transitions are managed in fine 18th century architecture suggests ways that transitions could be stylishly managed by Mozart performers today. Linking transitions, like the one between very different movements of a sonata, with freshly composed and stylish arches, is a reasonable HIP idea. A valuable and reasonable experiment for those musicians today who are interested in HIP. After all, architecture is to space what music is to time.

This seems to me more reasonable than just asserting "because Mozart didn't write a transition, and because there is no evidence that he every played one, then improvising one is uninformed." We have to do something with the transition, after all. The question for HIP musicians is: what is the most stylish thing to do?

[ritter]

I'm suggesting that the way transitions are managed in fine 18th century architecture suggests ways that transitions could be stylishly managed by Mozart performers today. A valuable and reasonable experiment for today's musicians. After all, architecture is to space what music is to time.

Perhaps it's easier to do the comparison to Mozart's operas. There was, AFAIK, no "arch" between one act and the next. Curtain, pause or intermission, curtain... Just saying.

[Mandryka]

To me the question of what the composer did always will have decisive weight. What inventive people today pluck out of thin air of more or less plausible ideas is usually quite uninteresting.

What are you going to do when you don't know what the performer did? We know very little about how composers performed their music.

[Todd]

Is it really necessary to use ad hominem arguments and resort to name-calling in this discussion?

The thought process is reactionary.  It should be pointed out.  If a person holds reactionary, or "revolutionary", or other-ary views, he or she should embrace it.  It should also be noted that referring to ideas about "what the composer did" are not only inherently reactionary, they are usually or always fabricated.  For instance, Mozart is thought to have or is known to have (depending on source) improvised while playing.  No one alive today knows how much, no one alive today knows what his playing sounded like, and so forth.  Ultimately, that doesn't matter.  If Colom or another artist wants to do this, that, or the other thing, that's fine.  It may or may not adhere to practices of the composer's day.  If it does not, that is fine.

Likewise, if someone really wants to play Bach on harmonica, he or she should, they should just be arrested on sight if they do so, that's all I'm sayin'.

[Mandryka]

Perhaps it's easier to do the comparison to Mozart's operas. There was, AFAIK, no "arch" between one act and the next. Curtain, pause or intermission, curtain... Just saying.

It's been so long since I've seen these things that I can't remember the details. However, I just checked Figaro and noticed that Act 2 begins with an instrumental cavatina which is a rather beautiful transitionary arch. Obviously it couldn't be improvised in an orchestra.

[ritter]

Well, not liking the idea of what Colom does (for the record, I don't give a hoot), or hating Bach on the harmonica, doesn't necessarily mean one is reactionary.

But I don't have time for more now. Am sitting in the National Auditorium in Madrid, where a concert with Francesco Piemontesi playing the Emperor concerto under Joanna Mallwitz is about to start. They're using a full MI orchestra and a Steinway grand piano. If I like it, am I reactionary, a progressive or what? 

[Florestan]

"Everything" was my answer to your question...

Well, thanks for your non-answer, then...

[prémont]

I'm suggesting that the way transitions are managed in fine 18th century architecture suggests ways that transitions could be stylishly managed by Mozart performers today. Linking transitions, like the one between very different movements of a sonata, with freshly composed and stylish arches, is a reasonable HIP idea. A valuable and reasonable experiment for those musicians today who are interested in HIP. After all, architecture is to space what music is to time.

This seems to me more reasonable than just asserting "because Mozart didn't write a transition, and because there is no evidence that he every played one, then improvising one is uninformed." We have to do something with the transition, after all. The question for HIP musicians is: what is the most stylish thing to do?

It seems to me that the special concept of transition in Mozart's piano sonatas, and particularly the subsequent need to fill such transitions, is a new invention. What proof exists that Mozart did not merely pause briefly between movements? Employing Occam's razor would suggest that he probably did just that.

The case of Baroque keyboard suites, where a prelude was frequently improvised, is quite another matter.

[prémont]

What are you going to do when you don't know what the performer did? We know very little about how composers performed their music.

If we don't know what the composer did, we should do what he most probably did. Fantasizing about what he might have done rarely leads to a convincing result.

[Todd]

we should do what he most probably did.

Why? 

[Florestan]

If we don't know what the composer did, we should do what he most probably did. Fantasizing about what he might have done rarely leads to a convincing result.

Most probably during breaks between movements keyboard performers did then just what they do today: take a short rest, rearrange their seat and sitting pisition and stretched their fingers preparing for the next movement. Overintellectualizing the matter with farfetched analogies with architecture and furniture is most probably what they didn't.