--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: <snip> > > > > Kuijken Bach Chaconne Baroque Violin (in two parts) > > http://youtu.be/_0B4-2MkkR8 > > http://youtu.be/sHkW2mbbX4g > > Loved the sound, really didn't care for the faster tempo. > Some in the comments were saying the piece *had* to be > played faster on this instrument, but I'd like to hear > what it would sound like a few hairs slower.
Bach was reported to have taken quick tempos. A lot of period instrument orchestras take extremely fast tempos these days, way to fast sometimes I think, as if they are trying to finish a race, especially Brandenburg #3. Kuijken interestingly takes it rather easy. The modern instrument players tend to go slower however. Both in Baroque and in Classical and even Romatic pieces, things slowed down quite a lot. Beethoven complained that larger orchestras meant that it was more difficult to play the tempos he liked, which were quite fast, so tempos, such as the slow movement of the 9th' were sometimes, by the 1950s, taken almost twice as slow as Beethoven indicated. Research has resulted in finding tempos closer to what was originally intended, though of course, perfect certainty is not known. When much younger I listened to some of Bach's harpsichord concertos, performed with a modern orchestra, and when I heard the first recordings with period insturments, I thought it was way too fast, but I got used to it, and those tempos now sparkle, but faster than that probably would sound rushed. Composers tend to take their music quickly. Maybe it is because they are so familiar with it. If you compare recordings of Rachmoninov's Second Piano Concerto with most recordings, one finds Rachmaninov's own tempo was quite fast. There is also the effect that when we first hear a piece, that sets up a bar in our minds from which to compare other hearings, I have a tendency to prefer what I first heard until I listen more and get used to other interpretations. I heard a performance of the Brahms First Piano Concerto conducted by Leonard Bernstein on the radio recently, from a recording of a live performance. The pianist was Glenn Gould. Berstein announced before the performance that he and Gould did not see eye to eye on the interpretation, but he thought Gould has some interesting ideas, and went with Gould's preference against his better judgement. The tempos were like molasses. A very strange interpretation, interesting, but I doubt very much what Brahms himself would have liked. > > BTW, I found a video of Kuijken's Brandenburg No. 2: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTiJEn76UTM > > Madeuf is obviously from some other planet where they've > learned how to genetically enhance the embouchure. ;-) That was how it was done, there are quite a few players now who are taking up the banner. In the 1970s there was Edward Tarr and Don Smithers who first recorded some pieces this way, but no one had tried the Second Brandenburg without vented trumpets until now. In the late 1940s, there was only one player who could play the piece, Adoph Scherbaum, playing on a valved B-flat piccolo trumpet, now the instrument of choice for the non-period instrument player. Here is a video of a trumpeter (who also plays Louis Armstrong pieces on a regular instrument) trying out a new historical replica mouthpiece he bought, on a natural trumpet he built himself in a workshop, playing the opening of 'The Trumpet Shall Sound' from Handel's Messiah - anyway you can hear him attempting to bend the 11th harmonic down into tune in this brief video. In general the intonation is never quite what you would expect from a modern instrument or the vented Baroque trumpet replicas, but it gives it character. According to Edward Tarr, when playing, the old instruction books say you pronounce with the embrochure the syllable 'R' when trying to bend the pitch down, and 'T' when trying to bend the pitch up. Madeuf says you just have to practice a long long time to get it right. http://youtu.be/6gMaCSIfJdA > > > Feruccio Busoni made a transcription of the Bach Ciaconna > > for piano. Here is a version played by Artur Rubinstein > > (according to his son Rubenstein signed his name Arthur > > when in English speaking countries, adapting to the local > > usage). > > > > Rubinstein Bach-Busoni Chaconne (in two parts) > > http://youtu.be/VZtg6pKdtlM > > http://youtu.be/YVqZ7_V6RCc > > Sorry, but however he spells his name, it's a waste of > effort, IMHO, to play this piece on a piano. Just left me > cold. It is with this piece that that old Siena pianoforte shines, too bad there is nothing of it available. I got rid of about 500 LPs a year and a half ago, I hope I did not throw out that one! > > I have an LP recording of this arrangement on a piano made in > > 1800. Unlike the Rubinstein recording, the pianist arpeggios > > the chords which have an exquisite effect on this instrument. > > I could not find any versions of this recording on the Internet, > > but here is a recording of that piano with Charles Rosen playing > > Scarlatti. > <snip> > > Charles Rosen / Scarlatti / Siena Pianoforte > > http://youtu.be/Qa-ySUplfNU > > This wouldn't be my instrument of choice for Scarlatti. > At the top of the range the notes sound tinny and pinched > to me, and at the bottom they're more like a piano. It's > only in the middle that they have that lovely bell-like > harp sound. I found that variation disconcerting. Well it is a piano, but Scarlatti of course never wrote for piano. This piano, and Beethoven's surviving Conrad Graf piano are the most interesting sounding pianos I have heard on recording. Beethoven's Graf has a very resonant lower register, a rather cool middle register, and a xylophone like upper register, and an utterly mysterious sounding una corda when the hammers are moved to hit only one string on the upper notes, totally unlike anything we hear today. One of the main differences between the pianos Mozart and Beethoven wrote for beside the brightness of timbre is the sforzando, a sudden sharp emphasis: on the old instruments it has a very sharp attack and the sound decays quickly, but it is only just loud on the modern instrument, you cannot really play it on a modern instrument. > > <snip> > > entrancing Italian instrument rebuilt with a French keyboard > > which allowed few more notes and thus strings (I believe the > > pitch was a=410Hz). He recorded 555 sonatas, two per day until > > the project was done. He said he had persistence, but no > > patience. The first of the two sonatas on this youtube video > > is with that entrancing Italian instrument; I am not sure about > > the second one. > > > > Scott Ross / Scarlatti > > http://youtu.be/RrNj8R7f07I > > Loved this. Just gorgeous. Ross was an extraordinary player, too bad he died so young. He had some strong ideas. Here are some of them. Ross: "Glenn Gould never knew what's a harpsichord (sic). Landowska never knew what's a harpsichord. Horowitz never knew what's a harpsichord. I know I'm uttering heresy after heresy, but things ought to be said the way they are." (I think what he is saying here is these artists did not know the original instrument these works were written for, and in the case of Landowska did not know what a real Barouqe harpsichord was like since she played on a Pleyel instrument that was a more modern idea of what harpsichord was like [it was built with an iron frame like a modern piano]. And thus these artists did not really have a feel for how the piece should sound, what the composer had in mind.) Ross: "When I hear Glenn Gould, I say, he understood nothing to Bach (sic). An artist who doesn't show himself in public has a problem. He's so much off-target that you'd need a 747 to take him back." While Gould has had some amazing interpretations, I think he tended to over-intellctualise in interpreting the pieces, and missed the point of the music making. Here is a really stunning video of Ross playing Antonio Soler's Fandango. There is no way any piano can match this. http://youtu.be/9Vj1UPzlrTc > > > Enjoy > > I did, thank you very much! >
