Beethoven Symphonies - best perf + sonics on CD

Hello gentlemen (apologies to any ladies reading, but none of you have posted in this particular thread, if memory serves).

Goofyfoot - of course, tempi are meant to be flexible - the vast majority of music is almost never metronomic all the way through. Tempo markings are basic guidelines. That said, each has its generally acceptable range, and there are still a great many conductors who fall out of this range for the Andante marking specifically, especially in Classical era music, but also some Romantic music as well. The guys in the 40's and 50's tend to do this. If you like that, fine, many people do. And some of those composers do make those slower tempi work. This, however, is a very difficult thing to do, in very large part because it goes against the grain of the composer's assumptions/intentions. I personally think it is a very unfortunate thing that those type of interpretations prevailed in what was the so-called Golden Age of classical music recordings in the 50's and 60's.

Another clarification I want to make - I do not necessarily prefer original instruments, even for Baroque music. I am fascinated by them, and have many times considered taking up the natural horn, but have never pulled the trigger. However, I believe it is possible to perform 18th century works just fine on modern instruments. You just need to reduce the size of the orchestra and play in a lighter style, and the correct style/tempi is a big part of it too.

There are two very large schools of thought on performing/interpreting the works of the great composers of the past (with of course many subdivisions of both). One is that one should always remain faithful to what are obviously the composer's artistic intentions (original instrument groups would be an extreme of this school). The other would be those who think that the masterworks must be kept "fresh" or "current" by re-inventing the wheel with them, musically-speaking, the attention being then much more centered on the performer than the composer. A great many soloists have this latter approach, often making a mockery of what is actually on the page. Of course, many Romantic showpieces are supposed to be done this way, within reason, so I'm not really talking about that. But there are many conductors that think they have to put their personal stamp on a masterwork by doing something strange or unusual or original, even if it doesn't actually make any sense and is obviously contrary to the composer's markings.

It should be pretty obvious that I am generally in the former camp. There is plenty of room for individual expression within the great masterworks without resorting to wholesale changes. As a performer, I always try to keep the composer's intention uppermost.

That said, there are also cases where the composer's markings are routinely changed because something else works better. This is often the case, for instance, in the works of Paul Hindemith. Generally speaking, his metronome marking suggestions are incredibly slow, and almost everyone, himself included, actually went quite a bit faster in many cases. Another example - in the 18th century, there aren't very many expressive markings at all in the scores. Even fundamental things like dynamics and articulation are often left up to the performer, again within reason, and assuming you are staying within certain stylistic guidelines.

And yes, Beethoven was very heavily influenced by Haydn. Not necessarily the actual lessons he had with him, those were largely unproductive, but through the study of his scores and the playing through and performing of his music. For those of you with a better knowledge of music, one of the best books I have ever read is by the very recently deceased pianist/scholar Charles Rosen, called The Classical Style, I believe. Unfortunately, it does require a basic knowledge of music theory to follow the discussions - it is not really a book for the layman. But if you have some basic knowledge of music theory, I highly recommend it. OK, I'll shut up now.

Learsfoot, you are right on the mark here and I wouldn't try refuting anything which you've just said. Keep in mind as well while concerning performance practice that Vienna was the mecca for music because composers, conductors, musicians, etc.... were in constant contact with one another and together they invented what is now the Viennese School. The point here is that more performance practice has been handed down by word of mouth than usually realized. Hence study with a great conductor, then use that lens of perspective when pulling briefs off of the library shelves.
With the invention of electronic communications, these sources of information travelled further and faster so that Bartok was able to record Hungarian folk melodies which in a way negates the need for him to notate anything. The practice of improvisation varied greatly in the jazz world and very little of it was written in a formal sense. So you bring up several good points but the one that speaks to me the most (besides Hindemith) is that many conductors from the golden era tended to follow in lock step with one another regarding tempo. I really find this to be unquestionable however as we take a distance from what was going on then, it's clear to acknowledge the overall impact that both recordings and film had on the practices of the time and I wouldn't hesitate to assume that the record companies had as much of an influence on the outcomes as did the artists themselves. I'm not suggesting that conductors were being compromised but if Mahler suggested to Walter to shave off two minutes from a scherzo to achieve a particular quality and it became effective, then consumers of that recording began to set trends. Lastly, composers, conductors and musicians are influenced by popular recordings just as any other fan would be. Would you not say that this point of view would then explain some of the mentioned commonalities and conformities of the past?

Hi Goofyfoot - my first thought about your post is to say that to a musician, the fact of performance practices being handed down from teacher to student goes without saying, though I guess that is maybe not so obvious to a layman, so it is good you point it out. However, one caveat with it - you remember the elementary school exercise where the teacher whispers a sentence to one student, who in turn whispers it to the next, etc., and even if it is a relatively small number of students, the last one who speaks the sentence aloud finds that it is often completely different from what the teacher had said in the first place? This most definitely applies to this conversation.

And it's interesting that you use the Walter/Mahler example - many felt at the time that Walter did not take the same tempos as Mahler, that others interpreted his music quite a bit better (Richard Strauss, for instance, even though he didn't particularly care for Mahler's music), and I personally have never found Walter's recorded Mahler interpretations to be particularly good, either. Those were done, of course, long after Mahler's death, and even longer after the two actually worked together. Just because someone knew someone very well and worked with him does not necessarily mean that they actually do things the same way, even if they think they do. Some musicians, however, do really like Walter's recorded Mahler interpretations quite a bit.

Mahler himself was quite famous for making alterations to Beethoven's scores, to account for the increased size of string sections and the differences already occurring in the instruments themselves. Now, however, brass instruments in particular are even bigger and heavier than in Mahler's day, and there is actually starting to be a reaction against this now - many younger brass professionals are switching to smaller, lighter instruments, though they still play them much louder in general than even fifty years ago.

Another very important thing to note about the development of conductors - in the old days, they all learned in opera houses that existed in basically every German town. I think there were almost 70 opera houses in Germany in the days when Strauss, Mahler, Walter, Szell, Furtwangler and all those other guys were coming up. There were plenty of places for them to learn their trade and experiment. Young conductors today simply do not have this available to them, even in Europe. Young conductors hardly ever get to be front of an orchestra and actually practice conducting. The loss of all these different opera houses and orchestras that used to exist has had a huge effect on the training and experience a young conductor can receive now as opposed to them. This accounts for the general decline in the level of many young conductors. There are still some coming up, but in general there has been a huge decline in the number of "world class" conductors.

As to your comments on the recording industry, yes it has totally changed how music is learned and raised the standards of live performance to almost ridiculous levels. It is a very telling fact that Strauss and others who were around at the beginning of the sound recording era actually hated the idea. Recordings have really driven the quest for technical perfection in performance to ridiculous levels - kids coming out of the top music schools nowadays are absurdly good players of their instruments, even more so than when I was in school in the late 80's/early 90s. However, there has been a corresponding decline in their knowledge of other aspects of music besides the technical playing of their instrument. They can play anything, but meanwhile everyone is starting to sound more and more the same, and regional differences in sound are beginning to disappear. It is a very sad thing.

And as for the recording process itself - audiophiles do not like to hear this, but it really is true that the musicians and conductors have almost zero control anymore over that process. With the digital technology they have now, and the ability to edit pretty much anything they want however they want, recordings are almost completely "fake" now, especially if we are talking about electronically produced popular music. But even in the classical world, I have participated in recording sessions where take after take was done that sounded like dog crap. However, the extremely heavily edited final product sounds just fine, though it bears almost no resemblance to what actually happened. All commercial recording is like this now. It bears almost zero resemblance to reality. About the only recordings that are close to "real" in this sense are the live radio broadcasts that orchestras do. Though even these, unless they are truly being aired live as the performance is happening, are often chosen from all the performances of the concert in question. I happen to serve on the musician committee that helps determine what is broadcast from our classical concerts in my orchestra. It might be the overture from Saturday, the first two movements of the concerto from Sunday but the last movement from Saturday, etc. That's about as close to "live" as you can get nowadays, unless you know you are listening to an actual live broadcast. OK, I have once again posted way more than I meant too, so I'll shut up now.

Thanks Learsfool, you have a more expansive knowledge about music history then I do, though I do have a liberal arts education in music. I hear a lot of music in Cincinnati (for it being a small city) and seeing that my grandparents were affiliated with the Cincinnati College of Music, I feel a natural attachment to the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. I graduated from the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, at the University of Cincinnati and as a visual artist, I bridge the various arts disciplines in aesthetic terms. Though we come from different professions, we probably share more similarities than we do differences. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share and learn.

Goofyfoot...wow a lots happened on this thread in the last couple of days! sorry - i do not know much about the Japanese and 192khz question you asked. apologies.

However, if you do find out...please let us know! Very interested.

And yes, generally with the other person who posted about the Furtwanger Tahra SACD...probably better than earlier remasterings...but 'it is what it is'.