Classical Music for Aficionados

Bernstein is a genius between Celi and Furt...

His concept of musical  time is between these two...

Bernstein is one of the great maestro for me with these two...And some other few...

But here frogman you pick the young Celi , a better example of his musical original  time conception will be the Stuttgart 1976  more mature  version of Coriolan....

😊😊

I did not say here which one i prefer, it is not my goal... 😊

I think you meant “Egmont”, not “Coriolan” 😊.

Thanks for your comments. First, my choice of the young Celi was in great part for the visual element in that clip. I agree that it could be said that the 1976 Stuttgard version is “more mature”. However, the question must asked whether in this case “maturity” (of time conception), better serves the music’s intent. I’m not so sure.

The music was composed as the overture to incidental music for a play (Goethe) celebrating the life and heroism of a Dutch count (Egmont) in his country’s struggle for liberty against imperialistic Spain; culminating with the count’s execution. The music was composed while the Napoleonic wars were raging. All a pretty dramatic backdrop, I would say. Perhaps partly due to the more distant and less present sound of the 1976 recording, and certainly no intention on my part to diminish the wisdom of maturity, but the 1976 has, for me, less of the drama and angst which I think the historical setting would demand. Examples: the introduction, intended to represent “The Prison” and the feeling that imprisonment might convey seems to be better served by the young Celi’s version which gives me a stronger feeling of drama and tension. For me, the sometimes excruciatingly long rests (silences) in the 1976 detract from the drama and urgency. Likewise, in this version the first statements by the woodwinds give the music an almost pastoral feeling; not what I would expect given the circumstances to be conveyed. What is it they say, “mellows with age”? Not so sure “mellowing” fits in the context of war, imprisonment and execution. Bernstein, for me, strikes a more convincing balance balance in this regard; hence my choice.

Thank you for the clip and for your thoughts, mahgister; always thought provoking.

You are right on all counts about Celi here....

I prefer Bernstein version to the two Celi version in Beethoven Egmont yes ... 😊😁

But the young version with Berlin has nothing to do with his mature notion of the musical time which he exhibit well with the Stuttgart version like you know for sure...

And yes someone can be a genius in intemporal Bruckner and less convincing in mundane incarnated warring Beethoven...

i prefer Furtwangler to almost all in Beethoven because his notion of musical time is at home with Beethoven like Celi concept of musical time is at home with Bruckner...

Bernstein is a so great genius because he can use any of these two way to create musical time appropriate to each composer... Like other great maestros geniuses with him...

Georgiev one day said that all maestros try to imitate the temporal musical direction of Furt. without succeeding completely , I think he is right...The way musical time is out of mundane measurable time and emerge from music itself without being objectively "measurable" at all is fascinating experience with Furt and sometimes with other maestro in some composer...

Celi is a singularity among maestros, because he impose more than any other his own concept of musical time, which is not the Furtwanglerian one, i described above and Celi impose it on every composer...Then we listen Celi fascinating or boring interpretation, it is only dependent on our ability to see what there is to see...

When we listen Celi there is no more time passing, nor the musical time in the Furtwangler sense, nor measurable mundane time, there is only a single moment of variable duration where eternity pour in an everlasting moment like water pouring in a glass andoverflowing or a moment of time elevating or stretching itself to eternity...What is miraculous in his Bruckner is the way Celi never lost intensity in this  everlasting moment like in the Egmont case...Time is almost vanishing with him or become transparent so to speak, especially in his Bruckner at home  interpretations ....it is a Buddhist notion of time and anyway Celi was buddhist pupil....

He is the only maestro obsessed by time in this sense.... He cannot be judged without be understood...He is fascinating if we understood him , boring if we dont try to understand him , more boring in Egmont for sure, not boring at all in any Bruckner... Unique...

Thank for your kind words...

i am not a musician at all...

I dont know music language by the way, i attempt to decipher it with my ears/brain/body thats all...

I have NEVER heard any thing about  Canada  on TV .

The Frogman's First Law.

Cheers