mikeweil

I hope so! My thoughts exactly ....

Another one: "Hey Ho", on Herbie Mann's Atlantic LP "The Beat Goes On", written by one Herbie ............. Hancock! Very simple tune, from his early attempts at trying to be "funky", I guess.

My remark was not aimed at your choice of words but at someone else's elaborate posts ..... BTW: You can edit the thread title yourselves, if you want, by editing the first post.

New arrivals during the week_ All excellent, great historical instruments - but the highlight is this one: Better, more intimate sound than on Rousset's CDs, a 1776 Dulcken harpsichord (that Rousset also played), and her best recording to date, flawless, playful, completely at ease with herself and the music. Highly recommended!

Thanks for pointing these out, but I'm not the one who can afford one sonic upgrade after another ..... Forgot to mention Kenny Burrell's God Bless the Child - my favourite of them all, and the only one that gets regular play.

I have two or three CDs with his music, but it didn't attract me that much.

Dmitri Shostakovich Blame it on me, but I hardly know his music.

I dislike the bombastic CTI sound, prefer Creed Taylor's work on Verve or A & M, where it was not as exaggerated. I do not like the bass and drums sound on these recordings, and some of the featured guys, like Steve Gadd. I kept very few for that reason - All the Ron Carter albums (except for "Anything Goes") Blue Moses (although that one could have been much better with Melba Liston arranging) Hubert Laws' In The Beginning Airto's Free and Fingers George Benson's Beyond the Blue Horizon Of the Milt Jackson albums, only the one with Turrentine survived the purge. The CD reissues could sound a lot better if they hadn't used so much noise reduction - Van Gelder's CTI's have a lot of tape hiss and if you reduce it you damage the overall sound, IMHO.

I like bass clarinet. I cannot think of any classical clarinet piece that like, but I enjoy baroque music by Telemann or Graupner written for the chalumeau - we have an excellent player of that instrument here in the area. I indeed hate the altissimo register, that's why I enjoy jazz players who rarely use it, like Jimmy Giuffre, or with a very individual note, Pee Wee Russell, or Edmond Hall. Re the thread title: A classical music instrument is an instrument used in classical music, period. Not exclusively, of course.

Clarinet - in jazz, too.

Thanks - was able to find a cheap used copy.

Larry, what is your source for Rosen's remarks - iis it in his book "The Classical Style" or elsewhere - I'd like to read the full text. Thanks in advance.

"Bullshitting" is too harsh a judgement - every generation approaches all types of music their own way, and what Bernstein did was in line with what was known about interpreting a Bach score, but he didn't know certain things that historically informed performance practice found out during the last fifty years. Some things he already knew, like the fact that it is wrong to play the string parts with continuous legato. But he is wrong in that he, like most "conventionally" trained musicians still tend to think, in adapting interpretational approaches that were developped in the late 19th century and that were based on Viennese classical music, to pre-1950 music - e.g. in Bach's time "allegro" did not give time signature "fast" - the tempo was given in the time signature, the tempo giusto, and "allegro" meant to increase that tempo to a certain degree. Their tempo of the first movement of that piano concerto is much too slow. Gould's obsession with clarity of the lines is based on the fact that except for register changes, the harpsichord has no volume dynamics. All voices are supposed are too be heard equally. That meant having only one string player per part, btw. The dynamics are achieved by the interplay of the instruments and the keyboard voicings. That's all you need. Of course you have a different balance with gut strings and historical bowing techniques. And you have to play a type of harpsichord like Bach had, which, surprisingly, is rarely done even by "historically informed" players. They, too, are subject to their own taste, often too much, I think - Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel once stated, that "hitting the notes properly" (i.e. to play properly in time) was sufficient - he associated other means of expressive keyboard playing with later styles. That clarity is the "correct" part of Gould's playing, and his obsession with counterpoint - the latter is shared by many, including Gustav Leonhardt. Historically informed performance practice does not mean to try to play like Bach did - nobody could do that, not even his sons, who were closest to this. It means taking all the knowledge that we now have into account, regarding tempos, instruments, playing techniques, embellishments, etc. and try to make lively music with all this in mind, or rather, prepare your performance with it. Basically, that's what Bernstein and Gould did, with their knowledge. That's why some say, period performance is bullshit. But this underemphasizes what to me is the most important factor: sound - which was different in each era. Sound encompasses the instrument, tuning systems, acoustics. ensemble size. Then comes rhythm and tempo. I enjoyed watching Gould's tv series back in the day, and learned a lot from them. His rhythmic clarity was a refreshing voice in comparison to overly "romantic" approaches. Especially for someone used to the more strict timing of jazz and rock music. But from 1980 on I started listening to period performances with my partner of those years, and together we explored the music anew. Even today new facts are found out every month, and others taken for granted are questioned. There are too many aspects of the process than can be mentioned here .... To give my answer to one of the question aked above, by people seem to either love or hate Gould's playing: I think it's because they do not like his rhythmic accuracy and miss the many "expressive" means of other pianists leaning more towards a romantic piano tradition.

To add another view to the discussion, please listen to this recording by Luca Gugliemi on exact copies of the Cristofori and Silbermann fortepianos known to Bach: Tracklist: I have no idea what and how much Gould knew (or, at the state of knowledge of his time, could have known) about the piano sound Bach was familiar with, but this might give you an idea what it really was - sometimes Gould comes close with his soundideal. With all that was researched after him: some of his ideas are pretty far from 18th century performance practice. Davitt Moroney, in a post last year on the harpsichord mailing list, had a lot of criticism about the performers, who, like Gould, play the entrances of fugue subjects with too much emphasis. What comes after them was much more interesting ...

There is a small book by Gustav Leonhardt from the 1960's in which he already argued quite convincingly that The Art Of The Fugue is indeed keyboard music, but some pieces need a third hand, which is not unusual considering the number of pieces for two players extant. In early music circles there is no longer any debate about this. That said, it was common practice in the 17th and 18th centuries to transcribe multiple voiced keyboard music to chamber instrumentation and vice versa. There are exmples from Bach's own oeuvre and in his circle, and documents that he improvised these from the score. It was part of the learning program of his sons and students. As for the public performance of any type of keyboard music in Bach's time, there is a rather new book by Siegbert Rampe on the contexts of keyboard playing which is on top of my buying list (it's in German, however). I had brief look into it at the library, there were organ and harpsichord recitals, but limited to private circles or special public events, like auditions for an organist's post, or the testing of a newly built organ. OTOH there are some collections of organ music that can only have been intended for use in public performance, like the Husumer Orgelbuch. Bach gave some organ recitals in his lifetime, but we do not know what he played, there probably was a lot of improvisation involved, as was common practice.

pm sent re the Hodges ...

I remember a passage in the "Conversations with Glenn Gould" tv series where he stated he wanted his recordings to sound in a certain way, no matter what equipment they are played back with, from kitchen radio to high end, so that all the notes came across the way he wanted them to sound. He distrusted the listener and disliked the thought that anybody could manipulate the sound with their control knobs, no matter how (un)musical they are. The only other record I know that sounds equal on any playback gear, btw., is "Heavy Weather"!

Got this one yesterday - contrary to his Suittes, the Sonatas print was neglected, this is its first reording. Excellent music, excellently played. I think they may have inspired Handel's London sonata prints, and are musically on the same level, and even more entertaining.

That reaffirms my experience that I seem like the records best where the producers seemed to interfere the least.

I have the Mel Lewis on my Kindle, but have yet to finish it. I second the recommendation.

There's a tune by Joe Henderson, "Soulin'", on Duke Pearson's Atlantic LP "Prairie Dog", that Joe himself never recorded. And Jobete, the Motown publisher, is named!