soundsreal, did you ever talk to your friends?

No, I've been out of the loop lately. I haven't forgotten, I promise. Actually, I think about it quite often while I'm riding around on the lawnmower. Maybe I'll e them instead and see what comes of it.

you can take a look here to find out the latest insights on playiing brass instruments. This collection of articles is the most comprehensive and accurate survey of brass playing practices anywhere on the web :

http://www.jayfriedman.net/

quote:

Originally posted by soundsreal:
No, I've been out of the loop lately. I haven't forgotten, I promise. Actually, I think about it quite often while I'm riding around on the lawnmower. Maybe I'll e them instead and see what comes of it.

so what came of it?

Hi, I haven't forgotten, it's just that we all live far apart now. I did talk to one recently on the phone, who's opinions I've always held in very high regard. He was at one time first chair clarinet of the Hong Kong S.O. And, he basically agreed with me. He thinks in many cases orchestras have lessened their standards, and overall quality has diminished. But, he continues, there's always been a long line of good and bad, in both orchestras and players, and even singers, and of course, conductors. He doesn't see how you can infer that techniques have improved, but he enjoyed thinking about your premise. He's going to ask a few of his player friends and see what they say....so more to come..

I have talked to dozens of members of the local orchestra, music professors and several retired players from the Chicago Symphony and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. To a man, they think performance standards (for wind players at least) are rising to new heights.

Jay Friedman, first trombonist of the Chicago Symphony, maintains a web site which has dozens if not hundreds of articles on the practices of playing brass instruments. I also have an extensive library of articles and methods for these instruments that extends from the 19th century thru the 1980s, and I studied with half a dozen symphony players over the past 4 decades. Comparing these, ideas on tone production and articulation have changed a great deal.

It's an appealing idea, that all those music teachers were successful, don't you think :-)

ah, there you go, successful, yes, but any better than those that came before them? hmmm

I just don't know, I keep thinking about it on the lawnmower. I find I often go back to older recordings for what gives me the goods. I very much enjoy going and hearing an old "master" than a young wunderkind marched out by whatever label signed them. Maybe I'm just an old sod.

One thing my friend and I considered, and since you mention all your teachers, that the farther you get from the source, often you get a weaker product. I'm thinking of pianists who claim their teaching linage back to Liszt or Bollinger or someone like that. What if Liszt walked into a room where a current pupil from the linage was performing, would he be pleased?
More lawnmower thinking needed....

And ask your friends, if they think things are better, why many recordings, of the few that are actually coming out these days, are terrible or uninspired?

And also, if you did indeed live in a golden age, how would you recognize it? How would you even know?

reread your last post, I can personally state that the Chicago Symphony is a ghost of its former glorious self.....When I was a kid I was gobsmacked when I heard them. Now? I'd rather spend my money on a good meal when I'm in Chicago. So much for my opinion....

I am with soundsreal.

The only orchestras that are better than a generaion or two ago are the very second rank.

Like the provincial British orchestras.

The very best orchstras have been declining in quality longer than a half life time ...

Sir Thomas Beecham observed in 1960, that standards had been falling since 1945, because orchestras nolonger played enough classical music [as opposed to romantic].

There has been a destructive revolution in ochestral playing, which allowed for the big US brass sound to be reproduced everywhere in the world, but the big sound was in inverse proportion to the quality.

Some of us stuck to gut strings and were able to carry an old tradition forward, but essentially one only had to listen to find the modern orchestra making a thin and hard sound with often unmusically lumpy phrasing compared to the old players...

Modern reording cannot be compleely responsible for this apparent decline ...

ATB from George

This is simply something we are never going to reach any level of agreement on. I know what I hear with my ears, and it simply does not correspond to your (soundsreal and gffj) view.

I am not alone in how i feel, and neither are you two.

It would be interesting to hear some other voices on this.

Well, not that it really matters, but I actually talked to 4 of my friends last night, albeit briefly, and they all agreed with me. I even tried to argue the point, but they agreed. So as you say, everyone has their views....

quote:

Originally posted by soundsreal:
Well, not that it really matters, but I actually talked to 4 of my friends last night, albeit briefly, and they all agreed with me. I even tried to argue the point, but they agreed. So as you say, everyone has their views....

That's funny, I talked this over with 4 or 5 of my friends in the orchestra, and they agree completely with my views. Birds of a feather ...
And they weren't all brass players :-)

good for their audiences, then....glad they're not giving an inferior performance...