Berlioz Requiem HIP
Winthrop
Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John Eliot
Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have not given it a
shot.
Thanks
RX-01
I cannot see how a HIP recording of the Berlioz requiem would be
different from a modern one. Surely the intruments/tempi used at
Berlioz's time are not that different from today's.
RX-01
--
To reply be e-mail, add the word kons before the number.
Matthew B. Tepper
be typed in news:bordrk$1f79p1$1...@ID-187302.news.uni-berlin.de:
> Winthrop wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John
>> Eliot Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have
>> not given it a shot.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
> I cannot see how a HIP recording of the Berlioz requiem would be
> different from a modern one. Surely the intruments/tempi used at
> Berlioz's time are not that different from today's.
You haven't heard Sir John Eliot's recording of the Symphonie fantastique,
have you? The sonorities are quite noticeably different, particularly the
gut strings, and there are ophicleides instead of tubas. Try also Sir
Charles Mackerras' Virgin recording of Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's
Dream" music, particularly the Overture, where the burlier and harsher
sound of the ophicleide brings out a wild and rough character you don't
hear with a smoother-sounding tuba.
I'd love to hear a Berlioz Requiem performed with gut strings, with cornets
and ophicleides, with horns tossing around the notes in the Lacrimosa, and
so forth. Peter Warlock, of all people, once tried to persuade Sir
Hamilton Harty to use ophicleides in one of his performances.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's Fault!
Floyd Patterson
are used to today.
"RX-01" <6...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bordrk$1f79p1$1...@ID-187302.news.uni-berlin.de...
Ian Pace
"Winthrop" <r...@lavk.com> wrote in message
news:qSasb.23716$9M3....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
of HIP performers together under one roof would be quite an achievement!
Does anyone know of a HIP recording of the Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale?
(a work I'm sure would sound very different when played on the instruments
of its time)?
Best,
Ian
Ian Pace
> > Folks,
> >
> > Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John
Eliot
> > Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have not given
it a
> > shot.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
>
> I cannot see how a HIP recording of the Berlioz requiem would be
> different from a modern one. Surely the intruments/tempi used at
> Berlioz's time are not that different from today's.
>
> RX-01
>
recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique and compare with any recording on
modern instruments to hear this clearly. Berlioz was very particular about
the specific instruments he wrote for, it's certainly something worth taking
seriously.
Ian
David Hurwitz
>They are extremely different - listen to either Gardiner or Norrington's
>recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique and compare with any recording on
>modern instruments to hear this clearly. Berlioz was very particular about
>the specific instruments he wrote for, it's certainly something worth taking
>seriously.
>
>Ian
>
While I agree that the instruments were often quite different, I do not agree
that Gardiner or Norrington are illustrative of HOW they may have been
different, both being relatively cold, lifeless performances of no special merit
or technical distinction. And of course we can only surmise how supposedly
"authentic" instruments actually sounded. In fact, I don't find either of those
performances terribly different from the sound of a regular orchestra with a too
small string section and tinny brass, recorded in a relatively dry acoustic
setting. As a barometer of Berlioz' original intentions, their value is nil.
Dave Hurwitz
Donald C. Patterson
6...@yahoo.co.uk wrote on 11/11/03 2:38 PM:
> Winthrop wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John Eliot
>> Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have not given it a
>> shot.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>
> I cannot see how a HIP recording of the Berlioz requiem would be
> different from a modern one. Surely the intruments/tempi used at
> Berlioz's time are not that different from today's.
>
> RX-01
In fact, they were quite different. Strings still used gut strings. The
flutes were still "wood" winds. The clarinets and oboes were of a different
bore size than their modern counterparts and the reeds were made quite
differently. The brass were of a much smaller bore size than modern
instruments. The trumpets used were more like cornets with piston valves
and trumpets may have used rotary valves. I think Gardiner's recording of
the Symphonie fantastique amply demonstrates the unique sound of the 19th
century orchestra. It's not necessarily inferior to the modern, but it is
quite a different set of timbres and balances.
--
Don Patterson
Trombonist
Arranger/Copyist
"The President's Own"
United States Marine Band
Donald C. Patterson
i...@ianpace.com wrote on 11/11/03 7:44 PM:
Alas, no. Having played this piece a few times, I would love to hear his
original intentions played on the instruments for which he wrote. Perhaps
Gardiner might be persuaded to do a complete Berlioz cycle.
--
Don Patterson
Trombonist/Music Copyist/Arranger
"The President's Own"
United States Marine Band
"Celebrating 205 years of playing America's music"
Bill McCutcheon
"Donald C. Patterson" <don...@olg.com> wrote in message
news:BBD70EB1.119BC%don...@olg.com...
In addition to Sym. Fantastique, Gardiner and ORR have recorded at
least two other Berlioz discs: (1) Harold in Italy and Tristia and (2)
Messe solennelle of 1824.
I agree it would be very interesting to hear them do more Berlioz.
-- Bill McC.
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:BBD70EB1.119BC%don...@olg.com:
> in article borvq7$1hu9o7$1...@ID-209093.news.uni-berlin.de, Ian Pace at
> i...@ianpace.com wrote on 11/11/03 7:44 PM:
>
>>
>> "Winthrop" <r...@lavk.com> wrote in message
>> news:qSasb.23716$9M3....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John
>>> Eliot Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have not
>>> given it a shot.
>>>
>> I haven't heard of one, maybe it's in the pipeline? Getting that
>> quantity of HIP performers together under one roof would be quite an
>> achievement!
>>
>> Does anyone know of a HIP recording of the Symphonie Funebre et
>> Triomphale? (a work I'm sure would sound very different when played on
>> the instruments of its time)?
>
> Alas, no. Having played this piece a few times, I would love to hear
> his original intentions played on the instruments for which he wrote.
> Perhaps Gardiner might be persuaded to do a complete Berlioz cycle.
I imagine Sir John Eliot would not need much persuading. It's the dolts
who ... but anybody here can just write this stuff automatically by now.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's fault!
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:6Gisb.24389$9M3.7101
@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
Well, there is his unique recording of the "Roméo et Juliette" Symphony,
unique because it offers variant texts, including some music not heard
elsewhere (one item orchestrated by Oliver Knussen!).
Bill McCutcheon
"Matthew B. Tepper" <oyþ@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9430D2969A0...@207.217.77.205...
> "Bill McCutcheon" <wjm...@earthlink.net> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:6Gisb.24389$9M3.7101
> @newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> >
> > least two other Berlioz discs: (1) Harold in Italy and Tristia and
(2)
> > Messe solennelle of 1824.
> >
> > I agree it would be very interesting to hear them do more Berlioz.
>
> Well, there is his unique recording of the "Roméo et Juliette"
Symphony,
> unique because it offers variant texts, including some music not
heard
> elsewhere (one item orchestrated by Oliver Knussen!).
>
> --
> Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
I've never seen that one. Thanks! I'll have to keep a lookout for
it.
-- Bill McC.
Richard Schultz
: You haven't heard Sir John Eliot's recording of the Symphonie fantastique,
: have you?
I saw a broadcast of a live performance, and that was more than enough,
thank you very much. I would say that it was awful, but that would insult
the many merely awful performances out there. "Totally misguided and
completely unmusical" would probably be closer to the truth.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You go on playing Bach your way, and I'll go on playing him *his* way."
-- Wanda Landowska
Richard Schultz
: Alas, no. Having played this piece a few times, I would love to hear his
: original intentions played on the instruments for which he wrote.
Would you want him to use the forces that Berlioz originally called for, or
the optional "twice as many" mentioned in the footnote on the first page of
the score? And to be truly HIP, wouldn't it have to be performed outdoors?
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:bosh0l$n6v$3...@news.iucc.ac.il:
> In article <Xns94307FE24F3...@207.217.77.201>,
> "Matthew?B.?Tepper" <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>: You haven't heard Sir John Eliot's recording of the Symphonie
>: fantastique, have you?
>
> I saw a broadcast of a live performance, and that was more than enough,
> thank you very much. I would say that it was awful, but that would
> insult the many merely awful performances out there. "Totally misguided
> and completely unmusical" would probably be closer to the truth.
Well, but then you and RX-01 are different people.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's fault!
Matthew燘. Tepper
> In article <BBD70EB1.119BC%don...@olg.com>, Donald C. Patterson
> <don...@olg.com> wrote:
>
>: Alas, no. Having played this piece a few times, I would love to hear
>: his original intentions played on the instruments for which he wrote.
>
> Would you want him to use the forces that Berlioz originally called for,
> or the optional "twice as many" mentioned in the footnote on the first
> page of the score? And to be truly HIP, wouldn't it have to be
> performed outdoors?
Well, it was *supposed* to have been performed a few months ago in the
streets of Paris, but that celebration got cancelled.
Brendan R. Wehrung
I guess whsat we need is the equivalent of the yearly Mahler Festival
where all the orignal instrument players in the world (it would take about
that many, wouldn't it?) gather for one weekend to do a single ecstatic
performnce of the Berlioz Requiem that is recorded and released on Naxos.
Then we'd all be happy.
Brendan
--
David7Gable
> Berlioz was very particular about
>the specific instruments he wrote for
But not at all in the very specific sense you have in mind. Berlioz was
acutely aware of the sound of the different instruments and choirs and of the
potential for musical exploitation inherent in their combination, but it's not
as if he thought the specific sound of one oboe player would be wrong for an
oboe part while the very different sound of another oboe player would be right
for it. And, while Berlioz was interested in a Beethoven who was "authentic"
in some respects--he didn't want anybody to simplify Beethoven's harmonies--he
thought of the use of larger numbers of "improved" modern instruments, not as
"inauthentic," but as quite obviously (and merely) a technical improvement, as
a better because less inadequate realization of the composer's artistic
intentions. In this, his attitude approximated Beethoven's own toward the
louder pianos developed in Beethoven's lifetime.
There's an interesting aside about a passage in Spontini's Agnes von
Hohenstaufen in the long essay on Spontini that Berlioz wrote when Spontini
died. (It's reprinted in Evenings in the Orchestra.) In one scene from Agnes,
Spontini very effectively scores music for winds in imitation of the sound of a
church organ. "Of course, this is rendered superfluous now that most modern
theatres have organs," Berlioz comments. Not sure what Berlioz would have
thought of Berg imitating the sound of the organ in the final section of the
Violin Concerto, but he thought that switching to an improved modern instrument
was the most obvious thing in the world to do.
-david gable
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:boske9$ap7$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca:
> I guess whsat we need is the equivalent of the yearly Mahler Festival
> where all the orignal instrument players in the world (it would take
> about that many, wouldn't it?) gather for one weekend to do a single
> ecstatic performnce of the Berlioz Requiem that is recorded and released
> on Naxos.
>
> Then we'd all be happy.
Naxos already has a Berlioz Requiem in its catalogue.
Ian Pace
"Bill McCutcheon" <wjm...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:6Gisb.24389$9M3....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
recorded non-period instrument versions of La Damnation de Faust, L'Enfance
du Christ, and Nuits d'ete and other songs, which while using modern
instruments do show the influences of his work and research in thsi respect.
Best,
Ian
Ian Pace
"David Hurwitz" <David_...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:78605107.0...@drn.newsguy.com...
Have been through all these arguments numerous times, instead of rehashing
the same debates, just want to repost some thoughts on the Gardiner
Symphonie Fantastique recording that I posted about a month ago in another
thread:
Gardiner and the ORR's Symphonie Fantastique (heard this ages ago, but only
just got my own copy recently). Totally amazing and inspired, the rawness
of the acoustic and the playing (no hiding behind a veneer of lushness
here), together with the inexorable pacing, makes the emotional power, the
intimacy, the derangedness of the writing (especially in the last movement),
almost overwhelming. Listening to this is a very emotional experience for
me (it's one of my all-time favourite pieces of music). Berlioz's joy,
passion, fear, introspection are made extra-palpable when the superficial
grandiosity and exaggerated rhetoric are removed. The orchestration is way
way ahead of its time, and so utterly linked to the particular instruments
involved (as Berlioz himself insisted). I know of no other work from the
19th century where such a range of orchestral timbre and expression is to be
found, nor a work so tightly constructed (including the slow movement,
however over-extended some might think it to be). Nothing is superfluous,
also the piece has an omnidirectional quality much of the time (what
radicalism of structure!). The use of an ironic attitude (especially in the
March) has a sophistication that we would usually associate with much later
music. The finale is no sort of easy catharsis, it is apocalyptic and
points well beyond its own boundaries. This recording makes all these
qualities manifest to an extent I didn't think possible (having heard the
work many times in concert and on recording). This is no Berlioz to sit
comfortably back in one's chair and luxuriate to; on the contrary it is
gripping and terrifying.
Ian
taro takei
Not the Requiem. But didn't someone recorded L'Enfance du Christ
in HIP?
-- taro
Ian Pace
"taro takei" <pen...@mail.gr> wrote in message
news:1f24236e.03111...@posting.google.com...
Royale and Collegium Vocale, on a Harmonia Munid 2-CD set. It's extremely
good (he also recorded La Nuits d'Ete on this label).
The thing I'm really waiting to be recorded is a HIP version of Les Troyens!
Best,
Ian
David Hurwitz
>comfortably back in one's chair and luxuriate to; on the contrary it is
>gripping and terrifying.
>
>Ian
>
Amazing non-rehash, particularly for a performance as dull, pedantic,
mechanical, and inexpressive as this: one in which one hears remarkably LESS
orchestral detail than in, say, Klemperer's for EMI or Markevitch on DG (which
is probably far more "authentic" as regards timbre, having the Lamoureux
Orchestra in playing that represents a now vanished tradition of French
orchestral sonority). A waste of time, a scholarly joke, a nullity.
Dave Hurwitz
David Hurwitz
>
>
>> Berlioz was very particular about
>>the specific instruments he wrote for
>
>But not at all in the very specific sense you have in mind.
Indeed, it's very interesting to read Berlioz own account of a performance of
the Fantastique in Leipzig under Mendelssohn, in which he had to adjust the
orchestration to take into account the lack of harps, English horn, bells, etc.
We also know, for example, that he specified that the bass tuba should take over
the original ophiceide part as soon as he heard the former instrument's clear
superiority. To this extent, the score certainly represents an "ideal" that for
all we know Berlioz himself never achieved in performance and perhaps could ONLY
be achieved to his satisfaction with modern instruments in their modern
configuration. Certainly there is absolutely nothing that "authentic
instruments" do that cannot be achieved with a modern orchestra.
David Hurwitz
Donald C. Patterson
David_...@newsguy.com wrote on 11/11/03 9:45 PM:
>>>
>> They are extremely different - listen to either Gardiner or Norrington's
>> recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique and compare with any recording on
>> modern instruments to hear this clearly. Berlioz was very particular about
>> the specific instruments he wrote for, it's certainly something worth taking
>> seriously.
>>
>> Ian
>>
>
> While I agree that the instruments were often quite different, I do not agree
> that Gardiner or Norrington are illustrative of HOW they may have been
> different, both being relatively cold, lifeless performances of no special
> merit or technical distinction.
I'll agree on the Norrington, but I like Gardiner's recording quite a bit
more than you do. At least he gives more than Norrington. However, he is
done in by the extremely dry acoustic of the hall...the very one in which
the piece was premiered...still not a good place to record. None the less,
it still gives us a pretty good idea of what Berlioz heard and in a much
better performance that Borington's.
That said, Gardiner doesn't come close to displacing the best of modern
performances. Most often, I still turn to Davis/ACO, Dutoit/OSM, Ozawa
(both Toronto and Boston), Paray/DSO, Zinman/BaltSO (just for the
trombones!!!),
> And of course we can only surmise how supposedly
> "authentic" instruments actually sounded.
Very true, but this is about as close as we are going to get.
> In fact, I don't find either of those
> performances terribly different from the sound of a regular orchestra with a
> too small string section and tinny brass, recorded in a relatively dry
> acoustic setting. As a barometer of Berlioz' original intentions, their value
> is nil.
This simplifies the matter a bit too much IMHO. I think your last statement
needs qualification. Their value may be nil to you, but obviously many
listeners find them to be compelling performances (for whatever reasons they
may have). I've read your articles and reviews for many years, David. You
know better than I that music is a subjective art.
--
Don Patterson
Trombonist
Arranger/Copyist
Donald C. Patterson
sch...@mail.biu.ack.il wrote on 11/12/03 12:40 AM:
> In article <BBD70EB1.119BC%don...@olg.com>, Donald C. Patterson
> <don...@olg.com> wrote:
>
> : Alas, no. Having played this piece a few times, I would love to hear his
> : original intentions played on the instruments for which he wrote.
>
> Would you want him to use the forces that Berlioz originally called for, or
> the optional "twice as many" mentioned in the footnote on the first page of
> the score? And to be truly HIP, wouldn't it have to be performed outdoors?
Actually, it would be a real hoot! The piece is schlock to begin with. I
think it would be quite a show to hear it with everything thrown in
(including the kitchen sink).
deac...@yahoo.com
<don...@olg.com> wrote:
>That said, Gardiner doesn't come close to displacing the best of modern
>performances. Most often, I still turn to Davis/ACO, Dutoit/OSM, Ozawa
>(both Toronto and Boston), Paray/DSO, Zinman/BaltSO (just for the
>trombones!!!),
And where, pray tell, is MUNCH?
All these half-hearted also-rans? Really.
As for Gardiner? Well, perhaps he should have licked Munch's boots.
TD
David7Gable
>Gardiner might be persuaded to do a complete Berlioz cycle.
>
>
The one advantage that Gardiner has over Munch and Bernstein is that he's not
dead. But otherwise I'd far rather have had Munch and Bernstein record all the
major Berlioz works they never got around to. In Munch's case that means the
three operas. And Cleopatra.
-david gable
David7Gable
Horrible beyond all imagining, actually. (At least there's a marvelous
painting of a scene from the 1830 revolution by one J.L. Bézard on the cover of
Dutoit's recording.)
-david gable
Rick Cavalla
> Not the Requiem. But didn't someone recorded L'Enfance du Christ
> in HIP?
Herreweghe. The big first act aria of Herod is alone worth the price of the
disc - one of my favorite pieces of Berlioz. That being said, I don't
consider L'Enfance as a whole to be on the level of S.fantastique, Harold,
Romeo, Troyens, etc. But it sure has its moments, and Herreweghe makes a
very good case for all of it.
--
Rick Cavalla
ra...@NO.erols.SPAM.com
==========================
Simon Roberts
>
>
>"RX-01" <6...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:bordrk$1f79p1$1...@ID-187302.news.uni-berlin.de...
>> Winthrop wrote:
>> > Folks,
>> >
>> > Is there a Berlioz Requiem HIP recording out there? I wonder why John
>Eliot
>> > Gardiner and some of the other well known HIP conductors have not given
>it a
>> > shot.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> I cannot see how a HIP recording of the Berlioz requiem would be
>> different from a modern one. Surely the intruments/tempi used at
>> Berlioz's time are not that different from today's.
>>
>> RX-01
>>
>recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique and compare with any recording on
>modern instruments to hear this clearly.
True. But if one of those modern instruments recordings you compare either to
(especially Gardiner's) happens to be conducted by, say, Bernstein, Scherchen,
Munch or Paita, a rather more fundamental question arises....
Simon
Simon Roberts
McCutcheon says...
>
>In addition to Sym. Fantastique, Gardiner and ORR have recorded at
>least two other Berlioz discs: (1) Harold in Italy and Tristia and (2)
>Messe solennelle of 1824.
>
>I agree it would be very interesting to hear them do more Berlioz.
My memory may be way off, but I vaguely recall reading recently a feature on
Gardiner in Gramophone in which he mentioned plans to perform (and record?) the
Requiem.
Simon
Simon Roberts
>
>
>The thing I'm really waiting to be recorded is a HIP version of Les Troyens!
I've no idea whether microphones were present, but Gardiner recently conducted
Les Troyens at the Chatelet in Paris with the ORR, Susan Graham et al.
Simon
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:bou4o...@drn.newsguy.com:
Philips was originally scheduled to record this, but they cancelled, news
which angered me greatly. At about the same time, I cackled with glee at
reports that Sir Colin Davis' then-upcoming performance of the same work
with the LSO was to be issued by the orchestra itself. As I recall, I
expressed the hopes that it would be a commercial success. It was (in the
relativistic terms we must accept in this small corner of the industry),
and won whole bunches of awards, too!
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's Fault!
Joshua Kaufman
>
> >The piece is schlock to begin with. [Symphonie funebre et triomphale]
>
> Horrible beyond all imagining, actually.
Eh? I love that piece. Now if you're talking about Lelio...
-Joshua
--
AOL-IM: TerraEpon
taro takei
> Does anyone know of a HIP recording of the Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale?
> (a work I'm sure would sound very different when played on the instruments
> of its time)?
Speaking of the symphony, Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale,
actually, I have not heard it to date! The number of
recordings is less, I guess, and I rarely see CD of it at
shops. Once I saw a used copy but passed it, and now regret
that!
Now I would like to know whose recording is available.
Could someone enlighten me, please? I understand there are
two versions: one with chorus in the final movement and one
without. Before wrapping up the Berlioz year, I should listen
to the symphony!
-- taro
Brendan R. Wehrung
> ck...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Brendan R. Wehrung) appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:boske9$ap7$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca:
>
>> I guess whsat we need is the equivalent of the yearly Mahler Festival
>> where all the orignal instrument players in the world (it would take
>> about that many, wouldn't it?) gather for one weekend to do a single
>> ecstatic performnce of the Berlioz Requiem that is recorded and released
>> on Naxos.
>>
>> Then we'd all be happy.
>
> Naxos already has a Berlioz Requiem in its catalogue.
>
And how many Messiah(s)?
Brendan
--
Donald C. Patterson
pen...@mail.gr wrote on 11/12/03 9:48 PM:
Berlioz wrote the piece for winds and percussion. He later added strings
(minimal) and chorus. The latter edition is used by Colin Davis, Charles
Dutoit in their recordings. The former is used Bourgeois with the US Marine
Band and John Wallace with the Wallace Collection (on Nimbus). Oddly
enough, both "band" recordings use chorus, but no strings.
If I had to settle for just one, it would be Davis or Dutoit for the sound
quality. Bourgeois/USMB is on the Mark label and is available from their
website. It's a fine performance and very much worth the price of
admission.
Wallace is easily dismissed in the present company.
--
Don Patterson
DCP Music Press
Professional Music Copy
and Arrangements
don...@olg.com
Joshua Kaufman
>
> in article 1f24236e.03111...@posting.google.com, taro takei at
> pen...@mail.gr wrote on 11/12/03 9:48 PM:
>
> > " Ian Pace" <i...@ianpace.com> wrote in message
> > news:<borvq7$1hu9o7$1...@ID-209093.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> >> Does anyone know of a HIP recording of the Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale?
> >> (a work I'm sure would sound very different when played on the instruments
> >> of its time)?
> >
> > Speaking of the symphony, Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale,
> > actually, I have not heard it to date! The number of
> > recordings is less, I guess, and I rarely see CD of it at
> > shops. Once I saw a used copy but passed it, and now regret
> > that!
> >
> > Now I would like to know whose recording is available.
> > Could someone enlighten me, please? I understand there are
> > two versions: one with chorus in the final movement and one
> > without. Before wrapping up the Berlioz year, I should listen
> > to the symphony!
> >
> > -- taro
>
> Berlioz wrote the piece for winds and percussion. He later added strings
> (minimal) and chorus. The latter edition is used by Colin Davis, Charles
> Dutoit in their recordings. The former is used Bourgeois with the US Marine
> Band and John Wallace with the Wallace Collection (on Nimbus). Oddly
> enough, both "band" recordings use chorus, but no strings.
>
There's also a recording, on Hungereton (?) that's the band version with
no chorus. Very nice, but a bit restrained. I've only heard that one and
the Davis....
> If I had to settle for just one, it would be Davis or Dutoit for the sound
> quality.
The Phillips Two-Fer with it, Harold, Sym Fan, and a couple overtures is
a wonderful set.
-Joshua
--
AOL-IM: TerraEpon
Richard Schultz
: In article <bot22r$1hodta$1...@ID-209093.news.uni-berlin.de>, Ian Pace says...
The French "Mezzo" cable channel broadcast the first part yesterday and
will be broadcasting the second part today. I suspect that they'll be
repeating the broadcast in the near future. I'm also guessing (not having
watched the broadcast) that microphones were present in addition to
the cameras. I do not know if the video or audio recordings are or will
be available commercially. I suppose that anyone who really cared could
try contacting them and asking. Their website is http://www.mezzo.tv,
and they claim that they can be reached at con...@mezzo.fr. From the
quality of the English on their "English" web pages, I'd guess that anyone
who wants to contact them would be much better off writing to them in French.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You go on playing Bach your way, and I'll go on playing him *his* way."
-- Wanda Landowska
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:Xns943184C37F407quackandflap@
207.217.77.204:
> Simon Roberts <sd...@comcast.net> appears to have caused the following
> letters to be typed in news:bou4o...@drn.newsguy.com:
>
>> In article <bot22r$1hodta$1...@ID-209093.news.uni-berlin.de>, Ian Pace
>> says...
>>>
>>>
>>>The thing I'm really waiting to be recorded is a HIP version of Les
>>>Troyens!
>>
>> I've no idea whether microphones were present, but Gardiner recently
>> conducted Les Troyens at the Chatelet in Paris with the ORR, Susan
>> Graham et al.
>
> Philips was originally scheduled to record this, but they cancelled,
> news which angered me greatly. At about the same time, I cackled with
> glee at reports that Sir Colin Davis' then-upcoming performance of the
> same work with the LSO was to be issued by the orchestra itself. As I
> recall, I expressed the hopes that it would be a commercial success. It
> was (in the relativistic terms we must accept in this small corner of
> the industry), and won whole bunches of awards, too!
My memory did me a shade too much credit. I've found that original post,
from 15 October 2000, in which I said:
"But I'm looking forward to the CDs to be issued form [sic] Sir Colin's
live concert _Troyens_ to be given this December, with a cast including
Olga Borodina, Ben Heppner, Peter Mattei, Michelle de Young, Sara Mingardo,
Isabelle Cals, Kenneth Tarver, and Bülent Bezdüz (taken from the Berlioz
Society page). (Sir Colin seems to be using Tarver everywhere; wonder if
he'll be Hylas?)
"I've heard rumors of a new recording conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner,
but I lack hard evidence. I hope the new Davis (issued by the LSO itself)
topples the commercial alternatives, and Universal-Vivendi executives have
to eat cat-food and live in cardboard boxes."
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
&selm=PqnG5.1609%24Kq.157876%40newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net
And while I'm at it, I was wrong about Tarver: he sang Iopas, while Hylas
was sung by Toby Spence. Can't be right all of the time, I guess.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's fault!
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:3FB2AE2C...@cinci.rr.com:
> David7Gable wrote:
>>
>> >The piece is schlock to begin with. [Symphonie funebre et triomphale]
>>
>> Horrible beyond all imagining, actually.
>
> Eh? I love that piece. Now if you're talking about Lelio...
"Lélio" has a few gems, and much rubbish.
Matthew燘. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:BBD86A93.11B5B%don...@olg.com:
I haven't heard Wallace (my general dislike of Nimbus' recording methods) nor
Dutoit. I agree with you about Col. Bourgeois' recording on Mark Masters
3053-MCD and it would be my top recommendation. There is a pretty good one
by François Boulanger and Orchestre d'Harmonie de la Garde Républicaine, on
Auvidis Valois V 4836, but judging from the timings it's either kind of
rushed or slightly cut, and I haven't the patience just now to listen again.
Brendan R. Wehrung
Although decidely not the Gardiens de la Paix recording, at least the
Erato that seems to have departed from the MDT site. The newer Calliope
is supposed to be less good and I have no idea what relationship the
former has with an old Westminster I have, which was mono.
Brendan
--
David M. Cook
wrote:
> Now I would like to know whose recording is available.
There's a very good recording conducted by Dondeyne on an Ultima (Erato)
twofer, together with some overtures and cantatas. This may only be
available in Europe. I got my copy from http://www.mdt.co.uk , and
http://www.crotchet.co.uk has it, too.
CATALOGUE NR: 3984242292
RECORD LABEL: Ultima
FORMAT: 2CD Set
PRICE: £ 8.99 including VAT, or £ 7.65 excluding VAT
RELEASE DATE: 31-Aug-1998
COMPOSER: Hector Berlioz
TRACKS: Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale. Death of Cleopatre. 5 Overture:
Benvenuto Cellini. Roman carnival. La Corsaire. Les Francs Juges. Les
Troyens a Carthage.
Lombard is the conductor in the overtures.
Davis did a good job with this, too. It was on a Philips twofer with his
first Fantastique, the Harold in Italy with Imai, and a couple of overtures;
a good buy. Dondeyne takes about 2 minutes longer to let the 1st movement
march build, but is then quicker in the remaining 2 movements.
Dave Cook
David M. Cook
For the confused, it's the Dondeyne recordings that Brendan is talking
about. It's still at MDT (unless the database is wrong), now on an Ultima
2fer. Search on Dondeyne. Crotchet only lists Lombard as the conductor on
the set. Somewhere I have a Nonesuch LP which I believe has the *other*
version that Dondeyne recorded and that was on issued on CD on Calliope.
Dave Cook
Donald C. Patterson
terrr...@cinci.rr.com wrote on 11/12/03 11:34 PM:
I forgot to mention the wonderful French police band recording under the
baton (night stick?) of Dondeyne on Nonesuch. Big, BIG band (two, count'em
TWO E flat clarinets...isn't there some law against that?). Lots of
intonation problems, but these players come closest IMHO to getting to the
heart of this monstrosity. I recently transferred my cassette to CD.
Sounds pretty good...no surface noise.
:-)
--
Don Patterson
Trombonist
Arranger/Copyist
Steve Haller
with the Gardiens de la Paix (the band of the Paris Police) led by
Desire Dondeyne -- a glorious reedy sound with big thudding drums. The
buildup into the final section is one of the great crescendos in all
of music, and of course you simply *must* have the chorus with their
fervent cries of "Gloire!" at the close. I would be deeply saddened to
learn that this wonderful recording had been deleted from the
catalogue -- never mind that the accompanying overtures under Lombard
and the rather throaty "Mort de Cleopatre" are nowhere on the same
level -- not after I waited so long for it to be reissued in the first
place!
Matthew燘. Tepper
> I forgot to mention the wonderful French police band recording under the
> baton (night stick?) of Dondeyne on Nonesuch. Big, BIG band (two,
> count'em TWO E flat clarinets...isn't there some law against that?).
> Lots of intonation problems, but these players come closest IMHO to
> getting to the heart of this monstrosity. I recently transferred my
> cassette to CD. Sounds pretty good...no surface noise.
>
>:-)
Yikes! The only possible pair of instruments harder to keep in tune than
two e-flat clarinets is an e-flat clarinet and a piccolo!
Alan Cooper
>Actually the Erato *is* the Westminster, which was issued in stereo,
>with the Gardiens de la Paix (the band of the Paris Police) led by
>Desire Dondeyne -- a glorious reedy sound with big thudding drums. The
>buildup into the final section is one of the great crescendos in all
>of music, and of course you simply *must* have the chorus with their
>fervent cries of "Gloire!" at the close. I would be deeply saddened to
>learn that this wonderful recording had been deleted from the
>catalogue -- never mind that the accompanying overtures under Lombard
>and the rather throaty "Mort de Cleopatre" are nowhere on the same
>level -- not after I waited so long for it to be reissued in the first
>place!
Speaking of the Gardiens de la Paix, do you know if their sensational
recording of Schmitt's Dionysiaques (Calliope / MHS LP) has ever been
issued on CD? The LP also includes a couple of excellent works for
band by Koechlin, and Faure's Marche funeraire. Only the Faure has
reappeared, afaik, coupled with the Berlioz on Calliope.
AC
Simon Smith
"Matthew燘. Tepper" <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote:
> Yikes! The only possible pair of instruments harder to keep in tune than
> two e-flat clarinets is an e-flat clarinet and a piccolo!
Presumably you appreciate Penderecki's use of two e-flat clarinets and two
piccolos in "Die schwarze Maske" :)
--
Simon Smith "I am myself only in music. Music is enough
http://www.ingemisco.com for a whole lifetime - but a lifetime is not
enough for music." (Sergei Rachmaninov)
Joshua Kaufman
>
> "Donald C. Patterson" <don...@olg.com> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:BBD9080E.11BD7%don...@olg.com:
>
> > I forgot to mention the wonderful French police band recording under the
> > baton (night stick?) of Dondeyne on Nonesuch. Big, BIG band (two,
> > count'em TWO E flat clarinets...isn't there some law against that?).
> > Lots of intonation problems, but these players come closest IMHO to
> > getting to the heart of this monstrosity. I recently transferred my
> > cassette to CD. Sounds pretty good...no surface noise.
> >
> >:-)
>
> Yikes! The only possible pair of instruments harder to keep in tune than
> two e-flat clarinets is an e-flat clarinet and a piccolo!
>
Actually, an Alto Clarinet is WORSE than an Eb...
-Joshua
--
AOL-IM: TerraEpon
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:0d37cc50...@sds46.clare.cam.ac.uk:
> In message <Xns94324D06B26...@207.217.77.203>
> "Matthew燘. Tepper" <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Yikes! The only possible pair of instruments harder to keep in tune
>> than two e-flat clarinets is an e-flat clarinet and a piccolo!
>
> Presumably you appreciate Penderecki's use of two e-flat clarinets and
> two piccolos in "Die schwarze Maske" :)
I might, if ever I had a chance to hear that work; I've got the Philips CD
issue of _Die Teufel von Loudun_ (though I had to pay a ton of dough to
"wackyducky" on eBay for it), and may yet have an off-air tape I made of
the Chicago Lyric's production of _Paradise Lost_, but no other operas by
this composer. I used to be absolutely nuts about his music, and then for
many years was utterly indifferent to it, which probably explains why I
didn't buy the _Teufel_ reissue when it was cheap. But gradually I'm
finding much of interest in his oeuvre once more. Must be nostalgia.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's Fault!
Alan Watkins
interesting stuff from Ian Pace and David Hurwitz! I have played
Fantastique many times over the years with the usual results: some
poor performance, some "okay, some great, some "fantastique" and I
find it hard to believe that a modern orchestra cannot capture (at
their best) this score. Musicians understand it very well and
certainly enough to understand that the finale is "apocalpytic" and if
some modern performances disappoint it may well be that the conductor
does not understand that as much as the musicians do.
Instruments have changed (some more than others, I would think) and I
suspect the standard of playing has changed also, for the better.
Half of me would like to have been present when the timpanist who gave
the first rehearsal of Fantastique first espied the score and half of
me wouldn't!
I was very interested in Mr Pace's comment that he found the "rawness"
an attraction for, in the case of my instrument (the timpani), this
was the very thing Mr Berlioz did not want. Not having heard the
recording I cannot say whether that element is present in the timpani
on the recording.
At the time Berlioz toured Europe giving performances it was common
(certainly in Germany and England) for the timpani to be played with
sticks with wooden heads (as had been inherited from the military who
needed those to be heard over the sound of battle).
When it came to the "concert hall", Berlioz among others wanted
something different. Indeed, in the case of the timpani, the poor chap
became so obsessed with it that he took to carrying his own sticks
around Europe which he then handed out to the timpanist. These were
the so-called "sponge" sticks (developed in France, a country in many
ways the cradle of modern percussion playing, and the development of
which lead us directly to modern timpani mallets).
Around 1844 Berlioz guest conducted in Weimar and his own comments are
recorded both in La Vie de Berlioz racontee par Berlioz and in H.
Berlioz Memoires:
Berlioz: "Timpani, why are you making such a frightful din back
there?"
Timpanist: "I have a fortissimoo, sir."
Berlioz: "You haven't, it's mezzo forte-mf, not double f. Furthermore,
you're playing with wooden sticks when you should be using sponge
headed mallets. It's the difference between night and day."
Orchestral manager (blimey, you'd be lucky to find one around today!):
"We are not familiar with them. What do you mean by sponge-headed
sticks? We know only the one kind and one kind alone."
Berlioz: "I thought as much so I brought some along with me from
Paris. Take the pair on the table there."
Apart from the obvious disadvantage of having a timpanist who cannot
discern the difference between mf and ff (one of the reasons I suspect
we "may" play better today), he is (in this case) decidedly getting
away from "rawness", I would have thought.
The "sponge ends", by the way, were perfected by Jean Schneitzhoeffer
(1785-1852), timpanist of the Paris Opera and a player highly rated by
Berlioz.
Schneitzhoeffer wrote the first ever score of La Sylphides (which I
played in the 1980's, the first performance for a century) and which
contains a delightful, subtle part for the timpani.
I have no authority for it, and it is just an opinion, but I think
Berlioz would have been thrilled by modern playing and given the
episode with timpani sticks I doubt he would have wanted to go
backwards. Surely he was a "modernist" in every respect?
I don't understand Ian's comment that the recording he heard removed
"the grandiosity and exaggerated rhetoric". I thought that was the
essence of this work (particularly in the finale) and what marks it
out from other music of the time.
Surely being so "over the top" is what this work is about? Berlioz,
by the way, was SO obsessed with instruments that in the March he
wishes the timpanist to play one handed in the opening (so that there
is no difference of "tone", I assume).
Ian is correct in stating that the orchestration is "way, way ahead of
it's time" but so was Jean-Phillipe Rameau (a direct influence on
Berlioz) whose opera Zais has a solo for the bass drum several
centuries before Mr and Mrs Berlioz had a romantic evening and
produced young Hector.
But no wooden sticks, chaps, please. He didn't like them.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
David7Gable
I like the chanson du bonheur.
-david gable
David7Gable
>actually, I have not heard it to date!
> Before wrapping up the Berlioz year, I should listen
>to the symphony!
>
Not unless you've heard all the better Berlioz. I've owned two recordings,
Davis and Dutoit, but there have been several others. Not as many as for the
Fantastique, needless to say!
-david gable
David7Gable
>about. It's still at MDT (unless the database is wrong), now on an Ultima
>2fer.
Is it coupled with Gilbert Amy conducting Cleopatra? I've wanted to hear that
Cleopatra forever.
-david gable
David7Gable
>and the rather throaty "Mort de Cleopatre" are nowhere on the same
>leve
Is THAT the Cléopātre with Gilbert Amy? (I haven't heard that much with Alain
Lombard conducting, but I have a live Werther with Corelli from the Met that is
brilliantly conducted, and Lombard is the conductor.)
-david gable
David7Gable
Dave, I am able to pull up the same listing that you are:
3984242292 BERLIOZ Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale, Death of Cleopatra, 5
Overtures Lombard, Dondeyne Ultima 2cds
What I can't tell is whose Cleopatra this is. Is it conducted by Gilbert Amy?
Who's the mezzo?
-david gable
David7Gable
>disc - one of my favorite pieces of Berlioz.
Mine, too. Haven't heard Herreweghe, but Roger Soyer was a very good Herod for
Martinon. (Tozzi is a good Herod, too. For Munch.)
Rick, how well do you know your Boris Godunov? Berlioz's guilt-ridden
insomniac Herod was a model for Mussorgsky's guilt-ridden insomniac tsar.
(They're guilt ridden and insomniac for the same reason, too: both have
murdered children to attain or maintain power.) Notice also the relationship
of the overture to La fuite en Égypte from L'enfance du Christe to the opening
of Boris: Mussorgsky verges on plagiarism here, but Berlioz's "modal" music
already sounds Russian. And Night on Bald Mountain was quite obviously
inspired by Berlioz's Songe d'une nuit de Sabbat.
Mussorgsky had a very high opinion of Berlioz describing Beethoven and Berlioz
as follows: "Beethoven the thinker, Berlioz the super thinker."
-david gable
Ian Pace
written about this piece - interesting discussions include those in 'The
Historical Performance of Music' by Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell, and the
article 'Performing Berlioz' by D. Kern Holoman in 'The Cambridge Companion
to Berlioz', ed. Peter Bloom). A few points:
"Alan Watkins" <alanwa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:62c8649c.03111...@posting.google.com...
> I have not heard Mr Gardiner's recording but what wonderfully
> interesting stuff from Ian Pace and David Hurwitz! I have played
> Fantastique many times over the years with the usual results: some
> poor performance, some "okay, some great, some "fantastique" and I
> find it hard to believe that a modern orchestra cannot capture (at
> their best) this score. Musicians understand it very well and
> certainly enough to understand that the finale is "apocalpytic" and if
> some modern performances disappoint it may well be that the conductor
> does not understand that as much as the musicians do.
Sure, and I'm certainly not knocking all modern orchestral performances.
However, a lot of factors in the Gardiner recording, to do with orchestral
layout and consequent balance of sonorities (obviously more clear live than
on recording, of course), the instruments used (and yes Berlioz was
forward-looking in his interest in the most recent instruments - however, it
by no means necessarily follows from this that his ideal would be the
post-Wagnerian orchestral sound that has become the norm), precise ratios
between numbers of instruments, gut or wire-covered gut strings rather than
steel ones, and all sorts of other aspects of performance practice (,
together with the dry acoustic, all combine to emphasize the macabre
qualities of the music to a greater degree than I have heard otherwise.
Never before to me have the high winds cackled with such menace, nor the col
legno on gut strings sounded so unearthly. When the Dies Irae and witches'
round dance are combined, they sound in real 'competition' rather than one
being an accompaniment for the other, bass line extrapolated into other
registers, for the other. The orchestral sounds aren't always beautiful, or
blended, in a way that to a greater or lesser extent modern conductors have
aimed for in much music (French orchestras held onto the non-blended sound
for wind instruments for longer than most others). Maybe a modern orchestra
could achieve this, I just haven't heard one do so.
All stuff Gardiner takes full account of, and uses sponge sticks, and calf
heads as well.
>
> I don't understand Ian's comment that the recording he heard removed
> "the grandiosity and exaggerated rhetoric". I thought that was the
> essence of this work (particularly in the finale) and what marks it
> out from other music of the time.
>
> Surely being so "over the top" is what this work is about? Berlioz,
> by the way, was SO obsessed with instruments that in the March he
> wishes the timpanist to play one handed in the opening (so that there
> is no difference of "tone", I assume).
The grandiosity I am talking about is that more rich and rounded sound,
particularly in the strings (not by means just a question of numbers) and
brass, which to my mind adds an artificial warmth. Here the sound is drier,
more brittle, and in the March to the Scaffold the 'triumphalism' of the
brass has a less cathartic quality than is usual. The music is absolutely
'over the top', but not in a way that on this recording sounds remotely
kitschy at all. If anything, Gardiner's approach adds to the sense of
extremity, rather than detracting from it. A lot of people have problems
with the acoustic (recorded in the old hall of the Conservatoire, much
smaller than most modern halls - Berlioz himself chose this hall for the
first performance), it is a lot drier than most. There are obviously more
than a few fundamental performance issues about which Berlioz seems to have
favoured multiple different options; here the precise choice of which is
merely subjective, of course. I would simply say in this case that I find
the particular approach that Gardiner adopts electrifying. Questions of
'authenticity' are a red herring for me, only the detractors use this term
nowadays.
>
> Ian is correct in stating that the orchestration is "way, way ahead of
> it's time" but so was Jean-Phillipe Rameau (a direct influence on
> Berlioz) whose opera Zais has a solo for the bass drum several
> centuries before Mr and Mrs Berlioz had a romantic evening and
> produced young Hector.
For sure! And HIP players such as Christie and Les Arts Florissants or
Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre demonstrate this so powerfully.
The basic contentious issue at the heart of many debates about period
instruments is about whether to use the instruments known by the composer or
the 'improved' modern ones. The problems to my mind with the latter
proposal is the implicit assumption that instruments have developed in a
singular direction, simply becoming 'better' with time. Instruments have
moved in lots of different directions (look at the difference between French
and German woodwinds), some might seem in most senses an unequivocal
improvement, others less so. But there has been more than a little
standardization during the 20th century in terms of instruments, orchestral
style, etc. I just don't accept this is the result of a simple process of
natural evolution; many other factors, not least economic ones, are
involved. Unless one believes unreservedly in the free market's absolute
ability to produce the best of everything (I certainly don't believe this),
it's not difficult to see how the decline in manufacture of certain schools
of instruments might be a loss to the music world brought about by the
aggressive nature of monopoly capitalism, large firms driving smaller ones
out of business. Surely few people would say that the styles of nowadays
are simply and consistently an 'improvement' upon those we know something of
from recordings from the early 20th century?
Modern instruments are in many cases simply different, rather than simply
better or worse. Maybe in another 100 years instruments will be different
again, reflecting the musical ideals of that time. HIP performers, whose
approaches often vary immensely, are exploring approaches that differ from
the all-purpose aesthetic ideals that have become so universal in the latter
half of the 20th century. Karajan would use the same basic type of string
sound for Beethoven, Brahms and Strauss; nowadays both modern instrument and
HIP orchestras recognize there can be value in rethinking these norms for
different composers. I cannot see why many people find this to be such a
terrible thing.
The Gardiner approach to the Symphonie Fantastique is certainly quite
different to most that have preceded it, I love it not just for novelty's
sake, but for the particular aspects of the music that it illuminates so
brightly.
Best,
Ian
David7Gable
>
See also Berlioz's interesting discussion of the transition from the scherzo to
the finale of Beethoven's 5th: Berlioz had played timpani in a performance of
the piece and does a marvelous analysis of the harmonic changes in this
passage.
-david gable
David7Gable
I love this guy's assonant and alliterative name.
-david gable
David7Gable
>instruments is about whether to use the instruments known by the composer or
>the 'improved' modern ones. The problems to my mind with the latter
>proposal is the implicit assumption that instruments have developed in a
>singular direction, simply becoming 'better' with time.
This is a perfect summary of Berlioz's attitude.
>HIP performers, whose
>approaches often vary immensely, are exploring approaches that differ from
>the all-purpose aesthetic ideals that have become so universal in the latter
>half of the 20th century.
What I hate about that tiny percentage of HIP performances that come my
way--and I don't seek them out; I avoid them--is the comparative uniformity of
approach. HIP didn't not arise as a reaction AGAINST "the all-purpos aesthetic
ideals that have become so universal," they arose simultaneously and for
similar reasons. You are really writing a revisionist history here. Everybody
but especially the HIPsters became afraid of any "subjective" deviations from
the score for a host of reasons that I don't have time to go into. But one
reason is that, beginning with Mahler and Stravinsky, composers have tried to
nail down more with the score than any 18th century composer ever dreamed of.
Stravinsky, Ravel, and Toscanini all encouraged the idea that fidelity to the
score was fidelity to the work. But the score is only one conduit of the art
work. The other is performing traditions, and such traditions are a function
of acculturated habit. Acculturated habit is PRECISELY what the HIP movement
has called into question. ("Who says you should shape that phrase in this that
or the other way? It doesn't have the authority of the score.") Once that
question arises, the tradition is dead, one of the conduits gone forever.
Because transmitted performing traditions depend on unconscious acculturated
habits of phrasing, etc., not on the archaeologist's critical questioning of
it. And this kind of habit can't be reinvented from scratch. Once your
critical inquiry leads you to scrape down to tabula rasa, what will give you
the authority to shape? The score? No. Recordings from Berlioz's lifetime?
No. Habits of playing passed down from generation to generation? No, because
that's what's been called into question.
-david gable
David7Gable
Their recording of Carter's Brass Quintet is terrific. Very gutsy unlike the
smooth dead second recording by the American Brass Quintet released on CD a few
years later. (The first ABQ recording on an Odyssey LP is much better.)
-david gable
David7Gable
> RECORD LABEL: Ultima
> FORMAT: 2CD Set
> PRICE: £ 8.99 including VAT, or £ 7.65 excluding VAT
> RELEASE DATE: 31-Aug-1998
>
> COMPOSER: Hector Berlioz
> TRACKS: Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale. Death of Cleopatre. 5 Overture:
> Benvenuto Cellini. Roman carnival. La Corsaire. Les Francs Juges. Les
> Troyens a Carthage.
>I got my copy from http://www.mdt.co.uk , and
>http://www.crotchet.co.uk has it, too.
Neither of these sites is terribly forthcoming as to the performing forces
involved. Crotchet mentions Lombard as conductor as if he conducted everything
in the set. If, as I suspect, Amy is the conductor of the Mort de Cléopâtre,
he's not mentioned at either site. Will somebody with this set list the
performers in more detail?
-david gable
Ian Pace
"David7Gable" <david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031113200108...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> >The basic contentious issue at the heart of many debates about period
> >instruments is about whether to use the instruments known by the composer
or
> >the 'improved' modern ones. The problems to my mind with the latter
> >proposal is the implicit assumption that instruments have developed in a
> >singular direction, simply becoming 'better' with time.
>
> This is a perfect summary of Berlioz's attitude.
So then is the French bassoon or the German bassoon 'better'? Berlioz
admired particular developments that occurred in his lifetime, particularly
in his own country's school of instrument manufacture. As regards other
aspects of performance style, would you similarly also suggest that he
would have seen the common 20th century orchestral layout as being 'better'
than the unique placements of instruments within a hall that he went to
great care to specify? Or that when he specifically asked for an alto
trombone, he would have seen the relative if not complete decline of that
instrument as being 'progress'?
>
> >HIP performers, whose
> >approaches often vary immensely, are exploring approaches that differ
from
> >the all-purpose aesthetic ideals that have become so universal in the
latter
> >half of the 20th century.
>
> What I hate about that tiny percentage of HIP performances that come my
> way--and I don't seek them out; I avoid them--is the comparative
uniformity of
> approach. HIP didn't not arise as a reaction AGAINST "the all-purpos
aesthetic
> ideals that have become so universal," they arose simultaneously and for
> similar reasons. You are really writing a revisionist history here.
Not at all. The HIP movement obviously goes back to the 1940s and before,
but for quite a while it was particularly associated with medieval,
renaissance, and some baroque music. It was in later times when some people
in the movement focussed more attention on classical and later romantic
music, precisely at the time when those ideals were becoming so universal.
Everybody
> but especially the HIPsters became afraid of any "subjective" deviations
from
> the score for a host of reasons that I don't have time to go into.
Nonsense - how about such "subjective" deviations as improvised
ornamentation or cadenzas? Or the use of vibrato in a more selective and
"subjective" manner rather than just as a matter of course? Or more
recently the study of a wider range of styles of rubato for the performer to
draw upon. Actually quite a few of the most supposedly "subjective" older
performances in reality conform to quite consistent norms (see Robert
Philip - Early Recordings and Musical Style on this subject). Furtwangler's
Beethoven, as sampled over a series of different performances (here see
Nicholas Cook - 'The conductor and the theorist: Furtwangler, Schenker and
the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony', in John Rink (ed) - The
Practice of Performance) also is much more consistent and codifiable than
often realized. Also see Robert Winter - 'Performing Beethoven's Early
Piano Concertos', Early Music May 1988, and 'Orthodoxies, Paradoxes and
Contradictions' in R. Larry Todd - Nineteenth Century Piano Music for
demonstrations of these aspects of a range of piano recordings. A large
amount of comparative performance research has demonstrated that has been
supposed to be subjective and individual is really the product of a set of
stylistic principles, quite fixed and objective in nature. It's by
understanding these norms, and their boundaries, that facilitates the
possibility of a genuine subjectivity that can operate both inside and
outside of them.
But one
> reason is that, beginning with Mahler and Stravinsky, composers have tried
to
> nail down more with the score than any 18th century composer ever dreamed
of.
> Stravinsky, Ravel, and Toscanini all encouraged the idea that fidelity to
the
> score was fidelity to the work.
Ravel's own performances in particular show a fair degree of freedom and
stylization that couldn't be derived from the score alone. And while he and
Stravinsky did overall favour a more 'objective' approach, the scores of
Debussy, Schoenberg, Bartok, Prokofieff and lots of others can be equally
detailed, whilst the composers clearly favoured a great plurality of
approaches and subjective freedom (almost to an extreme in the music of the
Second Viennese School). Some post-war music has introduced an almost
unprecedented degree of choice and freedom on the part of the performer
(Brown, Cardew, Wolff, Bussotti, some Stockhausen, plenty others).
But the score is only one conduit of the art
> work. The other is performing traditions, and such traditions are a
function
> of acculturated habit. Acculturated habit is PRECISELY what the HIP
movement
> has called into question. ("Who says you should shape that phrase in this
that
> or the other way? It doesn't have the authority of the score.") Once
that
> question arises, the tradition is dead, one of the conduits gone forever.
Of course they've questioned acculturated habit, and that's the great
strength, just like many composers now and before have done so as well. And
the more developed the movement has become, the more they've been able to
create their own 'traditions' as well. There are a few pedantic literalists
for whom the score is everything, but there are many others with broader
approaches. Much of the bald notation of some baroque music is now executed
with a much greater range of articulative and other variety than was the
case in previous eras.
What is most definitely worth looking it is how one 'reads' a score. Lots
of notational practices in early music had no modern equivalent, research
was the only way to attempt to decipher the manuscripts. What a lot of
diligent research has demonstrated is that some notational practices had
different meanings at different times, and can't be read in a uniform
manner. This can extend to certain key words that precisely imply a high
degree of subjective freedom (e.g. Brahms's espressivos). An old colleague
of mine who has written extensively on Liszt and played widely on 19th
century instruments will venture that the sorts of textual freedoms that
Liszt himself took with both his own and others' music can be seen as a 19th
century parallel to 18th century ornamentation.
Returning to the score, it is often most interesting how a closer inspection
of fine details of notation can suggest a range of other possibilities often
ignored by stylistic homogeneity built over a period of time (see my
discussion of Schumann's Arabeske in a thread a while back). This applies
in the highly detailed and complex scores of Brian Ferneyhough as well - the
very detail of the notation is a way of stretching the performer's
imagination beyond the boundaries of what may seem subjective, but actually
has much to do with acquired habit.
If the 'traditions' you talk about can be blown away ('once that question
arises, the tradition is dead') just by simple questioning, they must be
built on pretty flimsy foundations to begin with.
I might also point out that another very much non-HIP conductor who took
scores very seriously and questioned the traditions that preceded him is one
we both admire greatly, Boulez.
> Because transmitted performing traditions depend on unconscious
acculturated
> habits of phrasing, etc., not on the archaeologist's critical questioning
of
> it. And this kind of habit can't be reinvented from scratch. Once your
> critical inquiry leads you to scrape down to tabula rasa, what will give
you
> the authority to shape? The score? No. Recordings from Berlioz's
lifetime?
> No. Habits of playing passed down from generation to generation? No,
because
> that's what's been called into question.
>
Total hyperbole. You will find that many in the HIP field have a great
interest in a wide range of traditions, including many captured on disc in
the early 20th century. And very few are scraping down to a tabula rasa
either, just making a break with some aspects of the traditions that are
current when they start their endeavours. And that process has gone on in
many periods of history, for composers as well as performers, and has
continued to be a rejuvenating force.
A logical conclusion from your arguments would be that we should abandon any
attempts to perform a great deal of early music, where no unbroken
'tradition' applies and performers are forced into archaeology in order to
make any sense of it. I can't believe you would think that to be a
desirable outcome.
Ian
Matthew Silverstein
> But no wooden sticks, chaps, please. He didn't like them.
Is that the reason not to play with wooden sticks--because Berlioz didn't
like them?
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> What I hate about that tiny percentage of HIP performances that come my
> way--and I don't seek them out; I avoid them--is the comparative
uniformity of
> approach. HIP didn't not arise as a reaction AGAINST "the all-purpos
aesthetic
> ideals that have become so universal," they arose simultaneously and for
> similar reasons. You are really writing a revisionist history here.
Everybody
> but especially the HIPsters became afraid of any "subjective" deviations
from
> the score for a host of reasons that I don't have time to go into.
We can leave aside the issue of whether this was ever true. What's important
is that it certainly is not true now!
Matty
Donald C. Patterson
oy?@earthlink.net wrote on 11/13/03 10:34 AM:
> "Donald C. Patterson" <don...@olg.com> appears to have caused the
> following letters to be typed in news:BBD9080E.11BD7%don...@olg.com:
>
>> I forgot to mention the wonderful French police band recording under the
>> baton (night stick?) of Dondeyne on Nonesuch. Big, BIG band (two,
>> count'em TWO E flat clarinets...isn't there some law against that?).
>> Lots of intonation problems, but these players come closest IMHO to
>> getting to the heart of this monstrosity. I recently transferred my
>> cassette to CD. Sounds pretty good...no surface noise.
>>
>> :-)
>
> Yikes! The only possible pair of instruments harder to keep in tune than
> two e-flat clarinets is an e-flat clarinet and a piccolo!
Shoot one.
--
Don Patterson
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."
David M. Cook
>> TRACKS: Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale. Death of Cleopatre. 5 Overture:
>> Benvenuto Cellini. Roman carnival. La Corsaire. Les Francs Juges. Les
>> Troyens a Carthage.
> Neither of these sites is terribly forthcoming as to the performing forces
involved. Crotchet mentions Lombard as conductor as if he conducted everything
> in the set. If, as I suspect, Amy is the conductor of the Mort de Cléopātre,
> he's not mentioned at either site. Will somebody with this set list the
> performers in more detail?
Performers are as follows:
Symphonie funebre: Chorale Populaire de Paris; Chorus master: Gilbert
Martin; Musique des Gardiens de la Paix; Desire Dondeyne
Cleopatre: Nadine Denize, mezzo; Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio
France; Gilbert Amy
Overtures: Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg; Alain Lombard
Les Troyens: orchestra excerpts (Royal hunt & storm; Ballet; Trojan March):
Nouvel Orchestre...; Gilbert Amy
Dave Cook
Matthew燘. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:20031113185829...@mb-m16.aol.com:
>> Now if you're talking about Lelio...
>
> I like the chanson du bonheur.
As for the conclusion, that grand fantasy hoo-hah on "The Tempest," I'm
given to understand that the piano part was written for Camille Moke, the
subject of an interesting episode in the composer's life. But based on the
quality of this music, better he should have shot her.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's fault!
David7Gable
am perfectly well aware of, although I haven't read them all), does not make an
argument make (which is not to say you aren't capable of making arguments).
Moreover, the percentage of readers here that is actually going to go track any
of them down has to be well under .001%. Better to make arguments of your own
or report what you've read.
>So then is the French bassoon or the German bassoon 'better'?
Neither. Nor would Berlioz have insisted that only one or the other be used to
perform his music. That is, composers do not in general write so specifically
for a given timbre that only a very narrowly specific instance of some class of
instruments will do. Have you ever noticed how very different the percussion
instruments sound in the various performances of Boulez's Marteau that are out
there? Which sounds are "authentic'?
In any case, I was attempting to describe Berlioz's utterly un-HIP position. I
didn't say that I personally believed that every "improvement" in an instrument
was automatically an improvement. But one of my objections to HIPsterism is
its insistence on the primacy of the physical material aspects of sound. Music
isn't made out of sound. It's made out of the relationships among sounds,
aesthetic shapes.
The pursuit of the authentic strikes me as a less worthy ambition than the
pursuit of the aesthetic. Not that the pusuits are incompatible, but the
authentic is infinitely more elusive than HIPsters believe, and in the pursuit
of it, aesthetic vaules that I value have been, it seems to me, all but lost.
HIPsters now deny the more extreme claims to "authenticity," but "authenticity"
is nevertheless what they continue to seek with great avidity.
>Nonsense - how about such "subjective" deviations as improvised
>ornamentation or cadenzas?
These special cases are hardly the counter examples to negate my GENERAL
argument. Moreover, the improvised ornamentation and cadenzas of the HIPsters
are recreated in an environment that has started over after making tabula rasa
of any inherited manner of phrasing, etc. Again, an unprecedented move in the
history of the performance of music anywhere on this planet.
>Actually quite a few of the most supposedly "subjective" older
>performances in reality conform to quite consistent norms
Yes, of course. Absolutely. Without question. Because they are products of
performers who existed within performing traditions. Performance traditions
have a logic based in the aesthetic objects they transmit. Performers don't
react to the scores they play as if they're Rorschach blots.
The HIP movement comes at performing traditions and specifically the
unconsciously transmitted inherited habits that constitute performance
traditions from an unprecedentedly new angle: HIP calls unconsciously
transmitted habits into question. Questions their "authenticity." An
authenticity that can never be proved or disproved, only judged as to its
effectiveness as an aesthetic response to an artwork. The authenticity of HIP
phrasing, etc., can never be proved either. Indeed, HIPsters have even less
claim to authenticity since (a) one of the conduits of musical art works,
performing traditions, has been ruled out of court, and (b) HIP introduces a
new critical self-consciousness and interposes it between the performer and his
response to the score. No performer of any music anywhere in the world was
ever placed in that position at any time before HIP.
>It's by
>understanding these norms, and their boundaries, that facilitates the
>possibility of a genuine subjectivity that can operate both inside and
>outside of them.
So YOU claim. Again, your viewpoint is without precedent in ANY performance
tradition anywhere at any time in the history of music on this planet.
Josquin, Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, and Berlioz never had such a perspective;
such a perspective never occurred to them, could never have occurred to them.
Which brings us to the arrogance of HIP: "we" are finally doing it right. All
of the old ways recent enough to have survived are wrong.
>A logical conclusion from your arguments would be that we should abandon any
>attempts to perform a great deal of early music, where no unbroken
>'tradition' applies a
No, this is not a logical conclusion of my argument. In the case of early
music, I will take what I can get because that's the only way I can get it.
Furthermore, comparatively early performers of early music in the 20th
century--the performers of the 1960's for example--phrased more distinctively
than performers of the same repertory in the last couple decades. There are
countless absolutely smooth, virtually uninflected performances of Renaissance
choral music from the last two decades out there. I know. I own them. The
reason for this bland anonymity is that the performers are afraid that
resorting to any sort of dynamics or to even the very slightest, virtually
imperceptible, deviation from a metronomic rhythm will be unhistorical and
"inauthentic." The result is neither authentic nor musical.
-david gable
David7Gable
Many thanks, Dave.
-david gable
Matthew Silverstein
> HIPsters now deny the more extreme claims to "authenticity,"
> but "authenticity" is nevertheless what they continue to seek
> with great avidity.
How do you know that this is what they "continue to seek with great
avidity"?
Matty
David7Gable
Who says shopping online is the same as shopping at a brick and mortar store?
When a recording of Berlioz's Cleopatra with Gilbert Amy conducting was
released on Ultima, I made a mental note of it, although I didn't remember what
label it was on. Some time later when I wanted to order it, I did searches for
it at British and French websites and at German Music Express. Searches for
"Amy" + "Berlioz" turned up zip, so I made the erroneous assumption that the
recording had been deleted. I didn't give it another thought until the subject
came up here in the HIP Berlioz Requiem thread. Turns out the recording is
still in print: you just can't find it if you are specifically interested in
Berlioz conducted by Amy. As for Amy . . .
Very well known in France, where he has successfully pursued a career as
composer and conductor, Gilbert Amy (b. 1936) is virtually unknown elsewhere.
A composition student first of Milhaud and later of Boulez, a composer admired
by Stravinsky, Amy took over the Domaine musical from Boulez in the mid-60's.
He went on to found a very fine orchestra, no doubt with a little help from
the French state: the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, which
has pursued a policy of championing young French composers of all stripes.
Amy is a very fine composer who has never fully emerged from Boulez's shadow,
but representative examples of his music have been recorded by various French
labels over the years, and he has had the occasional U.S. performance. Amy's
music is post-Boulezian to be sure, but with a vivid sense of texture
influenced as much by the textures in Xenakis as anything. Once available on
an Erato LP, Amy's orchestral Chant and a violin concerto entitled Trajectoires
are very strong pieces from the late 60's. Barenboim and the Orchestre de
Paris premiered Amy's Trois scènes several years ago. Orchestrahl, a gorgeous
and elaborate orchestral piece in a Gallic post-Boulezian vein but modeled on a
chorale prelude of Bach, is available on CD coupled with a string quartet in an
idiom I don't quite know how to characterize: it's distantly derived from the
"motor rhythmic" side of Bartók, I suppose. The parentage of Amy's Missa cum
jubilo would include Varèse and the Symphony of Psalms. Amy recently completed
an opera based on Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, Le premier cercle.
-david gable
Raymond Hall
I'm afraid that I'll never understand the term"acculturated habit" as you
use it. It is partly (and only partly)the raison d'etre of HIP, that habits
simply passed on from generation to generation, bad habits, sloppy habits,
habits that are perpetuated because of laziness to look at the score anew
and afresh, merely copying what has been heard before, are those very habits
that have to be stopped dead in their tracks.
Frankly, I cannot see why anyone would be proud of the fact of being in
possession of "acculturated habits". Another way of putting it, imho, is
that acculturated habits represent pure laziness on the part of any
performing artist. Why bother looking at the score after so many
generations? Just follow the acculturated habit of the day. This is really
what the rabid anti-HIPsters are saying.
I say Balderdash and Humbug to the whole idea of acculturated habits, and
thank goodness for those performers who mould their artistic expression of a
score, in a way which is FREE of any past habits, acculturated or not.
Regards,
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
See You Tamara (Ozzy Osbourne)
Ray, Taree, NSW
Ian Pace
> Ian, let me start by saying that merely citing article titles (many of
which I
> am perfectly well aware of, although I haven't read them all), does not
make an
> argument make (which is not to say you aren't capable of making
arguments).
> Moreover, the percentage of readers here that is actually going to go
track any
> of them down has to be well under .001%. Better to make arguments of your
own
> or report what you've read.
Just to answer this point quickly, there are some people here who take an
interest in such writings, but more importantly, demonstrating such things
as consistency of tempo modification over a variety of Furtwangler
recordings of the same piece, would take more space than is reasonable to
use in an r.c.m.r. thread. These people are in an intricate and scholarly
manner exploring more deeply the same sorts of issues as we are debating
here.
Ian
Dirk A. Ronk
> I forgot to mention the wonderful French police band recording under the
> baton (night stick?) of Dondeyne on Nonesuch.
This has been and remains my favorite rendition, on original Nonesuch
vinyl. Its racous nature is such that I don't put it on my turntable
terribly often. However, it has very much the feel of a live
performance (yes, with assorted hiccups) and in amazingly realistic
sound.
Cheers,
Dirk
Steve Haller
> On 13 Nov 2003 07:28:45 -0800, shal...@hfhs.org (Steve Haller) wrote:
>
>
> >Actually the Erato *is* the Westminster, which was issued in stereo,
> >with the Gardiens de la Paix (the band of the Paris Police) led by
> >Desire Dondeyne -- a glorious reedy sound with big thudding drums. The
> >buildup into the final section is one of the great crescendos in all
> >of music, and of course you simply *must* have the chorus with their
> >fervent cries of "Gloire!" at the close. I would be deeply saddened to
> >learn that this wonderful recording had been deleted from the
> >catalogue -- never mind that the accompanying overtures under Lombard
> >and the rather throaty "Mort de Cleopatre" are nowhere on the same
> >place!
>
> Speaking of the Gardiens de la Paix, do you know if their sensational
> recording of Schmitt's Dionysiaques (Calliope / MHS LP) has ever been
> issued on CD? The LP also includes a couple of excellent works for
> band by Koechlin, and Faure's Marche funeraire. Only the Faure has
> reappeared, afaik, coupled with the Berlioz on Calliope.
>
> AC
Sorry to say I'm not familiar with this specific recording, but I can
tell you that unless you're a lot more finicky about woodwind
intonation than I am (sometimes it's *nice* not to be blessed with
perfect pitch!) anything at all that has Desire Dondeyne and the
Gardiens de la Paix is a gilt-edged guarantee of authentic and
committed wind ensemble playing just like Fennell and his wonderful
Eastman band. Of course that mostly means French music -- and I'm
sorry no one ever prevailed upon him to put out a big CD set of music
from the French Revolution as it would have been spectacular! -- but
he has done some of this stuff on LP, and even more interesting, he
has gone beyond the French literature to record marches for winds and
brass by Mendelssohn and Wagner, a Westminster disc (I also have it on
open reel) called "Doubling in Brass" that I hope one of the various
entrepreneurs out there will bring out one of these days as Erato thus
far seems to have expressed no interest in doing so...!
Simon Roberts
Silverstein says...
It's presumably something a HIPster should take into consideration.
Simon
Simon Roberts
Silverstein says...
But of course it was never true. Part of the point of HIP is based on the
realization that scores aren't the music and to try to fill in the blanks by
trying to learn how, say, a baroque performer might have done so. HIPsters are
*not* literalists. (Ian Pace is in no position to know this, of course, but
we've been having this "discussion" here for years; there's non prying David G
from his straw man notion of what HIP is and what HIPsters do.)
Simon
Alan Watkins
No, but the reason he did not like them IS a reason not to use them.
They destroy the timbre, harmonics, overtones of an instrument which
depends on all three to make it's best effect. The minute you use
wooden sticks (or even those covered with leather) the note goes all
over the place (this is a resonanating membrane and absolutely
dependent upon the skill of the executant making the impact and the
MEANS of making that impact).
As I suppose anyone would post in "defence" of their instrument, I
regard the timpani not only as harmonic markers for the rest of the
orchestra (and composers sometimes seem to acknowledge that) but also
as an instrument capable of enormous and very beautiful subtlety
(indeed they are, in my opinion, often at their best when being
subtle).
If you just want a "loud noise" I suppose wooden sticks are okay. If
you want either the sheer power or subtlety of the timpani with the
note and it's quite unique voice intact and clearly defined they are
NOT okay.
Berlioz was not the only complainant but I confined my remarks because
it was his composition that was under discussion.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Ian Pace
"Simon Roberts" <sd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:bp3aq...@drn.newsguy.com...
long (years) before I started posting. It does sadden and surprise me that
David G, who is clearly a highly intelligent individual, is so locked into
this caricatured position of HIP, but he's hardly the only person who is.
Best,
Ian
Ian Pace
" Ian Pace" <i...@ianpace.com> wrote in message
news:bp2e7o$1jolig$1...@ID-209093.news.uni-berlin.de...
in greater depth the same sorts of issues as we are debating here, in an
intricate and scholarly manner..
Brendan R. Wehrung
Yer makin' me cry...I love the sound of Les Gardiens de la Paix and too
wish almost any of their LP's on Erato or Vogue could make it to CD.
Erato (which probably owns the ultimate rights to everything we've been
talking about) deep-sixed their back catalog. I would dearly love in
particular to buy a CD of a Nonesuch LP titled Music from the Age of
Napoleon which is quite spectacular. Erato has had a perfect opportunity
as the various anniversaries in Napoleon's rein passed, but, mais no,
helas! Apparently some thought was given to releasing the Westminster LPs
as MCA double deckers until a purge wiped out the classical office. All I
can think of as hopeful is if EMI buys Warners, as has been talked about.
Brendan
--
Steven Van Impe
"Joshua Kaufman" <terrr...@cinci.rr.com> schreef in bericht
news:3FB2AE2C...@cinci.rr.com...
> Eh? I love that piece. Now if you're talking about Lelio...
I seem to be the only person alive who is really fond of Lélio :-(
Steven
Steven Van Impe
"David7Gable" <david...@aol.com> schreef in bericht
news:20031113190510...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> > For the confused, it's the Dondeyne recordings that Brendan is
> > talking about. It's still at MDT (unless the database is wrong),
> > now on an Ultima 2fer.
> Is it coupled with Gilbert Amy conducting Cleopatra? I've wanted
> to hear that Cleopatra forever.
Yes, that's the one.
It's the greatest Symphonie Funčbre et Triomphale on record, the only one
I've heard that's really both Funčbre and Triomphale.
Steven
Steven Van Impe
"Alan Cooper" <noad...@anywhere.com> schreef in bericht
news:2qb7rvcvnasdp26v8...@4ax.com...
> Speaking of the Gardiens de la Paix, do you know if their
> sensational recording of Schmitt's Dionysiaques (Calliope /
> MHS LP) has ever been issued on CD? The LP also includes
> a couple of excellent works for band by Koechlin, and Faure's
> Marche funeraire. Only the Faure has reappeared, afaik,
> coupled with the Berlioz on Calliope.
Everything you mention is on the Calliope CD, including the Schmitt and
Koechlin. Labelnumber Approche Cal 6859. I bought this at FNAC 2 years ago.
Note that this is a different recording of the Berlioz Symphonie, with
Dondeyne and the Gardiens de la Paix but without the chorus, and very much
below the artistic level of the one released on Erato Ultima.
Regards,
Steven
Alan Cooper
This is great news. The truth is that I couldn't care less about the
Berlioz piece: it's the Koechlin and Schmitt works that interest me.
Please take a look at this listing, and tell me if it is the right CD:
http://tinyurl.com/v5pd
As you will see, the listing mentions only the Berlioz and Faure
works. Is that the one that you have, and does it also include the
other stuff?
Alapage lists a different Calliope CD that includes the Berlioz along
with the works by Faure, Schmitt, and Koechlin, but this one is out of
print:
http://tinyurl.com/v5q4
Is that the CD that you have?
Thanks for the information.
AC
Alan Watkins
specific instruments" but I do also think he was always looking for,
or willing to experiment with, what he regarded as technical
improvements and he does not appear in "Treatise on Orchestration" to
be stuck with the traditions of the time.
In lauding the Bass Tuba he wrote: "Its timbre is incomparably nobler
than that of ophicleides, bombardons and serpents, and has something
of the vibration of the timbre of a trombone. It is less agile than
the ophicleide, but the tone is powerful and its range in the lower
part is the most extensive available in the whole orchestra."
That sounds to me like a musician saying that he feels this is an
"improvement" over what was available at the time or earlier,
certainly at the bottom of the orchestra.
Throughout the history of timpani playing there have always been some
great artists although, even then, Berlioz was willing to name the
"great artists" and, from time to time, be contemptuous or dismissive
of others. But most of those great artists of which I have knowledge
were continuously trying to improve the instrument, improve the tone,
not stand still as some sort of "definitive" way of playing them.
They do not appear to have believed that the way they were playing was
"authentic" of the time. They appear to have believed that they wanted
better, more modern instruments (particularly easier capability of
tuning over hand screw drums) And, IF I am correct, that must surely
apply just as much to all other sections of the orchestra.
I do not get a sense of "this is the way"...quite the opposite for my
instrument.
Rather laconically, I think, Berlioz writes in the Treatise: "For many
years composers have complained about the nuisance that, for want of a
third note in the timpani part they could not use the instrument in
chords which did not contain one of its two notes; they had never even
thought of the possibility that a single timpanist could play three
drums at once. Finally, one fine day, after the kettledrummer of the
Paris Opera (Charles Poussard) had shown that is not indeed so
difficult other players dared to attempt this bold innovation and
since then there are three timpani notes available to the composers
who write for the Opera. It took seventy years to reach this point."
As I have raised before, there are serious performing issues here for
the timpani and it does not matter whether the orchestra is HIP or
2003. Many scores are marked only with the tonic dominant notes with
which the instrument enters and in many scores (and I am afraid Mr
Schumann is guilty of this as well) those notes do not ever get
altered throughout the rest of the work whatever the rest of the
orchestra are playing. I know, for example, that Szell made massive
changes to Schumann's timpani parts.
In a modern orchestra, it is an issue I always raise with the
conductor and seek his approval to change the notes (or not, as he
prefers) but it is an issue that, I think, must always be raised. We
have moved on and we now have the technical ability to do very quick
changes of tuning denied to our forbears (although some parts with a
static tonic-dominant have long breaks where it would be easily
possible to retune hand screw drums). I personally do not know how
far "authenticity" goes and how much "fidelity" to the score there is
but, in at least some cases, you are going to end up playing out of
tune. Is that authentic? What a decision!
And how is this for authenticity, with a smile? From Hogarth's
"Musical Instruments: Instruments of Percussion" published in the
Musical World 1837, my favourite discourse upon the timpani:
"Notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of this instrument, to play it
well is no easy matter. It requires boldness and decision, a thorough
knowledge of effect, and a mind capable of entering into the grandest
conceptions of genius. A single stroke of the drum may determine the
character of a whole movement; and the slightest embarrassment,
hesitation or misapprehension of the requisite degree of force may
ruin the design of the composer.
"It is told of the late Mr Jenkinson that, during the performance of
the chorus in Joshua, at a great music meeting he, by some
inadvertency, burst in with his drums a bar too soon and marred the
sublime effect intended to be produced; on which, mortified and
enraged at his own blunder, he applied his drumsticks to his own head
and inflicted summary punishment to the astonishment of the
audience............"
HIP timpanists please note :):)
Ian Pace
> I think that in some ways Berlioz was "very particular about the
> specific instruments" but I do also think he was always looking for,
> or willing to experiment with, what he regarded as technical
> improvements and he does not appear in "Treatise on Orchestration" to
> be stuck with the traditions of the time.
>
> In lauding the Bass Tuba he wrote: "Its timbre is incomparably nobler
> than that of ophicleides, bombardons and serpents, and has something
> of the vibration of the timbre of a trombone. It is less agile than
> the ophicleide, but the tone is powerful and its range in the lower
> part is the most extensive available in the whole orchestra."
>
> That sounds to me like a musician saying that he feels this is an
> "improvement" over what was available at the time or earlier,
> certainly at the bottom of the orchestra.
I do think that's debatable. 'Nobler' (what was the French word that
Berlioz used originally?) can indeed be a term of endearment, when a
more 'noble' musical effect is required. But when evoking a
fantastical world of witches and damnation, mightn't Berlioz be
looking for sound that was quite different to that which is 'noble'?
Doesn't have to be dogmatic, and of course Berlioz later suggested
that tubas could be used (perhaps this was a response to practical
considerations), and they do work well in the piece. I just find the
ophicleides give a particularly menacing feel to the piece; that's why
I find their sound very apposite in the symphony.
By the way, is this from the original edition of Berlioz's Treatise,
or the one edited by Strauss? (I only have a copy of the latter -
away from home at g/f's place while typing this, so haven't got it to
look at right this moment).
>
> Throughout the history of timpani playing there have always been some
> great artists although, even then, Berlioz was willing to name the
> "great artists" and, from time to time, be contemptuous or dismissive
> of others. But most of those great artists of which I have knowledge
> were continuously trying to improve the instrument, improve the tone,
> not stand still as some sort of "definitive" way of playing them.
> They do not appear to have believed that the way they were playing was
> "authentic" of the time. They appear to have believed that they wanted
> better, more modern instruments (particularly easier capability of
> tuning over hand screw drums) And, IF I am correct, that must surely
> apply just as much to all other sections of the orchestra.
>
> I do not get a sense of "this is the way"...quite the opposite for my
> instrument.
Sure, and there's no reason to damn 'improvements'; but instruments
develop in particular ways when they could equally well have developed
in others. Pedal timpani are obviously much more practical to control
in terms of tuning that screw-tap kettledrums (as a one-time
percussionist myself, having played on both, I'm all too aware of
this!). But on the other hand, sonic properties are also changed in
lots of ways (I don't know the precise details of all aspects of
designs, but the move away from calf heads - could that be described
unequivocally as simply an 'improvement'?). Maybe it's possible that
new instruments could be developed that try to combine the
practicalities of the new with something of the sound of the old?
Imagine Alpha-Romeo and Ferrari in intense competition; for lots of
reasons to do with Alpha-Romeo gaining the upper hand in the
marketplace, temporarily, and Ferrari having some problems to do with
corruption, industrial disputes, etc., Ferrari go out of business.
From then onwards, Alpha-Romeo maintain an absolutely pre-eminent
position in terms of car manufacture, indeed most cars are in one
sense or another designed to resemble an Alpha-Romeo in terms of
fundamental design. Would this make an Alpha-Romeo in every sense an
'improvement' over the 'outdated' Ferrari? One wouldn't have to
dispute the individual merits of either if being sceptical about such
an assertion.
The allegory in terms of instrumental 'development' should be clear.
As said by myself and other posters, 'authenticity' isn't the issue.
>
> And how is this for authenticity, with a smile? From Hogarth's
> "Musical Instruments: Instruments of Percussion" published in the
> Musical World 1837, my favourite discourse upon the timpani:
>
> "Notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of this instrument, to play it
> well is no easy matter. It requires boldness and decision, a thorough
> knowledge of effect, and a mind capable of entering into the grandest
> conceptions of genius. A single stroke of the drum may determine the
> character of a whole movement; and the slightest embarrassment,
> hesitation or misapprehension of the requisite degree of force may
> ruin the design of the composer.
>
> "It is told of the late Mr Jenkinson that, during the performance of
> the chorus in Joshua, at a great music meeting he, by some
> inadvertency, burst in with his drums a bar too soon and marred the
> sublime effect intended to be produced; on which, mortified and
> enraged at his own blunder, he applied his drumsticks to his own head
> and inflicted summary punishment to the astonishment of the
> audience............"
>
> HIP timpanists please note :):)
>
*smiles*
Best,
Ian
Steven Van Impe
> http://tinyurl.com/v5pd
> As you will see, the listing mentions only the Berlioz and Faure
> works. Is that the one that you have, and does it also include the
> other stuff?
No, that's not the right disc. I doubt if this one has the Koechlin and
Schmitt pieces.
> Alapage lists a different Calliope CD that includes the Berlioz along
> with the works by Faure, Schmitt, and Koechlin, but this one is out
> of print: http://tinyurl.com/v5q4 Is that the CD that you have?
Again, I have to answer in the negative.
My cd has a kind of parchment-yellow cover with a purple cartoon image of
Berlioz, in the Calliope Approche budget series. See
http://www.calliope.tm.fr/cat_app_det.html and scroll down to 'Cal 6829'.
This is the (French only) official website of the label, and they list the
disc. I take it this means they still have it available, maybe you can
contact them. If you don't read and write French, contact me privately
(watch the spamfilter) and I'll help you out.
Regards,
Steven
David7Gable
I like parts of it. The actual conception (or excuse for stringing together a
bunch of little pieces he had mostly already written) is not entirely
convincing!
-david gable
Matthew燘. Tepper
Indeed. What really makes it lame for me is the idea of it being a sequel
to the Symphonie fantastique!
Berlioz did a few of these grab-bags: "Huit scènes de Faust," "Irlande,"
and so forth. The only convincing one for me is "Nuits d'été," which (note
well) he composed and orchestrated separately, spread out over a few years.
And yet, they stand together wonderfully as an integral cycle! (Yes, I
know they all have the same poet, which suggests that the idea of a cycle
was in Berlioz' mind.)
David7Gable
>and so forth.
But he really did sit down and set eight scenes from Faust, really did sit down
and write a bunch of settings of Irish poems. In the case of Lélio, he threw
together a bunch of disparate pieces he had already written and wrote a spoken
text to "unify" the resultant grab bag.
>What really makes it lame for me is the idea of it being a sequel
>to the Symphonie fantastique!
Indeed. Basically he was young and wanted to hear performances of all those
little pieces he had lying around.
-david gable
Steven Van Impe
> In the case of Lélio, he threw together a bunch of disparate
> pieces he had already written and wrote a spoken text to
> "unify" the resultant grab bag.
I disagree (in part). We all recognize Berlioz as a highly experimental
composer. Lélio was an experiment, with an artistic goal. It has a real
story, a story that is autobiographic on the same level as the Fantastique
is, depicting the post-suicidal thoughts of the composer. It is interspersed
with musical fragments that illustrate this road from nostalgia and
depression, past fury and escapism, towards acceptance and peace of mind. It
is the textual-musical counterpart of the Bildungsroman, it depicts the
coming of age of an artist, the farewell to boyish and impetuous puberty. If
I had more time I would go on about the parallels that can be drawn with the
Tempest etc. etc. but we'll keep that for later.
Of course, he wanted to have these pieces performed. But this was not an
obvious reason to string them all together. Concerts of disparate pieces,
even involving parts of symphonies and opera aria's, were more common then
than they are now.
Steven
Alan Watkins
about new possibilities and, of course, he included a section on "new
instruments" in the Treatise. The copy I have was published fairly
recently by the Cambridge University Press edited by Hugh Macdonald so
I do not know how, or if, it differs significantly from other
editions.
As regards the timpani, I (and quite a number of other players to my
knowledge) do not regard a move away from calf heads as an improvement
and indeed I decline to play on plastic heads, not only because I
believe them to be inferior in tone. My experience has been that at,
say pp, it is far easier to play a roll upon them because there is
more "bounce" off calf heads than plastic and I personally find them
much easier to control. That is, however, a very personal opinion.
At the other end of the instrument, there is (I would suggest)
evidence that plastic heads under great attack "break up" easily. A
good test of them is the closing passage of Romeo and Juliet
(Tchaikovsky) where several times I have heard players I know to be
excellent timpanists let down sadly by plastic heads. I would be
confident in stating that, in those cases, that is an "instrument"
problem, not a technical problem with the player.
All those comments are certainly just a personal opinion but I have to
say I do feel on stronger ground with tuning on which there appears to
me to be no general co-ordinated approach with scores which now leave
you creating dissonances which I doubt the composer intended. I think
there IS an issue of authenticity with tuning...if, for example, you
eschew the Bass Tuba and stick with the ophicleide on the grounds of
sound (which I do understand) do you stick with out of tune timpani
(where it occurs) or do you breach the "authenticity" of the time and
introduce a third or fourth drum to put matters right?
I am probably terribly mistaken but I would have thought that one key
element in attempting to recreate performances as in the age of the
composer might hinge more on the size of the orchestra rather than on
particular instruments given, as I understand it, that many
"authentic" orchestras are forced, in many cases, to rely on
"authentic reproductions" of the actual instruments of the time.
At the end of the day, however, I would suggest that it does not
matter how "modern" or "historically accurate" the performance if it
does not go well. I imagine Berlioz endured some lousy performances
in his time, as he undoubtedly does today.
That's the problem with this business. There may have been many
improvements and refinements on all of the instruments but you're
still still stuck with musicians playing them, not always as well as
they can but sometimes better than you think.
Some years ago I gave several performances of Mozart Le Petit Riens,
albeit on modern instruments but I think there were only 20 or 21
players and I thought that stunning music. I was left wondering why
it is so rarely performed today....and I'm still wondering but I
thought the key to it was that, in "symphonic terms", we were
virtually one to a part. It was more a question of "balance", I
thought, than when the instruments manufacturing it were made.
I personally think that "balance" is everything, even above the debate
on historic v modern or the other way round. If it's wrong in either,
it will undermine the music.
I'll end my tortuous contribution with a silly question my teacher
asked me when I was ten or eleven. "When you play the timpani, what
is the most important thing?" To which, not unnaturally, I said: "The
sticks."
To which he shook his head and said: "No...your ears."