fable's Q&A on classical music

[fable]

Sorry for my late reply. There's all kinds of stuff going on atm.

The base and drum are modern enough to remind me of Ska. Sax sounds bebop, but there aren't enough notes in the sample to determine any type of scale. Drums have definitely too much structure in it to be bebop. Base.. I don't know. Can't hear it that well.

The sax is obviously Coltrane-influenced, but beyond that, I'm afraid I can be of no help. Sorry.

Interesting, I always thought that Mozart singers are meant to have superior breath control (but then again I haven't gone far past McCormack's Il Mio Tesoro),

Great choice.

...and I wouldn't have thought that Gedda with his easy 20 second phrases would have that much trouble. Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to pick up the Guilini set next time I'm out.

Gedda was easily affected by his working environment. When surrounded by congenial singers and an understanding conductor, he'd really open up, but Klemperer truly cast a pall over the DG sessions, and it's clear Gedda finds the leaden tempi disspiriting. I've recently reviewed a DG he did live about 10 years earlier, when he was still a much more flexible conductor. This is part of it:

By the mid-1960s, Klemperer’s health was making one of its periodic rebounds. He accepted another EMI proposal to record Don Giovanni, and did so, with decidedly mixed results (EMI 63841) . Most conductors get faster or slower as they age, and though Klemperer personally denied it (most famously, during a BBC interview), this version of the opera made when he was 81 years old is one of the slowest available. There is an intensity and granitic grandeur in the overture, and again in the confrontation scenes between the Commendatore and Giovanni; an extraordinarily beautiful “Deh, vieni alla finestra,” whose sensuously relaxed pace dark-voiced Ghiaurov has no trouble sustaining; and some fine exchanges between Ghiaurov’s Giovanni and Walter Berry’s Leporello, who obviously hit it off well. The rest is frequently awkward, as impressive singers struggle for breath support at far more deliberate performing speeds than usual.

It had not always been so. Klemperer’s Don Giovanni was noted in a 1925 Wiesbaden production for his fast tempos and emphasis on comic elements. The opera was to become his triumphant farewell to Budapest in the late 1940s, where again his speeds were sometimes criticized as fast enough to be nearly unsingable. This 1955 Cologne concert performance owes more to those earlier performances, than it does to the 1966 EMI release. As such, it provides an interesting counterpoint to that later recording, and may be seen—with reservations—as more representative of Klemperer’s views on the opera until his very last years.

I still wouldn't recommend it, given the variable nature of the cast and the moderate sound, but it does give a better idea of Klemperer as a great Mozart opera conductor than that late DG for EMI.

Btw, is the Der Holle Rache from the Klemperer set (Popp + slow tempo seems right)?:
YouTube - "Queen of the Night" Lucia Popp: "Der Hölle Rache"

My copy is on LP, and my LP collection is still boxed up. However, you can probably check for the opera and Klemperer on Amazon and find an excerpt from it for comparison's sake. It *does* sound the same, to me: a good tempo, if not a very exciting one, it avoids pushing the singer too much, and allows dramatic points to be made.

[Tricky]

Thanks, it's something.

[Moonbiter]

Hey Fable. I consider buying Murray Perahia's collected versions of Mozart's piano concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra. A lot of people tell me he's a sub-par player, lacking in empathy and emotion. However, I heard his version of the 25th in C mayor the other day, and it was really enchanting. What's your take on this?

[fable]

Hey Fable. I consider buying Murray Perahia's collected versions of Mozart's piano concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra. A lot of people tell me he's a sub-par player, lacking in empathy and emotion. However, I heard his version of the 25th in C mayor the other day, and it was really enchanting. What's your take on this?

I admit, Im not fond of Perahia's interpretations. Though he has technique to spare, I find him tidy and colorless to the point of robotic. My preferences run to what I perceive as more expressive Mozart: Annie Fischer or Lili Kraus, for example. On the other hand, quite a few people enjoy Perahia who are discerning listeners, so you're in good company.

[Moonbiter]

OK. I'll look around some more, then. If I'm gonna shell out $80 for something, even with the current value, it better be worth it. Do you have any suggestions regarding the collected works in one package?

[fable]

OK. I'll look around some more, then. If I'm gonna shell out $80 for something, even with the current value, it better be worth it. Do you have any suggestions regarding the collected works in one package?

If you want all of Mozart, you could do a lot worse than this. Not everything is above average, but some things are great, and it's remarkably inexpensive.

For the piano concertos alone, I'd suggest considering Rudolf Buchbinder on Profil Ph04011. Of all the versions I've heard, he's probably the best, and certainly the most consistent.

[Moonbiter]

Okay, I went for the Buchbinder collection. It set me back $80 at amazon, but with the current value of the dollar, that's peanuts. It would easily cost me twice as much in the store up here on The Reef. Thanks for the advice.

[Moonbiter]

Last night I had a truly remarkable experience: I went to see the Oslo Philharmonic with Sarah Chang playing Brahms' violin concert. I haven't heard a better performance of that piece live in my entire life. It was absolutely astonishing. Not only is Chang, who I've always unfairly discarded as a "pop-violinist", one of the best performers I've heard, but the Oslo Philharmonic has become a truly sublime orchestra under the leadership of Jukka-Pekka Saraste. He was not present for the evening, and his place was filled by young director Juraj Valchuha who did a brilliant job. The orchestra also performed Dvorák's 6th symphony with great success last night. That's the second time I've seen an international classical superstar in six months, having seen Cecilia Bartoli and her Opera Proibita in November, which was also superb. Looks like things are looking up in the village up on The Reef.

[fable]

I agree, a very fine performer, an excellent conductor, and a first rate orchestra. You won't find much discussion of what the Finns have accomplished with the performing arts in many countries, however, because they did it all with huge federal subsidies. And that includes developing an operatic tradition in less than a century, complete with composers as good as anything that has come out of Germany, Italy, France, or Russia.

[Noober]

Giuseppe Di Stefano is dead.

[fable]

Giuseppe Di Stefano is dead.

Is this a question? Because the thread isn't one for classical news, but for classical questions.

That said, I do have copies of the first records di Stefano made, back in 1944, under the name Nino Florio. He had an extraordinarily beautiful lyric tenor, and showed great skill in handling it, thanks to a strict and artistically insightful teacher. His remained on the top of his operatic career for less than a decade, however, before the voice began showing signs of wear and insensitive handling. Before 1960, it was pretty well shot. di Stefano loved eating, drinking, nightclubbing, etc, and hated the work necessary to keep both his voice and his entire body in shape.

But there remain a small handful of commercial recordings, and another of off-the-air radio checks, from his golden period that still show what might have been. That said, many other operatic singers (and instrumentalists, and conductors, etc) have died in the last several years, all with talent equal to di Stefano, and each of them developed what they had to the best of their abilities. Why do people still bring up di Stefano? Probably because he was a Lost Cause, and those drive the dreams of some.

[Moonbiter]

If you follow this link NRK.no - NRK Alltid Klassisk and click on the link to left that says "Nettradio" they are broadcasting a recording of the Sarah Chang concert right now.

[fable]

If you follow this link NRK.no - NRK Alltid Klassisk and click on the link to left that says "Nettradio" they are broadcasting a recording of the Sarah Chang concert right now.

I pulled it up instead on Vtuner, where I have NRK programmed as one of my frequent classical stations. I caught it midway through the slow movement. The finale just concluded, and you're right: it's an exceptional performance! Less smooth, more rhythmically accented, more gutsy than most versions I've heard. Lots of energy, and a unified approach from soloist and conductor. I hope this will get released on CD.

[Moonbiter]

That is SO brilliant! I thought that tiny channel was a strictly Norwegian phenomenon. OK, a bit of an explanation is in order, methinks:

NRK translates to "The Norwegian State/National Broadcast" and is a relic from the 70s when everything here was very Moscow-targeted "Social-Democratic." NRK is funded by the people. Period. I know that sounds insane to people living outside Norway, but every home/person who owns a radio/tv/pc/anything that can pick up a signal transmitted from the NRK receives a bill of 1700NOK (that's aprox $310USD at current value) every six months. This covers the two non-commercial state TV channels, and a bunch of very weird radio channels. Just to make this perfectly clear, you don't have a choice in this. You pay, or you meet the state-sanctioned repo-man.

Anyways... The funny thing is that this allows us to keep up radio channels like "Alltid Klassisk," which translates to "Always Classical." They have been trying to shut that one down for years. The last time they tried, even the Black Metal community raised their head and protested. What are we paying for? They've had to make some adjustments, though. They now feature a lot of ****e musical scores and a lot of quite frankly rubbish "modern classical" which sounds like a field of crickets chainsawing a frozen Doberman. The reason for this is that the Norwegian State Department for Culture is actually, in a good ole' socialist way, funding every useless so-called "composer" and are required by law to give them equal airtime to everything else. Hence you have a radio channel that plays "classical" music 24-7 without any commercials, but you have to live through positively tons of manure before you get to the good stuff, and they waffle, in Norwegian, for ages.:laugh:

Oh, to turn this thread around again: I just heard a chello concerto by Haydn that I really enjoyed, do you have any input as to good performances?

[fable]

State funding can be a great boon to artists, but it comes with strings. One of those I dislike the most is a bureaucratic insistance upon the production of ****, because it formed a de facto standard back in the day when hack serialists and their self-appointed messianic descendants held a monopoly on university and critical posts in many nations. This had the invidious effect of making the artistic powers in some countries, who were eager to be at the stylistic vanguard, diss their own homegrown musicians and promote only those who would agree to ape imported styles. The UK was a sad example of this. with many of its finest composers in the 1960s and 1970s turning to the US, France, and other venues for performance and support.

Note: there has been some excellent non-tonal classical music composed. But when any artistic movement gets put in charge and tries to stamp out all others for several generations and largely succeeds, its all wrong.

And let's not even get into Regietheater.

At least, now, the hegemony of the serialists has been broken, audiences have started flocking once more to concert halls to hear new compositions, and the former overseers of musical futurism have been reduced to a sputtering, angry bunch of reactionaries. Funny as the vanguard becomes the rearguard, as soon as they become powerful and staid.

As for Haydn's cello concertos, there are several fine versions. I like Miklós Perényi with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra led by János Rolla. It is not as flashy and egotistical as some, but intensely musical, stylish, technically assured, and jaunty in its way. It's also on Brilliant Classics, which means a bargain basement price. Plus, it comes with a host of other, similar cello concertos by the likes of Leo, Boccherini, and CPE Bach (with different performers). The catalog number here in the US is 92198, but I don't know what it is near you.

[Noober]

That said, many other operatic singers (and instrumentalists, and conductors, etc) have died in the last several years, all with talent equal to di Stefano, and each of them developed what they had to the best of their abilities. Why do people still bring up di Stefano? Probably because he was a Lost Cause, and those drive the dreams of some.

I do apologise for spamming your thread. I was in fact interested in your opinions on him, I should have made that clear. Di Stefano was never one of my favorites, but I am very curious as to whom (as far as tenors are concerned) you would consider of equal talent to di Stefano (and recently died). I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jussi Bjorling believed that di Stefano would leave everyone behind if he kept going. The timbre, diction and dynamic control are exceptional in his class and some of his singing reminds me of Schipa's seductive styling.

Oh, and if you don't mind me asking, what do you think of di Stefano's rendition of Vesti in the Callas opera recording? I've heard people say it's better than Caruso's! Am I the only one who doesn't see the beauty?

[fable]

I do apologise for spamming your thread. I was in fact interested in your opinions on him, I should have made that clear.

Not a problem. I wondered whether perhaps you thought this thread was for posting any information about classical music.

Di Stefano was never one of my favorites, but I am very curious as to whom (as far as tenors are concerned) you would consider of equal talent to di Stefano (and recently died). I seem to remember reading somewhere that Jussi Bjorling believed that di Stefano would leave everyone behind if he kept going. The timbre, diction and dynamic control are exceptional in his class and some of his singing reminds me of Schipa's seductive styling.

At the time Bjoerling said that, I think he was correct, but frankly there wasn't much competition. Schipa and Lauri Volpi were pretty much retired. Conlon and Tom Heyward, though both fine, were nowhere near the same league, and both would have honestly admitted as much. (I knew Tom in his later years, long after having split from the Met, and he said wonderful things about di Stefano.) Tucker and Peerce just didn't have that ease of production, dynamic range, or imagination. Bjoerling had all the qualities save the imagination, but I think that was in part due to the fact that he felt slightly awkward singing in a foreign language. It just never came naturally to him. Tagliavini was definitely a threat, but he did what di Stefano did, only much more quickly: blew his voice out by immediately jumping into lyrico-spinto roles, and over-singing.

There were also several superb tenors in the 1950s in Eastern Europe, especially Sergei Lemeshev and Ivan Kozlovsky in the Soviet, Beno Blachaut in Czechoslovakia, and the Hungarian, József Réti. Certainly the first two could have given di Stefano a run for his money, as could their less well known Soviet contemporaries, Orfenov, Vinogradov, and Ognevoi, but neither performed much in the West. You can hear (and watch!) them in excerpts from a Soviet film made in the 1950s. Lemeshev performs the self-regarding poet Lensky's Act II aria from Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin, here. This is followed by Kozlovsky, but you have to go here to find that portion of the same VHS on YouTube. Note that it starts after a bit of staged business involving his home life.

Personally, I favor Kozlovsky, who was more of a dramatic artist, but his voice is an acquired taste for some. Note the related video links, too, to the right.

Oh, and if you don't mind me asking, what do you think of di Stefano's rendition of Vesti in the Callas opera recording? I've heard people say it's better than Caruso's! Am I the only one who doesn't see the beauty?

I haven't heard it recently, to recall it to mind. I have to review so much, that I don't have a lot of time! But I'll try to find the time to pull it out, soon.

[Moonbiter]

I just wanted to say that I got the Buchbinder collection of Mozart's piano concertos from amazon today, and it's brilliant. Thanks for the tip.

[fable]

I just wanted to say that I got the Buchbinder collection of Mozart's piano concertos from amazon today, and it's brilliant. Thanks for the tip.

Sure thing. If you get a chance, sample Schnabel in the Mozart concertos, sometime. (It's all on Music & Arts these days, but they're not cheap, though some go on sale regularly.) It's very different.

In fact, I'm going to copy in my review of the set that gathered the concertos Schnabel recorded. Please bear in mind this isn't for a specialized journal, but a magazine, so it's not scholarly in form or content.

An old Floridian friend of mine and I used to listen to and compare historical releases. He stated authoritatively several times that I was sound and sane on all points, save that I thought Artur Schnabel was a great Mozartean.

I still do, though I’m not about to enter a defense on the grounds of authenticity. Authenticity in performance is like El Dorado or the Alchemical Stone, something desirable which recedes into the infinite distance—though many would tell you the journey is worth the effort. I’m inclined to agree; but I have also heard numerous studio recordings and live performances of “authentic” Mozart at the piano that were so faceless as to completely deny the composer his spirit, however one may argue the letter.

Schnabel’s most significant anachronism in the piano concertos, as I see it, was his penchant for composing cadenzas correctly based on the movement’s content, but often in a style more appropriate to Liszt. However, since Schnabel was anything but a musical naïf, I can only conclude that he saw the cadenza as an improvisation untempered by the need for historical considerations, and providing a counterweight of stylistic perspective to the rest of any given piece. Perhaps it is time that we began regarding these commentaries of his in the same spirit that several critics applauded (or at least winked at) Nigel Kennedy in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons: an idiosyncrasy of an always arresting and intensely musical performer.

The pianist’s strengths in Mozart can meanwhile be sampled throughout these five well-filled discs. One attribute of his can be heard in the pianist’s answering phrases at the start of the Piano Quartet No. 1—or again, in a very different context, during the first statement of the Piano Concerto No. 27’s finale. It is Schnabel’s ability to shape phrases in a manner that brings out their dramatic viability, the veteran performer who revels in the abrupt shift of detailed emotional masks he assumes. Serious movements aren’t uniformly gray, and comic finales reveal the wit of a quicksilver mind.

Another of his attributes was vigor. Schnabel has been faulted for approaching Mozart at times as though he were Beethoven, but if this arguably is the case, it is more a matter of degree than of a mistaken concept. No one can deny the robust theatricality in the finale to the Piano Concerto No. 24; and if both pianist and conductor went too far in this regard, they yet avoid being too prim in their immediate musical response and too small-scaled in their overall thinking. After the likes of Gieseking or his present day descendants, Schnabel’s energy comes as a welcome tonic.

Modern Mozarteans frequently have poise, but I find many of them just as frequently lacking in depth. Perhaps it’s a fear of being thought anachronistic for showing emotion in pre-Romantic music, but they regularly turn Mozart’s adagios and andantes into allegrettos, avoid cantabile phrasing, and constrict the dynamics of their music-making.

By contrast, Schnabel was at his considerable best in slow movements. He neither lingered nor rushed, but seemed to find the ideal tempo and stick to it, while allowing for rhythmic flexibility. He did not make believe that these works were written without knowledge of the singing phrase, not when they came from the pen of a musician who composed around the same time the likes of “Deh vieni non tardar” and “Dalla sua pace.” As for dynamics, you can listen to the way Schnabel employs touch to vary intensity and volume in the andante of the Piano Concerto No. 21. The effect is one of chiaroscuro, in which color plays an important part in defining the attributes of structure.

Technique wasn’t Schnabel’s strong suit by the 1930s. According to his son, an excellent pianist in his own right, Schnabel cared little for practicing. But there is some pretty impressive playing exhibited in the finales of the Piano Sonatas K. 332 and 570. More importantly, even when notes are sometimes lost in passagework, there is no loss in control. Schnabel retained command of the other elements in his performance, and successfully conveyed what he believed the music to mean. In the end, I find that preferable to a note-perfect rendition whose sole statement seems to be “tidiness is next to godliness.” Whatever problems of technique or style may arise in Schnabel’s Mozart, it has much to say, and every bit of it is worth listening to.

All of this material has been available before: the live content back to LP days, the commercial material as far back as 78s. The sound is variable. The sonatas and rondo were recorded too far away from the microphone, perhaps to minimize blasting, but with a colorless result that no measure of audio wizardry can alter. The commercial concertos are far better in this respect, with a generally good balance between piano and orchestra, both close to the microphone. The live performances are usually muddier, but still quite listenable, though the Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 533/494 is extremely cloudy; while the 11-minute excerpt from the Piano Concerto No. 17 is very clearly recorded but subject to noisy acetate surfaces. Nearly all of the remastering was done by Kit Higginson, who was also responsible for the discreet but excellent work on last year’s issue of the Budapest Quartet in Mozart and Schumann (Music & Arts 4643). Ed Wilkinson performed the digital restoration on the Piano Concerto No. 22.

I have only one complaint: the missing lacuna from the finale of the Piano Concerto No. 23. This was a live performance that (in contradiction to Farhan Malik’s otherwise excellent notes) was slightly out of control from the opening bars, with Schnabel more sketchy than usual, and Rodzinski caught momentarily flat-footed. Disaster hits late in the movement, when the pianist’s memory skips forward, and moves out of sync musically with the orchestra. There is a pause; Rodzinski consults with Schnabel; and then everything is magically picked up again as though nothing has happened.

The steel-nerved aplomb that Schnabel shows would be worth hearing, and when this was released on Fred Maroth’s old LP label as BWS 717, that’s what we got. Here, editing has been employed to excise the passage, though there are several measures of music unavoidably missing as a result. If Music & Arts was concerned about interrupting our listening pleasure through such an experience, they should have made the lacuna a separate band, rather than removing it entirely.

That aside, this set is well worth the purchase. As if you had any doubts by now about my opinion on the matter, at all.

[Craig]

I received some music form a friend, by Franz and Helmut Vonlitchen, Nara and Estremoz. I love them. Where can I find more.

And what does E.S Posthumus mean?