Bernstein + VPO : Beethoven SQ op 131 c#min
Nigel Curtis
greater than 9th symphony and the highest thing the human mind is
capable of.
Anybody have strong opinions on his recording with the full strings of
Vienna Phil, from circa 1977 ? Looks from available timings that the
slow movement is slower than most recordings. Ha - there's a
surprise.
thanks
nc
Johannes Roehl
All movements are slightly (or considerably) slower than most recordings
of the original string quartet version. It's quite fascinating, although
not for everyone. By odd coincidence I came to know the piece when I
taped this particular recording from a radio broadcast. So I have a soft
spot for it, although all things considered I prefer the original. Some
passages are just to massive with 50 strings (or how many?
Johannes
Matthew�B.�Tepper
letters to be typed in news:7856bc5c-6aad-4d74-b941-069591f9af70
@y24g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
I like this recording as an occasional (and I do mean occasional) change from
string quartet recordings.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
Read about "Proty" here: http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/proty.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers
Kip Williams
> On a youtube clip of an accompanying talk, Lenny bigs up op131 as
> greater than 9th symphony and the highest thing the human mind is
> capable of.
If only it had occurred to Beethoven to beef it up by multiplying all
the parts! Lucky for him people came along later who could make up for
his lapses.
Kip W
mark
The DG CD is wonderful to lsten to. I believe Lenny uses the
Koussevitsky "arrangement" of the piece.
As far as Lenny saying it's a greater piece than the Ninth - there's
merit to that thought, though I'd ted to chalk it up to Lenny's
enthusiasm of the moment approach to music.
Dontait...@aol.com
> On Dec 21, 8:14�am, Nigel Curtis <cn_cur...@runbox.com> wrote:
>
> > On a youtube clip of an accompanying talk, Lenny bigs up op131 as
> > greater than 9th symphony and the highest thing the human mind is
> > capable of.
>
> > Anybody have strong opinions on his recording with the full strings of
> > Vienna Phil, from circa 1977 ? Looks from available timings that the
> > slow movement is �slower than most recordings. Ha - there's a
> > surprise.
>
> > thanks
> > nc
>
> The DG CD is wonderful to lsten to. I believe Lenny uses the
> Koussevitsky "arrangement" of the piece.
The arrangement was made by Dimitri Mitropoulos.
Don Tait
pgaron
music that Mahler utilized and developed in his Third Symphony, final
movement. In the Lenny/VPO recording of the string orchestra
arrangement, I always imagine Lenny having to restrain himself from
launching the players into that great symphonic movement -- probably
my favorite in a Mahler symphony.
pgaron
Johannes Roehl
There's not much of an arrangement, though. IIRC there are no solo
passages. The only arranging to do is the decision when the double
basses double the 'celli and when they don't.
Johannes
Matthew�B.�Tepper
letters to be typed in news:ARNXm.53745$ZF3....@newsfe13.iad:
What irritates me is what Rudolf Barshai has been doing to the Shostakovich
String Quartets. Not the fact that he's made string orchestra versions of
them, per se, but that he's given them titles as though these arrangements
were actual Shostakovich works. If Shostakovich had wanted to write pieces
entitled Chamber Symphony or String Symphony, he would have done so.
The same for Levon Atovmian making a ballet which he called "The Young Girl
and the Hooligan" out of bits and pieces of various Shostakovich works.
And Barshai and Atovmian were close friends of the composer (Atovmian made
suites from various Shostakovich stage and screen works, which at least I
think valid), so they ought to have known better.
Matthew�B.�Tepper
be typed in news:7dfdd2bf-a682-4bdd-bc97-
8e55d0...@g7g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
> I always enjoy listening to the slow movement of this quartet, for the
> music that Mahler utilized and developed in his Third Symphony, final
> movement. In the Lenny/VPO recording of the string orchestra arrangement,
> I always imagine Lenny having to restrain himself from launching the
> players into that great symphonic movement -- probably my favorite in a
> Mahler symphony.
Well, it probably helped that they had the Beethoven, not Mahler, on their
music stands.
Dave Cook
> were actual Shostakovich works. If Shostakovich had wanted to write pieces
> entitled Chamber Symphony or String Symphony, he would have done so.
Shostakovich was not above doing this himself. He arranged Boris
Tischenko's Cello Concerto, for example (and Mussorgsky, of course).
Dave Cook
Steve de Mena
Yes, I have a very strong opinion of this recording. It's a very
powerful performance and amazing virtuosity on the part of the VPO
string players. The LP contained a note from Lenny that he considered
this recording the culmination of his work with the VPO. If I could
actually narrow down all my favorite CDs to a Top 20, this would
probably be on the list.
Steve
Matthew�B.�Tepper
letters to be typed in news:00abd1ba$0$23347$c3e...@news.astraweb.com:
And Beethoven, and Johann Strauss, and Schumann, as well as two of his other
compatriots, Davidenko and Fleischmann. But that's not the nature of my
complaint, which is that Barshai retitles those expanded string quartets in
order to pretend that they are what they are not.
Boris Gondorff
didn't Previn do this too? And Perahia Op127, I think.
herman
Bernstein speaks of this amazing "new revelation" the Opus 131 is in
the inflated version. As if the piece didn't exist before.
And yes, the 131 if more sophisticated than the Ninth symphony, which
is a work for a big audience with a rather grand and rough rhetoric.
People here speak of the "slow movement". The variation mvt is not
necessarily slower than for instance the first movement.
Johannes Roehl
> Bernstein speaks of this amazing "new revelation" the Opus 131 is in
> the inflated version. As if the piece didn't exist before.
>
> And yes, the 131 if more sophisticated than the Ninth symphony, which
> is a work for a big audience with a rather grand and rough rhetoric.
Still, one could claim, that e.g. the first movement of the 9th is more
complex and sophisticated than any single movement from op.131. The
comparison doesn't make all that much sense. Beethoven knew very well
when he was writing a symphony and when chamber music.
> People here speak of the "slow movement". The variation mvt is not
> necessarily slower than for instance the first movement.
Right, it should feel faster than the first mvtm, at least in some of
the variations.
Johannes
Mark Stratford
>>didn't Previn do this too?
On NYPO archive I once saw a Previn listing which was an all-strings
affair:
Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Britten : Serenade for tenor, horn + strings
Beethoven: op 131
Gerard
> Dave Cook <dave...@nowhere.net> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in
> news:00abd1ba$0$23347$c3e...@news.astraweb.com:
>
> > On 2009-12-21, Matthew� B.� Tepper <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > were actual Shostakovich works. If Shostakovich had wanted to
> > > write pieces entitled Chamber Symphony or String Symphony, he
> > > would have done so.
> >
> > Shostakovich was not above doing this himself. He arranged Boris
> > Tischenko's Cello Concerto, for example (and Mussorgsky, of course).
>
> And Beethoven, and Johann Strauss, and Schumann, as well as two of
> his other compatriots, Davidenko and Fleischmann. But that's not the
> nature of my complaint, which is that Barshai retitles those expanded
> string quartets in order to pretend that they are what they are not.
There's no reason to complain and to repeat your complaints.
In fact, it is good that the arrangements have other titles than the originals.
The difference is more obvious.
Learn to live with it.
JR
>
> - Show quoted text -
Are you now talking about op.135? That is the slow movement that
reminds me of Mahler #3. I believe LB also conducted this for a
Karajan memorial (?).
B.T.W. I remember some conductor or music historian or critic
referring to Op 131 as Beethoven's "Tenth." In jest I think.
Gabriel Parra
Do I sense a note of condescension in your commentary / question?
Because if you are indeed suggesting that 1. Lenny was a fool for
making such a comment and 2. even more of a fool for daring to conduct
Op. 131 with a string orchestra, then perhaps you would be surprised
to know that 1. many, many people (including a whole host of critics
and musicians) would agree with his comment, and have said the same
thing themselves and 2. his recording of Opp. 131 and 135 on DG has
been praised repeatedly as an absolute and revelatory glory.
Is Op. 131 "greater" than Op. 125? In some ways, yes, although we are
talking about music in two very different media with two very
different "aims" and possibilities to explore. I would say most
obviously Op. 131 is more inward, more questing, more enigmatic, more
ambivalent, more philosophical, more poetic, etc. Some of the things
that Beethoven does in Op. 131 couldn't possibly be done with a
symphony, and vice versa. And so, on the other hand, Op. 125 is more
epic, more vast, more apocalyptic, more shattering, more energetic,
etc. Think of the difference between a mural and a painting. In the
end, I would say that - as in a Diego Rivera mural - while Beethoven
ultimately had a "message" he sought to convey in Op. 125, in Op. 131
he had no such thing. Op. 131 is a very personal and intimate and
sublime grappling with and meditation on mortality and everyday
existence (its variation movement strikes me as a meditation on the
"meaning" of the quotidian - no, not the meaning, but rather, its
essence, which may in fact be meaningless). And the ending of Op. 131
is utterly baffling and inscrutable. One could say it is apparently
"victorious" in typical, Beethovenian defiant fashion. Or is it
shatteringly tragic? As in Op. 106, Op. 131 seems to be saying, there
may be no "given meaning" to existence but, that being the case, I
shall will meaning into it, by force, if necessary. I mean, Beethoven
had come up, in music, with a will to power well before Nietzsche did,
and it seems to me like the latter may have - consciously or
unconsciously - found his model of the ubermensch in Beethoven.
Nietzsche, after all, knew Beethoven's music well, so it wouldn't be
at all far-fetched. Then again, there is clearly a will to power in
Op. 125, as well, but it is more declamatory. What I think caused
Lenny to say that, ultimately, Op. 131 is "greater" is the fact that,
in some ways, it is more convincing. No, perhaps not more convincing.
Opp. 125 and 131 both expand to their respective limits what a
symphony and a string quartet can do and do so successfully, more than
any other work in either medium. But precisely by virtue of its more
intimate milieu, Op. 131 does not speak to a symphony hall, but to the
individual eavesdropping on it. And that, I think, is what makes it
seem like something you are not so much before the magnificent
presence of - as with a great mural - but something that creeps in and
ultimately inhabits you. If you "look upon" Op. 125, Op. 131 looks
into you.
As for Lenny's recording of Opp. 131 and 135, he and the VPO "get"
this music more than most string quartets. If the music becomes
Brucknerian and Mahlerian at times as a result of the expanded forces,
well, it is instructive rather than detracting. Seems to me like there
are moments in the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies that are chamber
music for orchestra. And it is doubtful that either Bruckner or Mahler
could have developed their respective idioms as they did without
Beethoven, particularly late Beethoven. What I love about Lenny's
recording of Opp. 131 and 135 is the inwardness he is able to find in
the music, despite the expanded forces. The slow movement of Op. 135
is a glory in Lenny's hands. Only the Busch Quartet and the Lindsays
have been able to plumb the same depths of expression, or reach the
same heights of sublime lyricism, in that particular movement. Most
notably, however, is the incredible energy released by the VPO in
certain movements, such as 7 in Op. 131 and 2 in Op. 135.
Interestingly, I HATE Op. 133 transcribed for string orchestra. All
versions I've heard, with the possible exception of Furtwangler's,
take the heart-rending anguish and despair right out if it, make it
seem too "easy." It should sound like a man tearing at the entrails of
his soul, and I don't think that can be accomplished with a string
orchestra. Or maybe Lenny could have pulled it off, because he pulled
it off in the last movement of Op. 131. I've never heard it played
with such ferocity, which is as it should be played. And the second of
Op. 135, one of my favorite movements in the late quartets, or any
music for that matter: has anyone brought out the outrageously wild
and wicked joy in that music like Lenny and the VPO do? Christ, you
can hear the grinding wheels of the universe move in that recording.
It is one of the glories in recording history.
Taree Dawg
Thanks Gabriel for some perceptive thoughts. I will, I suppose, have to
buy it now ;)
Ray Hall, Taree
Boris Gondorff
> the music, despite the expanded forces. The slow movement of Op. 135
> is a glory in Lenny's hands. Only the Busch Quartet and the Lindsays
> have been able to plumb the same depths of expression, or reach the
> same heights of sublime lyricism, in that particular movement.
Huh? That's rather a sweeping statement. Have you heard every
performance of Op 135 ever? The Lindsay Quartet (I assume that's who
your plural refers to, though unlike the Busch Quartet none of the
members shares the name of the group so there is no sense in using the
plural) is a dismal failure, even if you can get past the extraneous
grunting and sighing and listen to the music.
btw, can you give a musical definition of your term 'inwardness'? The
only definition I've seen is 'intensity of feeling' which could
equally apply to Brahms or the Sex Pistols. And while you're at it,
what are 'deep expression' and 'heights of sublime lyricism'? Sounds
like waffle to me.
Gabriel Parra
> Huh? That's rather a sweeping statement. Have you heard every
> performance of Op 135 ever? The Lindsay Quartet (I assume that's who
> your plural refers to, though unlike the Busch Quartet none of the
> members shares the name of the group so there is no sense in using the
> plural) is a dismal failure, even if you can get past the extraneous
> grunting and sighing and listen to the music.
Boris? Nice name. Several member of my family are named Boris,
including my father.
I don't believe I've heard every single performance of Op. 135 ever. I
have, however, more than several dozen performances in my collection.
I enjoy others, but overall, I prefer the Lindsays and the Busch. And
Lenny's, of course.
If you have a problem with calling the Lindsays the Lindsays, take it
up with them. That's what they chose to call themselves. Look it up.
I'm glad you think the Lindsays' performance is a "dismal failure."
I'm sure you appreciate other performances. I happen to appreciate the
Lindsays'. Hope that's okay with you.
> btw, can you give a musical definition of your term 'inwardness'? The
> only definition I've seen is 'intensity of feeling' which could
> equally apply to Brahms or the Sex Pistols. And while you're at it,
> what are 'deep expression' and 'heights of sublime lyricism'? Sounds
> like waffle to me.
Innigkeit, perhaps? Not sure that would apply to the Sex Pistols as
well as to Brahms.
What exactly does it mean to "give a musical definition" of a
subjective, emotional reaction, anyhow? Does, say, a diminished fifth
have an intrinsic emotional content to it? Perhaps you don't like it
when people speak of music in emotional terms. I've known many who are
put off by it. Which is kind of queer, really, given that most, you
know, humans react particularly - especially - emotionally to music.
Hmm...
If my mode of expression sounds like "waffle" to you, that is all fine
and good. Others seem to understand it. I'm not sure what the point is
in pointing it out, however. To make yourself feel better? To score
some sort of point? Perhaps you are having a bad day? A bad life? If
that's the case, then, I sincerely hope things improve for you, sir.
An attitude adjustment may help.
Mark Stratford
I found that this link (from 18 months ago on RMCR) of Lener Q doing
op 131 in 1924 is still active:
Kip Williams
Oh boy! Thanks for that. I was considering the pros and cons of using
almost half my monthly downloads to get a modern recording of the piece.
This will hold me until I can make a trip to the library, and I can use
my downloads for something else.
Kip W
Lena
> herman schrieb:
>
> > Bernstein speaks of this amazing "new revelation" the Opus 131 is in
> > the inflated version. As if the piece didn't exist before.
>
> > And yes, the 131 if more sophisticated than the Ninth symphony, which
> > is a work for a big audience with a rather grand and rough rhetoric.
>
> Still, one could claim, that e.g. the first movement of the 9th is more
> complex and sophisticated than any single movement from op.131. The
> comparison doesn't make all that much sense. Beethoven knew very well
> when he was writing a symphony and when chamber music.
This is nicely pointed out, I think.
[H. says:]
>> which [the 9th] is a work for a big audience with a rather grand and rough rhetoric.
No, it isn't. I mean, yes, it's a symphony, :) but it has no end of
sophistications. :) It's just wrong to hear it only as something
"grand and rough." (If it's heard that way, the fault lies quite
definitely somewhere within the listener/performer combination.)
Actually, the first movement is so sophisticated few people understand
it. :) And the last movement - well, it's so sophisticated nobody at
all understands it. :):) More seriously, I still vacillate on whether
I want to always hear that as the finale, but calling that movement
rough is not right at all. It's maybe overfull, but it's not rough,
nor in any way unified in its "rhetoric" (a word I'm beginning to wish
were banished to the ends of the earth). To a would-be detractor:
please just take a look at the skill in the writing there.
Lena
Mark Stratford
>>pros and cons of using almost half my monthly download<<
Kip - do you use Soulseek ? There have been a number of (free) op131
recordings there recently: Vemeer Q, Alban Berg,Amadeus, Julliard,
Italiano and the Lenny one which started this thread.
mark stratford, London
Taree Dawg
>
> Actually, the first movement is so sophisticated few people understand
> it. :) And the last movement - well, it's so sophisticated nobody at
> all understands it. :):) More seriously, I still vacillate on whether
> I want to always hear that as the finale, but calling that movement
> rough is not right at all. It's maybe overfull, but it's not rough,
> nor in any way unified in its "rhetoric" (a word I'm beginning to wish
> were banished to the ends of the earth). To a would-be detractor:
> please just take a look at the skill in the writing there.
Why? The ears are punished enough, why waste brain cells?
Ray Hall, Taree
Bob Lombard
Using 'em ain't gonna waste 'em, Ray. It's abusing them that does that.
bl
--
Music, a few books, a few movies
LombardMusic
http://www.amazon.com/shops/A3NRY9P3TNNXNA
phlogiston
the Bernstein version. I was fortunate to find it in my local charity
shop - I donated more than the asking price, I was so pleased to find
it.
I find Bernstein's recording full of his own individuality - I shall
return to it from time to time, definitely doesn't displace the
various SQ versions that I own.
Taree Dawg
> Taree Dawg wrote:
>> Lena wrote:
>>>
>>> Actually, the first movement is so sophisticated few people understand
>>> it. :) And the last movement - well, it's so sophisticated nobody at
>>> all understands it. :):) More seriously, I still vacillate on whether
>>> I want to always hear that as the finale, but calling that movement
>>> rough is not right at all. It's maybe overfull, but it's not rough,
>>> nor in any way unified in its "rhetoric" (a word I'm beginning to wish
>>> were banished to the ends of the earth). To a would-be detractor:
>>> please just take a look at the skill in the writing there.
>>
>> Why? The ears are punished enough, why waste brain cells?
>>
>> Ray Hall, Taree
>
> Using 'em ain't gonna waste 'em, Ray. It's abusing them that does that.
Precisely, Bob. Exactement.
Ray Hall, Taree
Kip Williams
> Kip - do you use Soulseek ? There have been a number of (free) op131
> recordings there recently: Vemeer Q, Alban Berg,Amadeus, Julliard,
> Italiano and the Lenny one which started this thread.
I don't know about this one. I looked it up just now on Wikipedia, and
from what they say, it's kind of scary, especially on a Mac.
Thanks for the tip, though. We'll see.
Kip W