What Classical Music Are You Listening To?

[soulpope]

Sublime emotions ....

[Referentzhunter]

cd 4

[soulpope]

[soulpope]

[Referentzhunter]

1 euro/2 lp find. Very good stuff, 1953,1954,1949 Mono recording. Also casadesus's own compositions. Yummi !

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[Referentzhunter]

fabulous conductor without a doubt. 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[Alexander Hawkins]

On 01/08/2019 at 2:24 PM, Referentzhunter said:

My opinion remains the same.

One of the things I love to listen for in Gould (at least with Bach) is his almost frightening ability to voice every single part independently within the texture...something which very few people can do to this level (Lipatti leans this way, but given there is so little of his Bach on record, it's a little tricky to hear e.g. in the Partita)...so maybe actually the 2-part Inventions in some ways aren't the best way in to what makes him so uncanny with Bach IMHO...I personally might go to the fugues of the WTC to hear Gould at his most amazing, pianistically...

Again - just my view...by the same token, no problem with people who aren't into Gould!

[Peter Friedman]

String Quintet - K.174

String Quartet - K.590 "Prussian"

[Referentzhunter]

I am not a expert but what about 'Bach's divinity' i heard about ? For me music is not only about playing notes.  

Maybe i have to say it like this: I don't feel a thing if i listen to most of Gould's Bach recordings.

BTW We can shake hands because i can bare the release beneath (fugue on organ). Organ adds dimension. This one will stay in my collection.

 

NP: Absolutely divine for my ears, mind and higher consciousness.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[Alexander Hawkins]

12 minutes ago, Referentzhunter said:

I am not a expert but what about 'Bach's divinity' i heard about ? For me music is not only about playing notes.  

Maybe i have to say it like this: I don't feel a thing if i listen to most of Gould's Bach recordings.

BTW We can shake hands because i can bare the release beneath (fugue on organ). Organ adds dimension. This one will stay in my collection.

Oh yes - this one is great! (And strange, even by the standards of Gould...)

On it being more than the notes: sure! And I guess this is where it all gets subjective; certainly there are various 'name' players doing Bach (etc.) who I don't really connect with either. For me this is part of the fascination of the stuff - that people can hear the same notes, and have these differing reactions.

[Referentzhunter]

14 minutes ago, Alexander Hawkins said:

Oh yes - this one is great! (And strange, even by the standards of Gould...)

On it being more than the notes: sure! And I guess this is where it all gets subjective; certainly there are various 'name' players doing Bach (etc.) who I don't really connect with either. For me this is part of the fascination of the stuff - that people can hear the same notes, and have these differing reactions.

Yes, Bach's enigma ?

These are the recordings directly speaking to my heart i know of.

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[Referentzhunter]

NP, Prelude and fugue 1 t/m 8: Inspired by 'Alexander Hawkins'

This does work for me pretty well to.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, Alexander Hawkins said:

One of the things I love to listen for in Gould (at least with Bach) is his almost frightening ability to voice every single part independently within the texture...something which very few people can do to this level (Lipatti leans this way, but given there is so little of his Bach on record, it's a little tricky to hear e.g. in the Partita)...so maybe actually the 2-part Inventions in some ways aren't the best way in to what makes him so uncanny with Bach IMHO...I personally might go to the fugues of the WTC to hear Gould at his most amazing, pianistically...

Again - just my view...by the same token, no problem with people who aren't into Gould!

Gould's ability  (and his frequent decision) " to voice every single part independently within the texture" is among the reasons I dislike his Bach. As Charles Rosen said in his essay on Bach and Handel in the book "Keyboard Music" (Penguin), this approach is based on a misunderstanding of what Bach was up to in his keyboard music. "It cannot be sufficiently emphasized, " Rosen wrote, "that the keyboard works are written above all for the pleasure of the performer. One small detail will show to what an extent this aspect of musical life changed within thirty of Bach's death. When Mozart rediscovered the music of Bach and began enthusiastically to compose fugues himself, he said that fugues must always be played at a slow tempo, as otherwise the successive entrances of the theme would not be clearly heard. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often Bach tries to hide the entrance by tying the opening to the last note of the previous phrase, how much ingenuity he has expended in avoiding articulation, in keeping all aspects of the flowing movement constant. Yet, though many of the entrances in Bach's fugues are, in Mozart's terms inaudible, there is one person -- the performer -- who is always aware of them. If in no other way, he can always sense them through his fingers.... [My emphasis]

"The very reproach often leveled at the keyboard -- its blending, even confusion, of contrapuntal lines --made it the ideal medium for Bach's art. This inability of the instruments to make in practice the clear-cut distinctions that were made in theory embodied the tendency toward a completely unified texture and the powerful vertical harmonic force that characterized so much of the music of the early eighteenth century.... This implies that much of the calculation of dramatic effect necessary for public performance was never intended for the greater part of Bach's keyboard music -- except in the large organ works, it tends to be felt as an excrescence, an intrusion of the performer."

Yes, this is no longer the eighteenth century, and some compromise between public and private modes of performance probably is necessary in our day. But for me Gould's frequent tendency, difficult though it may be, to "voice every single part independently within the texture" goes much too far. It thrusts a certain "knowingness" into the foreground, in much the same way that, say, Fischer-Dieskau could turn a Schubert song into an over-articulated lecture-demonstration on interpretation.

[Referentzhunter]

11 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Gould's ability  (and his frequent decision) " to voice every single part independently within the texture" is among the reasons I dislike his Bach. As Charles Rosen said in his essay on Bach and Handel in the book "Keyboard Music" (Penguin), this approach is based on a misunderstanding of what Bach was up to in his keyboard music. "It cannot be sufficiently emphasized, " Rosen wrote, "that the keyboard works are written above all for the pleasure of the performer. One small detail will show to what an extent this aspect of musical life changed within thirty of Bach's death. When Mozart rediscovered the music of Bach and began enthusiastically to compose fugues himself, he said that fugues must always be played at a slow tempo, as otherwise the successive entrances of the theme would not be clearly heard. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often Bach tries to hide the entrance by tying the opening to the last note of the previous phrase, how much ingenuity he has expended in avoiding articulation, in keeping all aspects of the flowing movement constant. Yet, though many of the entrances in Bach's fugues are, in Mozart's terms inaudible, there is one person -- the performer -- who is always aware of them. If in no other way, he can always sense them through his fingers.... [My emphasis]

"The very reproach often leveled at the keyboard -- its blending, even confusion, of contrapuntal lines --made it the ideal medium for Bach's art. This inability of the instruments to make in practice the clear-cut distinctions that were made in theory embodied the tendency toward a completely unified texture and the powerful vertical harmonic force that characterized so much of the music of the early eighteenth century.... This implies that much of the calculation of dramatic effect necessary for public performance was never intended for the greater part of Bach's keyboard music -- except in the large organ works, it tends to be felt as an excrescence, an intrusion of the performer."

Yes, this is no longer the eighteenth century, and some compromise between public and private modes of performance probably is necessary in our day. But for me Gould's frequent tendency, difficult though it may be, to "voice every single part independently within the texture" goes much too far. It thrusts a certain "knowingness" into the foreground, in much the same way that, say, Fischer-Dieskau could turn a Schubert song into an over-articulated lecture-demonstration on interpretation.

very interesting...

[Referentzhunter]

Preludes and fugues 9 t/m 16

Edited August 6, 2019 by Referentzhunter

[JSngry]

I don't think that Gould "misunderstood" anything about Bach. I do think he reached his own conclusions, though.

If, per Rosen, "It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that the keyboard works are written above all for the pleasure of the performer", then I think it would be fair to say that Gould found his own pleasures there.

I find them mesmerizing myself. as I do Zuzana Růžičková's harpsichord renditions, and for the same reason - each performed, in their own way, the feat of getting the music to the point of transcendence, where time and space no longer "matter" as literalistic marking points of some ultimate relevance. That shit just starts to float, and there you are, floating with it. Some players seem to be enthralled - to one degree or another - with letting you know where the "1" is of every measure. That misses the point of Bach, imo!

Float on, I say!

 

[Alexander Hawkins]

53 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Gould's ability  (and his frequent decision) " to voice every single part independently within the texture" is among the reasons I dislike his Bach. As Charles Rosen said in his essay on Bach and Handel in the book "Keyboard Music" (Penguin), this approach is based on a misunderstanding of what Bach was up to in his keyboard music. "It cannot be sufficiently emphasized, " Rosen wrote, "that the keyboard works are written above all for the pleasure of the performer. One small detail will show to what an extent this aspect of musical life changed within thirty of Bach's death. When Mozart rediscovered the music of Bach and began enthusiastically to compose fugues himself, he said that fugues must always be played at a slow tempo, as otherwise the successive entrances of the theme would not be clearly heard. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often Bach tries to hide the entrance by tying the opening to the last note of the previous phrase, how much ingenuity he has expended in avoiding articulation, in keeping all aspects of the flowing movement constant. Yet, though many of the entrances in Bach's fugues are, in Mozart's terms inaudible, there is one person -- the performer -- who is always aware of them. If in no other way, he can always sense them through his fingers.... [My emphasis]

"The very reproach often leveled at the keyboard -- its blending, even confusion, of contrapuntal lines --made it the ideal medium for Bach's art. This inability of the instruments to make in practice the clear-cut distinctions that were made in theory embodied the tendency toward a completely unified texture and the powerful vertical harmonic force that characterized so much of the music of the early eighteenth century.... This implies that much of the calculation of dramatic effect necessary for public performance was never intended for the greater part of Bach's keyboard music -- except in the large organ works, it tends to be felt as an excrescence, an intrusion of the performer."

Yes, this is no longer the eighteenth century, and some compromise between public and private modes of performance probably is necessary in our day. But for me Gould's frequent tendency, difficult though it may be, to "voice every single part independently within the texture" goes much too far. It thrusts a certain "knowingness" into the foreground, in much the same way that, say, Fischer-Dieskau could turn a Schubert song into an over-articulated lecture-demonstration on interpretation.

Larry - I vaguely remember us having this conversation somewhere before! This Rosen passage is interesting, and I appreciate you sharing it, because although I've read various bits of Rosen, I'd forgotten this...I admire his playing greatly, and indeed - anyone who has listened/played through Bach's keyboard music notices the clever disguise of various entrances of the fugue subject (if that's not too contradictory!). But anyone with even a passing familiarity can't fail to notice also the instances in which he sets up those entrances, and makes them very obvious. This is what puzzles me about Rosen's argument...you can't miss either instance of fugal craft (disguise or highlight). Which shouldn't be surprising, given that Bach has so much fun with that form/technique...

I also think the observation that the player's enjoyment is central is key. Of course it's totally fine for people not to enjoy Gould's interpretation, but he's doing 'his thing' with the dots on the page, and I can't help but feel that this is totally in the spirit. I forget - is it in the inscription to the partitas where Bach says something along the lines of them being 'for music lovers to refresh their spirits' or some such? That seems fairly permissive to me!

[Larry Kart]

" Some players seem to be enthralled - to one degree or another - with letting you know where the "1" is of every measure. That misses the point of Bach, imo!"

I couldn't agree more.

[Chuck Nessa]

[Larry Kart]

Artur Rubinstein's 1965 recording of the Liszt Sonata. The more delicate passages are uncannily intimate/ incredibly beautiful.

[soulpope]

9 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Treasurous ....

[soulpope]

Earlier today .... :

[Referentzhunter]

My introduction to Bartok's music.

[soulpope]

Thereafter .... :

[soulpope]

NP .... :