Interpretation of classical music

Dear Mike,

You write as if splendid and clean pesentation of musical lines is a new phenomenon.

It is not, but prehaps it is new to you and so would seem a revelation ...

Clarity was [part of] the aim of many who worked in the recording era [and before] and few matched what was achived by von Weingartner in thw 1920s and 30s for example in respect of clarity in Beethoven and Brahms ... To add a truly historical perspective ...

Another was Monteux ... You have the evidence for this already.


ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

You write as if splendid and clean pesentation of musical lines is a new phenomenon.

It is not, but prehaps it is new to you and so would seem a revelation ...

ATB from George

It is a new phenomenon, each time a new generation achieves it. That is fundamental to musical performance, the renewal that comes with each attempt.

I have and love many performances from the past, but for me one of the great joys of building a good library is to stock the new, to take a closer look at what your present times are really like.

But that is probably not necessary for you.

It is, however, one of the chief joys of music for me.

quote:

to take a closer look at what your present times are really like.

How does this distinquish my present times?

quote:

It is a new phenomenon, each time a new generation achieves it.

And what is this new phenomenon you're talking about, and who is this new generation? and what have they achieved? Sweets, classical sales are down the toilet, both in the stores and in the venues....and jazz ain't doin' no better!
I'm glad you have this rush of enthusiasm, but I fear you're hyping something this isn't there.

quote:

Originally posted by soundsreal:
I'm glad you have this rush of enthusiasm, but I fear you're hyping something this isn't there.

soundsreal, you know I think people are playing better. I didn't buy Consumer Reports to pick my stereo, and I don't let sales trends influence what I buy. I'm just following my ears.

it's perfectly reasonable to look for new performances you think are played exceptionally well.

what are you after?

quote:

it's perfectly reasonable to look for new performances you think are played exceptionally well.

That sentence I can live with, and I'd say we all do that, even George. I just didn't understand the racehorse out the gate frenzy you have worked yourself into.
I will say I certainly don't buy into this new era of performance or technique of yours. There's greatness to be sure, as always, and that's what I look for, whether it be a used lp find on my jaunts or a new release I hear on the radio or written about on the many new release blurbs I subscribe to online. Also, I look into classics or standards of pieces that I may not have in my collection, which is why I like to read George and other's posts, both here and on other forums.
I also don't buy into the notion of newness for its own sake. If you were talking about another form of music, that's one thing. I still try to sort out new music in other genres, although I must say I'm starting to lag behind a bit and thoroughly happy about it. Having been in the business for years, I've always been a go-to person for many friends to find out about new music. I keep up with those I love, and a few of the newbies will hold my interest, but it's a downward spiral overall. Who's got the time?
You? In three weeks time you'll be off on something else;whatever happened to Beethoveen?

quote:

Originally posted by soundsreal:

quote:

it's perfectly reasonable to look for new performances you think are played exceptionally well.

That sentence I can live with, and I'd say we all do that, even George. I just didn't understand the racehorse out the gate frenzy you have worked yourself into.
I will say I certainly don't buy into this new era of performance or technique of yours. There's greatness to be sure, as always, and that's what I look for, whether it be a used lp find on my jaunts or a new release I hear on the radio or written about on the many new release blurbs I subscribe to online. Also, I look into classics or standards of pieces that I may not have in my collection, which is why I like to read George and other's posts, both here and on other forums.
I also don't buy into the notion of newness for its own sake. If you were talking about another form of music, that's one thing. I still try to sort out new music in other genres, although I must say I'm starting to lag behind a bit and thoroughly happy about it. Having been in the business for years, I've always been a go-to person for many friends to find out about new music. I keep up with those I love, and a few of the newbies will hold my interest, but it's a downward spiral overall. Who's got the time?
You? In three weeks time you'll be off on something else;whatever happened to Beethoveen?

I'm still onto Beethoven. My interpretation of new is from about 1990 to the present for performances. I still play daily. And I'm still practicing fixed do sight singing.

I've been onto Beethoven for about two years now. I never do anything for just three weeks.

There's no newness for newness sake.

Building my collection the way I have, I have excellent examples of what my favorite orchestras and performers have been like each decade of my adult life. That is interesting to study and listen to.

quote:

Originally posted by soundsreal:

quote:

to take a closer look at what your present times are really like.

How does this distinquish my present times?

It's how music is being performed today, as opposed to 50 years ago. As you are alive now, the playing today is a reflection of the world you are living in. Performances from 50 years ago do not possess this property.

Do you understand that a recording made in 2007 is more representative of what is being done in 2009 than a recording made in 1956?

How about the posibility that one listens to live concerts that surely represent today's standards and listen to recordings of music that was recorded by people one could never have heard?

This is my prefered modus as a rule, though I do have and enjoy some contemporary recordings as well.

If I want contemporary music making in my home then the BBC does a sterling job of presenting live relays from concerts, which are frequently very fine indeed. Some are even replayed from the Met in NY!

The other thing I question is the notion that the best orchestras have improved significantly in the last fifty years.

I simply do not find that they have.

I agree that careful editing of studio takes gets a seemingly more pristine effort, but all too often the whole thing is so safe, so sanitised!

The old practices of recording simply with minimal post production wortk so often got something almost like a live performance rather than some rehearsed to death perfection.

In respect of technical perfection, modern recordings really do hold the palm as with digital it is literally possible to insert one note from one instrument from a different take.

I find this at best vaguely bogus and at worst a swindle. So did Otto Klemperer, who outright refused to conduct a patch, but always would re-take the whole movement.

On the issue of formerly second rank orchestras which are nowadays much improved, this is because the music colleges are training far more highly competent youngsters now than in the past, so that though the best orchestras can still insist on only retaining the best players, many of the formerly very second rank bands are now nearly as fine as the very best at all.

Any orchestra that seems to have made great progress to its current standard was certainly not a very wonderful orchestra before the improvement.

I actually think that some of the greatest orxhestras are begining to see their great traditions erroded, and with that errosion, some of the inherent individuality, which is at the heart of their greatness. There is a move to characterless homogeneity of style which does nothing to improve a great orchstra like the VPO, or the LPO, or Czech Phil, to mention three of my favourites.

My current favourite British Orcestra is not London based, but the Bournemouth Symphony Orchstra, and they have something very special going on. They have the ability to still fill the musical phrase with tonal nuance and colour that is something quite different to playing fast, accurate, and loud, which is more and more the current fashion.

Thanks heavens for the abilty of an orchestra to play quietly and subtlely, and with infinite tonal gradation as the old players seemed to do without being conscious of it, or at the least self-conscious about it ...

The revolution I mentioned some weeks ago in the technique of string playing is how to play loud enough to balance modern broad bore brass, and it is not a happy change ... More volume but less subtlety ... The steel string is in and the gut is out ...

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
How about the posibility that one listens to live concerts that surely represent today's standards and listen to recordings of music that was recorded by people one could never have heard?

That is what I am doing when I buy new recordings by Chicago, Berlin, Vienna and Concertgebouw, buying recordings of orchestras I will never hear live. I listen over the internet to Chicago and New York for current live performances.

I consider the big bore brass evolution to be an evolutionary advancement, as do most other brass players.

we are simply at odds without the possibility of resolution on these issues.

quote:

I consider the big bore brass evolution to be an evolutionary advancement, as do most other brass players.

Dear Mike,

You give your credentials, for which I am happy.

A brass player who likes a bigger sounding brass instrument, or collection of them.

No other group of players or singers likes the change! And strangely there is absolutely nothing that can be done to make the human voice louder than what steady evolution has given us.

Thus if Mozart wrote a trombone line in a say a Mass to run in accompaniment to a solo bass singer he would expect a certain instrument to be used. A narrow bore trombone, probably looking rather like a saccbutt.

The only music that broad bore brass instruments are inherently correct for is that written in the era of the broad bore brass instrument.

In the US it may be somewhat longer, but in Britain or France [for two examples only] this rules out anything written before say the mid-seventies.

Of courwse you may say that you can play these big instruments quietly, and you would be right. But if only there were played sufficiently quietly more often!

The real problem is the tone.

For if the dynamic is consistently underbaked to balance a voice, choir, group of strings [etc] then the essential brassiness of the instruments is lost and we are left with the funereal euphonium sound! Listen to those pea-shooter brass in the Fantastic Symphony from Monteux to realise just how much of a retrograde step the braod bore brass instruments are in the wrong sort of music for them, which is more than nineteen classical pieces out of twenty ...

No, the broad bore brass revolution is the brass section's revenge on Sir Thomas Beecham who once commented that a conductor should never look at the brass as it only encourages them!

ATB from George

OK George, all the brass players are wrong. It's really curious, as it was yesterday's brass players who put today's brass players on the current course. How could they all have been so wrong!

As I understand it, the big bore evolution is in the service of a more uniform tonality with greater clarity, and to be perfectly honest that is what I hear.

I have many examples of these new brass sections playing quietly, most notably in Mahler and Bruckner.

And when they play loudly, the sound is full, rich and clear without blaring or stridency.

I like that sound.

No Mike, not at all!

All brass players are right. It is all other musicians who are wrong!

Brass players like the instruments so all other players have to build up their tone to match, so out go the lyrical gut strings, the pastoral wooden flutes, the keen edged narrow clarinets, and all singers. Sadly the damage has already been done in the main great orchestras, though with luck the HIP movement will eventually reach the mid-twentieth century and we can melt down all these terrible modern brass instruemtnsd and get back to sanity!

Simple really.

Or lets just re-orchestrate all the great music for large bands made of broad bore brass, and buy everyone, players and audience, ear protection!

Okay, I exaggerate a little [no reason to buy the audience ear protectors, perhaps], but the broad bore brass instrument is a menace to all but the owners of them.

ATB from George

It's a known musical fact--all brass players are cocky, have the swagger factor going, and look down at the rest of the orchestra or band. Us geeks and nerds took the other route, the winds, the reeds, the strings. Beauty as opposed to brutishness.
However, when I go hear a Bruckner or Wagner performance, you betcha I'll be waiting to hear the brass, and rooting bells up to be sure! But I do like an even balance in an orchestra otherwise, and this notion of big brass is a bore.

and yes, Mike, I do understand your time frame explanation. Yet, I don't like it. Recordings aren't always as good as the past, and neither are the performances.....if you want to keep watch over the now then so be it, but I don't think it accomplishes much. Like saying you eat at all the fast food places to know what current food trends are. Well, sort of...

I appreciate what modern brass players are doing, and enjoy it very much. The level of refinment is moving upwards over time.

Evidently today's orchestras and conductors agree with me, as they appear to all be moving in this same direction.

The brass players I know do not consider themselves superior to other instrumental groups in the orchestra. They are all focused on producing a more beautiful and refined performance, just like everyone else in the orchestra.

Sorry your experiences with brass players has been so negative. That has not been my experience.

Perhaps you should stop listening to new orchestral performances, if you haven't stopped already.

And as far as brass players being cocky and opinionated, they would have to go pretty far to match soundsreal and gffj :-)

and I don't ever eat fast food. We're talking the classics and you know it.

quote:

And as far as brass players being cocky and opinionated, they would have to go pretty far to match soundsreal and gffj :-)

Now kettle, you obviously haven't known the members I've known.
Seriously, just a generalization, but one that holds true whether it be a high school band, youth symphony, or orchestra. But, we all know that brass players are adorable people.
And, I'll listen or not listen to new orchestral performances on my own choosing, Mr cocky and opinionated!

In my on-going efforts to squeeze the last drop of cockiness out of my musician / trumpet player persona, I have decided to defer to the judgment of others. I defer to conductors like Abbado and Boulez, who have been instrumental in promoting the current style of brass playing.

Today any brass player who did what GFFJ suggests would be unemployed. The conductors don't want it. This was even demonstrated here, locally, when the orchestra auditioned for new 2nd and 3rd trumpet players.

quote:

Qouted by George: .... A brass player who likes a bigger sounding brass instrument, or collection of them.

No other group of players or singers likes the change! And strangely there is absolutely nothing that can be done to make the human voice louder than what steady evolution has given us.

Thus if Mozart wrote a trombone line in a say a Mass to run in accompaniment to a solo bass singer he would expect a certain instrument to be used. A narrow bore trombone, probably looking rather like a saccbutt.

The only music that broad bore brass instruments are inherently correct for is that written in the era of the broad bore brass instrument.

In the US it may be somewhat longer, but in Britain or France [for two examples only] this rules out anything written before say the mid-seventies.

I have just been to a pair of concerts in London's Royal Albert Hall that illuminate these comments.

The first was Haydn's 'Creation' performed by a massive array of a 160 voice Choir and an orchestra of about 100 (see HERE . The orchestra was of unusual make up in that it triplicated the basic unit that Haydn wrote for using his parts written for 3 sets of woodwind, string and brass, so a potentially very powerfull tonal deluge that could have drowned out the solo performers. The brass however was of the 'saccbutt' variety that George refers to, the players adding and removing sections of pipe as the music required and worked wonderfully well particularly behind the Bass and Tenor soloists. I fear modern wide bore brass would not have treated them so kindly. Incidentally for George's interest there were at least 10 Double Bass's in amongst it. Amazingly and wonderfully balanced nevertheless both in the music and voice. The RAH is not typically a kind acoustic but it was full to the brim both with audience and musicians and it worked beautifull becuase of this scale.

The second concert was a performance by the Stan Tracy big band of Stan's Jazz suite 'Genesis' (you can see the juxtaposition here). This of course featured wide bore brass in full flood and worked very well in that context. It would not have been a success with old narrow bore brass I am sure, but it does illustrate the second half of George's quote, though there is a lot of music pre mid seventies by as much as 60 years that was composed to work with wide bore brass both in the US and Europe which goes under the generic title of 'Jazz'.

regards
Geoff

Dear Geoff,

I wondered why the wide bore brass ever came into existence.

I really do learn something every day!

Thanks from George

Jazz players typically don't use wide bore brass instruments, those are confined to the orchestra.

A wide bore trumpet, for example, doesn't "cut" enough above the typical jazz group to be heard.

In jazz, small and medium bores with shallow cup mouthpieces are the rule.

Or at least they were the rule in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I am unsure what current practice is.

In fact Mike you hit on the exact problem in the orchestra with the modern broad bore brass instruments in that they lack that cutting through ability that the old narrow bored instruments have as a right. The broad instruments are softer toned and much louder, so the don't cut through, but smother when played forte or louder.

The narrow trumpet could cut a swath through the mass of violin sound whilst never drowning them.

The broad trumpet, if played in the bright forward style intended by the composer from time to time, simple obliterates everything in earshot all too often.

One can discern these intentions in recordings by such as Elgar, and he sometimes lets the whole brass familly off the leash as it were in an orgy of brassiness that never actually drowns the rest of the band.

Far preferable to the inevitable imbalance that would result had the modern broad bore replacements been used. But as I said earlier, there must be some music that is suitable for them somewhere, where the composer knew what would happen if they were played in an orchestra.

But it is not by Elgar, Sibelius, Brahms, Beethoven, or Schubert let alone any older than those.

I have known a good number of brass players and they do not - just like any other group - really conform to a stereo-type!

I knew one trumpet player who was rather unusual though, who would gradually specialise in the Baroque repertoire and was genuinely interested in explaining his instrument to non-brass players. He gave insights into the real problems of the broad bore brass instruments compared to the older narrow bored instruemnts - the balancing as well as correct sonority - bright, clear, and fiery but should not overbearing for forte or double forte. He gradually moved to playing the valved high Bach trumpet [as in Brandenburg Two though of coursae the instrument actually written for was the valveless version] and the valveless high baroque trumpet which is safely playable in the B Minor Mass. Not many in the world would attempt Brandenburg Two on a valveless trumpet even now, though editing allows a recording to present what Bach had in mind without the inevitable slips such a high wire act produces more often than not.

It does seem that trumpet playing may yet have some way to go to be generally as fine as it seems that it was in Bach's time. The instrument fell out of use so much that when Mozart re-orchestrated Handel's Messiah he substituted Horns for Handel's trumpets, because there were no players able to still play what Handel had written for them - at least in German speaking lands of the day. I suspect that Bach and Handel both expected their trumpet parts played without any more obvious difficulty than any of the other parts to play. So we quite probably still have a way to go yet to return to that level of quality amongst the brass fraturnity available to past generations of composers! {;~)}

ATB from George

Let me clarify :

My preferred Beethoven is the Gardiner/ORR, all narrow bore historical instruments here.

My preferred Mahler, Bruckner, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Shostakovitch, too long a list, but all large bore.

My preferred Brandenburg 2nd, the Italian group's name translates as "The Harmonious Garden", and played on a narrow bore natural trumpet with the most flawless trills I have ever heard from any trumpet player on any type of equipment.

The local symphony musicians have a selection of narrow bore, historical, large bore and rotary valve instruments. They use what is called for in the score.

The brass chorales in Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovitch are much more riveting and beautiful on the big horns.

The rotary valve horns are the loudest of all, and I have noticed that Abbado/Berlin uses them for Beethoven. I think they achieve a good balance in the performances, but I am unaware of their reasoning.

A modern day trumpeter typically has a dozen or so horns, and in my experience makes every attempt to match the horn to the composition.

I'd like to talk a moment about the local symphony trumpet players, with the Louisiana Philharmonic.

They all have full batteries of instruments, in different bores and of different styles. They are also all equipped the same way. All the instruments are practiced and serviced on a regular basis.

A number of them have second playing careers away from New Orleans.

They are studied musicians, who prepare for rehearsal. And they know the history of the instrument.

These guys sound good.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

I agree that careful editing of studio takes gets a seemingly more pristine effort, but all too often the whole thing is so safe, so sanitised!

The old practices of recording simply with minimal post production wortk so often got something almost like a live performance rather than some rehearsed to death perfection.

In respect of technical perfection, modern recordings really do hold the palm as with digital it is literally possible to insert one note from one instrument from a different take.

I find this at best vaguely bogus and at worst a swindle.

Edits which are not well executed and/or nonessential to furthering the cause of the music can definitely result in a sanitized, sterile performance. But editing, when executed well and with musicality and artistry, can absolutely further the cause of the music.

We also need to distinguish between two very different recording models, one which was the paradigm at the very outset of audio recording, and one which developed later on.

The first is a document of a live performance, whether or not it was actually in a live concert. If the intention is to present a recording as close to the experience of a live performance as possible, then overall vibe and musicality supersede execution mistakes (technical term "clams").

But that isn't the only type of recording possible. Another is one which developed parallel to the development of cinema, and just as the editor of a film is a key component of the artistic result, so, too, is the editor of an audio recording, and the best of them can execute edits which are utterly seamless, transparent, and help further the cause of the music.

Mistakes, clams, are all relative. Some clams are largely inconsequential, and they don't impede the flow of the musicality. But some clams are mistakes so egregious that there is just no reason on this earth to commit them to permanent record ... they do absolutely nothing to further the cause of the music, and, in fact, are detrimental to it.

If a musician has executed a transcendent performance of music, but at a crucial moment has a serious lapse or makes a nasty clam, surgery is required. No swindle involved whatsoever, because the performance of music shouldn't be a macho test of the musician's ability to avoid clams ... the musician should feel free go for the juice and worry about the damage later. Seemingly paradoxically, this can actually result in a less safe, less sanitized performance.

Another factor to consider is that this latter paradigm of recording is not so much an audio document of a musical composition, but a composition in sound in and of itself, just as a film is not a visual document of a performance of a theater play. Because this paradigm of a "composition in sound based on a musical performance" (for lack of a catchier, pithier descriptive) is very much composition in its own right, editing and revision are welcome because they are part and parcel of the compositional process. Why leave clams in, unless they actually do enhance the overall vibe and musicality? And to be sure, sometimes they do. More, often, however, they don't improve on the composer's original work.

Finally, I can guarantee you that you have heard, enjoyed, and even dearly love some recordings in which edits you are not at all aware of have been made. If you knew where they were, would you love the recording any less?

All the best,
Fred