Sharing a musicologist's thoughts.

[PaulMB]

Just thought I'd share the following, in case anybody is interested:

I told a musicologist friend that I'd been listening to Brahms' 4th symphony and liked it a lot, and what recordings of it he would recommend. I had been looking on Internet and found statements like "The Kleiber is by far the best" or "The Bernstein is terrible" or "Bernstein is far and away the best" or "The Klemperer is the best," or "Von Karajan is crap" and so on.

So he gave me three different recordings: Bernstein and Wiener Phil., Kleiber and Wiener Phil., and Klemperer and Philharmonia. I listened to them for a few days, and when I saw him again I told him that I noticed some differences, but nothing radical enough to warrant the extreme praise or condemnation I had found on the Web.

He told me that in his opinion most listeners do not distinguish major differences in the actual music, but are, rather, prey to feelings of attraction or non-attraction with regard to the image and perceived personality of conductors. Consciously or subconsciously, they "fall in love" with a conductor and reject others. At this point their chosen conductor's recording is inevitably "the best."
He also explained that Brahms gave very detailed directions in his scores, reducing the space for personal interpretation. And that an orchestra like the Wiener, which by tradition does not have a permanent musical director, in a piece as frequently played as Brahms' 4th will have its own habits and traditions. While Klemperer's recording was with the orchestra of which he was the regular conductor, and which he had helped shape.

All this was a revelation to me, so I thought it might interest others.

 

[bownose]

Roland Barthes wrote a fair bit about The Fetishization of Autonomous Sound. I can also cite a few others who write about this in the sounscape idiom* IYL but you friend will have the basics. It's not a new observation. Fetishization here means the expectation of the quality of the sound. This goes hand in hand with "conductor clique" as it's known among orchestra players who note that better-paid conductors do not always command bigger audiences. There is a term for these observations which is "non-transculturizations"... Where an observation deliberately and necessarily limits itself to one aesthetic idiom.

He is quite right, if he means most people as European, white, middle class, moderately affluent with jobs and living in a certain set of conditions... you should however see what an ethnomusicologist does with that observation. Then you open a can of worms/prod a hornets nest.

Not going there. That is a masters dissertation right there.

*The Sound Studies Reader edited by Jonathan Sterne

 

[alanbeeb]

I have never seen or heard Kleiber or Bernstein perform in person. Almost all my experience of music comes from recordings.

I can easily distinguish between different interpretations of the same works based on their overall tempo and the slowing and acceleration within passages of music - and I almost always prefer performances where tempo variation is kept in check and not obvious to the listeners, or indeed where a basic tempo is chosen and stuck to.

It is particularly bad in Brahms 4th - Bernstein constant slowing at the big moments to impart added sentimentality is abhorrent IMO and destroys the flow of the music. IMO Brahms needs steady tempos because the rhythmic complexity and tempo relationships inside the music fall apart if pushed and pulled around - the rhythm & counterpoint do not work if the tempos are put under stress. Kleiber sticks to a basic tempo throughout each movement and doesn't use extreme variation to highlight "big" moments - the result is a cohesive, satisfying whole where the thematic and rhythmic relationships are held intact. Which is why Kleiber's recording of the 4th is actually one of the greatest classical recordings ever.

 

[SteveS1]

It is particularly bad in Brahms 4th - Bernstein constant slowing at the big moments to impart added sentimentality is abhorrent IMO and destroys the flow of the music. IMO Brahms needs steady tempos because the rhythmic complexity and tempo relationships inside the music fall apart if pushed and pulled around - the rhythm & counterpoint do not work if the tempos are put under stress. Kleiber sticks to a basic tempo throughout each movement and doesn't use extreme variation to highlight "big" moments - the result is a cohesive, satisfying whole where the thematic and rhythmic relationships are held intact. Which is why Kleiber's recording of the 4th is actually one of the greatest classical recordings ever.

I don't care for much of Bernstein's affected sentimentality with any score. Maybe his style added drama to one off live concerts but it doesn't bare repeat listenings. The Kleiber is a classic performance I also like the late Walter Brahms cycle and I keep meaning to listen to Abbado's. But for a consistently enjoyable set, I like Sir Adrian Boult's set from the 1970s no eccentricity it just flows.

Was it Beecham who described a musicologist as 'someone who reads music but can't hear it'?

 

[herb]

I don't tend to favour any particular conductor but have a mental list of ones to avoid if possible - normally for tempo reasons. Rattle seems to come to a full stop sometimes and I fall asleep, Boulez is too mechanical and dull, Bernstein is too showy.

As a basic rule I initially try to match the nationality of the composer, conductor and orchestra.

My favoured Brahms seems to be Harnoncourt and the Berliner Philharmoniker, can't remember why. I must play it today.

 

[SteveS1]

I don't tend to favour any particular conductor but have a mental list of ones to avoid if possible - normally for tempo reasons.

Then there are recordings such as Klemperer's Beethoven for example, where there can be significant tempo differences between two recordings of the same work.

 

[herb]

For the Beethoven Symphonies I have settled for Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker 1963.

I found a few Brahms 4ths in the pile, played some bits and could live with any of them:

Abbado, Harnoncourt, Karajan, Wand and Walter.

The Bruno Walter Columbia Symphony Orchestra CD is very clean and precise and will certainly go into the 'active' pile, with the Wand box of all 4 symphonies under consideration.

Differences are quite subtle, but I think other composers are open to greater interpretation?

 

[PaulMB]

This is another thing that my musicologist friend said. He gave the example of Bach, in whose scores indications on tempo, for instance, are absent or vague. He also told me that on some scores for piano, there are even indications of which finger should be used for which note.
But, as you say, he said Brahms was very detailed in the instructions for performance, leaving relatively little leeway for interpretation.

 

[lordsummit]

Well that's a can of worms. The markings on the score may be more prolific, but they are still subject to interpretation. Some composers put metronome markings on, but that's only their metronome, they're not all accurate. Bach didn't write fingerings on, but if you consider that his music was often written for harpsichord which is a rather undynamic instrument, or organ where there the registrations available differ from instrument to instrument.
The romantic period is where does became exceedingly detailed, and Schubert was the first to really do this. There's still though the ebb and flow of the piece, the relationship of tempos through the movements, the choice of timbre, bowing for the string players, articulation. The list is endless.

Try as an experiment three different recordings of Mahler 2. Try Klemperer with Swarzkopf, Bernstein from the 60s, and Rattle work the CBSO. Three very different takes on the same work.
I think there are a lot of very similar recordings, but I think your musicologist friend is under playing the effect the artist has upon the piece.

 

[herb]

To me Mozart has always been the first Jazz composer.

The Gunter Wand Brahms box passed the test, enthused I have just spent this week's sweetie money on a big Wand box from Amazon. It will be interesting to see what he does with Bruckner etc. He seemed to know what he was doing.