There are alot of great recommendations and comments here. I also like to see Bob Greenberg's set mentioned - I know him personally, and have always wholeheartedly recommended his series to "laymen" who are interested in learning more about classical music. For the more advanced musical students, they are a little simplistic, but his "word-score" concept is a fantastic way of explaining the basics to non-musicians. There isn't anything better out there, though I also love to recommend the famous composer Aaron Copland's book, What To Listen For In Music.
For me, the 40's/50's way of doing Beethoven is very slow and overly romanticized, though the best of them do make it work musically. Of all the older sets mentioned, I would prefer the Bohm, though he is not normally a conductor I would choose. That Beethoven set is in my opinion his very finest work. Another old set which I am very surprised at the lack of mention here, though, is the Szell/Cleveland set. While I don't always like his tempi, there is some very fine playing in that set by the Cleveland Orchestra.
Of the more modern conductors, by miles the best original instrument set is Gardiner's, which has been mentioned several times already. I am also a big fan of Claudio Abbado - those DVD's he did in 2001 with Berlin are absolutely amazing - Beethoven as it should be done on modern instruments. Incredible interpretations and performances, which always trumps sound quality IMO.
For Brahms, I also really enjoy Abbado's old set from the 70's, which was done with a different orchestra for each symphony, which is kind of interesting in itself. Also, the Szell/Cleveland set here is still considered by many musicians to be the gold standard. I wasn't going to be negative, but I cannot resist adding that I am generally not a fan of Toscanini for the German rep - the younger Italians, Abbado and Giulini do it MUCH better. I actually have never heard the Giulini Brahms set you guys have mentioned, I will have to try to find that on LP.
By the way, someone made the comment that the faster tempos were "how the early music people think they were played at the time," or something like that. This is now beyond question, with all the research that has been done in the last twenty years or so. Beethoven's metronome was indeed just fine, and he really did intend for the tempos to be that quick. And in Haydn and Mozart's time, tempi were often even quicker for Allegros, etc. Also, one of my personal pet peeves is how slow many conductors influenced by the greats of the 40's and 50's take Andantes. Andantes are supposed to be good walking tempos, as Gardiner and Abbado and others take them. And they definitely were so in the 18th century. OK, I'll get off my soapbox now. |
Hello gentlemen (apologies to any ladies reading, but none of you have posted in this particular thread, if memory serves).
Goofyfoot - of course, tempi are meant to be flexible - the vast majority of music is almost never metronomic all the way through. Tempo markings are basic guidelines. That said, each has its generally acceptable range, and there are still a great many conductors who fall out of this range for the Andante marking specifically, especially in Classical era music, but also some Romantic music as well. The guys in the 40's and 50's tend to do this. If you like that, fine, many people do. And some of those composers do make those slower tempi work. This, however, is a very difficult thing to do, in very large part because it goes against the grain of the composer's assumptions/intentions. I personally think it is a very unfortunate thing that those type of interpretations prevailed in what was the so-called Golden Age of classical music recordings in the 50's and 60's.
Another clarification I want to make - I do not necessarily prefer original instruments, even for Baroque music. I am fascinated by them, and have many times considered taking up the natural horn, but have never pulled the trigger. However, I believe it is possible to perform 18th century works just fine on modern instruments. You just need to reduce the size of the orchestra and play in a lighter style, and the correct style/tempi is a big part of it too.
There are two very large schools of thought on performing/interpreting the works of the great composers of the past (with of course many subdivisions of both). One is that one should always remain faithful to what are obviously the composer's artistic intentions (original instrument groups would be an extreme of this school). The other would be those who think that the masterworks must be kept "fresh" or "current" by re-inventing the wheel with them, musically-speaking, the attention being then much more centered on the performer than the composer. A great many soloists have this latter approach, often making a mockery of what is actually on the page. Of course, many Romantic showpieces are supposed to be done this way, within reason, so I'm not really talking about that. But there are many conductors that think they have to put their personal stamp on a masterwork by doing something strange or unusual or original, even if it doesn't actually make any sense and is obviously contrary to the composer's markings.
It should be pretty obvious that I am generally in the former camp. There is plenty of room for individual expression within the great masterworks without resorting to wholesale changes. As a performer, I always try to keep the composer's intention uppermost.
That said, there are also cases where the composer's markings are routinely changed because something else works better. This is often the case, for instance, in the works of Paul Hindemith. Generally speaking, his metronome marking suggestions are incredibly slow, and almost everyone, himself included, actually went quite a bit faster in many cases. Another example - in the 18th century, there aren't very many expressive markings at all in the scores. Even fundamental things like dynamics and articulation are often left up to the performer, again within reason, and assuming you are staying within certain stylistic guidelines.
And yes, Beethoven was very heavily influenced by Haydn. Not necessarily the actual lessons he had with him, those were largely unproductive, but through the study of his scores and the playing through and performing of his music. For those of you with a better knowledge of music, one of the best books I have ever read is by the very recently deceased pianist/scholar Charles Rosen, called The Classical Style, I believe. Unfortunately, it does require a basic knowledge of music theory to follow the discussions - it is not really a book for the layman. But if you have some basic knowledge of music theory, I highly recommend it. OK, I'll shut up now. |
Hi Goofyfoot - my first thought about your post is to say that to a musician, the fact of performance practices being handed down from teacher to student goes without saying, though I guess that is maybe not so obvious to a layman, so it is good you point it out. However, one caveat with it - you remember the elementary school exercise where the teacher whispers a sentence to one student, who in turn whispers it to the next, etc., and even if it is a relatively small number of students, the last one who speaks the sentence aloud finds that it is often completely different from what the teacher had said in the first place? This most definitely applies to this conversation.
And it's interesting that you use the Walter/Mahler example - many felt at the time that Walter did not take the same tempos as Mahler, that others interpreted his music quite a bit better (Richard Strauss, for instance, even though he didn't particularly care for Mahler's music), and I personally have never found Walter's recorded Mahler interpretations to be particularly good, either. Those were done, of course, long after Mahler's death, and even longer after the two actually worked together. Just because someone knew someone very well and worked with him does not necessarily mean that they actually do things the same way, even if they think they do. Some musicians, however, do really like Walter's recorded Mahler interpretations quite a bit.
Mahler himself was quite famous for making alterations to Beethoven's scores, to account for the increased size of string sections and the differences already occurring in the instruments themselves. Now, however, brass instruments in particular are even bigger and heavier than in Mahler's day, and there is actually starting to be a reaction against this now - many younger brass professionals are switching to smaller, lighter instruments, though they still play them much louder in general than even fifty years ago.
Another very important thing to note about the development of conductors - in the old days, they all learned in opera houses that existed in basically every German town. I think there were almost 70 opera houses in Germany in the days when Strauss, Mahler, Walter, Szell, Furtwangler and all those other guys were coming up. There were plenty of places for them to learn their trade and experiment. Young conductors today simply do not have this available to them, even in Europe. Young conductors hardly ever get to be front of an orchestra and actually practice conducting. The loss of all these different opera houses and orchestras that used to exist has had a huge effect on the training and experience a young conductor can receive now as opposed to them. This accounts for the general decline in the level of many young conductors. There are still some coming up, but in general there has been a huge decline in the number of "world class" conductors.
As to your comments on the recording industry, yes it has totally changed how music is learned and raised the standards of live performance to almost ridiculous levels. It is a very telling fact that Strauss and others who were around at the beginning of the sound recording era actually hated the idea. Recordings have really driven the quest for technical perfection in performance to ridiculous levels - kids coming out of the top music schools nowadays are absurdly good players of their instruments, even more so than when I was in school in the late 80's/early 90s. However, there has been a corresponding decline in their knowledge of other aspects of music besides the technical playing of their instrument. They can play anything, but meanwhile everyone is starting to sound more and more the same, and regional differences in sound are beginning to disappear. It is a very sad thing.
And as for the recording process itself - audiophiles do not like to hear this, but it really is true that the musicians and conductors have almost zero control anymore over that process. With the digital technology they have now, and the ability to edit pretty much anything they want however they want, recordings are almost completely "fake" now, especially if we are talking about electronically produced popular music. But even in the classical world, I have participated in recording sessions where take after take was done that sounded like dog crap. However, the extremely heavily edited final product sounds just fine, though it bears almost no resemblance to what actually happened. All commercial recording is like this now. It bears almost zero resemblance to reality. About the only recordings that are close to "real" in this sense are the live radio broadcasts that orchestras do. Though even these, unless they are truly being aired live as the performance is happening, are often chosen from all the performances of the concert in question. I happen to serve on the musician committee that helps determine what is broadcast from our classical concerts in my orchestra. It might be the overture from Saturday, the first two movements of the concerto from Sunday but the last movement from Saturday, etc. That's about as close to "live" as you can get nowadays, unless you know you are listening to an actual live broadcast. OK, I have once again posted way more than I meant too, so I'll shut up now. |
Hi Tostadosunidos - love that moniker, by the way - yes, I would agree with the Hummel/Clementi influences, too, though this would come more from performing their music than actual compositional ideas - Beethoven was far better than either of them as a writer, for sure.
Goofyfoot - that's an interesting background. Cincinnati has a very good orchestra, I assume you attend their concerts regularly. I have been reading a fair amount about aesthetics lately myself. I took a couple of art history courses in college, but my interests outside of music tend more to drama and literature in general, poetry as well. As you can guess from my moniker, Shakespeare has been a big study of mine. |
Now I am very curious about that Krips Don Giovanni recording. Krips is an interesting conductor. I have Siepe singing the Don on the Leinsdorf recording, which is nice, and I also like that they recorded all of the opera, even the numbers that are almost always cut in the last act. The best Don Giovanni, though, is Giulini's. Absolutely fantastic, as is his Figaro. By the way, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra are one and the same ensemble - always have been. |
Hi Goofyfoot - I used to have a copy of that Glyndebourne one, but I didn't care for it as much as those others I mentioned, so I sold it. Haven't heard the Rene Jacobs. For the period instrument Mozart, I really like Gardiner, though I think I only have a copy of his Magic Flute, not any of the other operas. |
Back to Beethoven - I am about halfway through watching those DVDs I mentioned of Claudio Abbado conducting the Berlin Phil in Rome in 2001. Unbelievable performances - if you have never heard them, you owe it to yourself to do so. Beethoven as it should be played. |
To clarify the HIP thing - this stands, as someone else said, for Historically Informed Performance. Technically, this can also refer to a performance on modern instruments, using the increased knowledge that we have thanks to scholarship of the last few decades (things like style, tempi, orchestra size, etc). However, in actual practice, this term is used interchangeably with "period performance." Period performance always implies period instruments. So the two terms should mean something different, but HIP is used in a more narrow sense than it should be. |
The sound on the Gardiner recording is not the best, no. However, the interpretations/performances are fantastic. The set is definitely a must have in that regard - it is by far the best performances on period instruments - much of the playing is really incredible. |
Hi Lowrider, Goofyfoot, and anyone else discussing the state of recording today. One of you wrote: "I just wish there could be more of an emphasis put on live recordings and damn the mistakes, that's just part of the process."
Actually, this is exactly how the vast majority of orchestras do any recording at all anymore, at least the live part. About the only way my orchestra ever does any recording anymore is by releasing stuff from the live concerts, with just a very little editing done to them. Not from a patch session, either, the only material used is from the live performances. Then the recording is usually released only in the local area - no middle men. This is why you do not see very many out there. It is basically only one step up from the radio broadcasts of the concerts, and also without the compression, of course.
Some of the very biggest orchestras still make occasional recordings for the very big labels, but these are few and far between. Usually, orchestras use the process described above, and are essentially their own "label". It is all self-produced. They can usually be purchased on the orchestra's website, or locally, but are not otherwise available.
This method is far less expensive than the normal way, which is still used, and the advantage to folks like yourselves who wish that recordings were more live is that these basically are - as I said, not even one patch session, just the material from the live concerts, usually three in a weekend for most full-time orchestras. The only thing closer to a live recording, unless of course it actually is one, are the radio broadcasts. These are unedited, though the best parts of the weekend will be chosen. I serve on the committee in my orchestra that chooses what is broadcast from each symphonic weekend's program (for instance, it might be the Sunday overture, the Saturday first two movements of a concerto with the Sunday third movement, and for a four movement symphony you might get something from all three nights, whichever the committee feels were the best performances). So I would encourage those of you who want to listen to recordings that are almost live to search the web for radio broadcasts. |
Hi Lowrider, Goofyfoot - I would suggest that you simply visit the websites of orchestras that you like and see what is out there - they will have details on recordings for purchase, and also sometimes you can hear recent performances for a limited period of time. Some of these are free, some not. Most classical radio stations also regularly air broadcasts of recent concerts from a few different top orchestras. I am not very familiar with satellite radio, so I couldn't tell you how those classical stations work, but there may well be stuff available that way as well. But most regular radio stations stream on the internet, so you can always find the local classical station near an orchestra you like and check their broadcast schedules and listen that way. Typically, these broadcasts occur during the evenings, at or near what would be a regular concert hour. |
As I think I mentioned much earlier in this thread, I have been watching the DVD's of Abbado's performances of the Beethoven symphony cycle that were recorded about 10 years ago, with the Berlin Philharmonic. About 2/3 of the personnel of that orchestra changed under Abbado, and he made that group what it is right now, one of the top handful of orchestras in the world. All of those performances are incredible, and there is a nice interview with Abbado about both Beethoven (about which I agree with basically ever word he says) and his time in Berlin in general. Very highly recommended, especially for the performances. The blend and transparency he achieves with the Berliners is amazing. For me, there is not a better living conductor, and would be my first choice to get to work with at some point on the list of those I have not been able to in my career. |
