quote:

Originally posted by Huwge:
EW - definitely a disc of the year thus far. All her recordings on Onyx are quite special.

Yes, I've got high hopes for this. The samples sounded marvelous, and you don't have to twist my arm too hard to make me listen to Vika!

Fredrik, a long overdue (it's been one of those weeks) reply to your thoughtful post on page three of this thread. Somewhat anti-climactically, I find that I have little intelligent to say in reply.

Your post is highly evocative of the wonder and mystery of Bach, and of great music, in general. I liked your description of the AoF as a forbidding fortress, since that's how it felt to me. I banged my head against the wall of that fortress for a long time until I heard a version for organ, and the music began to click into place - not that I felt that I finally understood it, mind - it was more a case of learning to enjoy, or appreciate its perplexing nature.

I also enjoyed your account of the Goldberg's structure, and especially of Bach's use of the quodlibet - the humour of it making the serious point that we must not take ourselves too seriously, and that life goes on in the midst of moments of transcendence. I can see how that structural understanding could underpin a preference for performance on the harpsichord.

Do I agree with you on that specific point? In a way, I don't think it really matters, as it was never my intention to dissuade you, or anyone else, of their hard won beliefs - God forbid that everyone should think the same way as I do! For my part, I have every intention of picking up Hantai's Goldbergs. I expect to enjoy it, but suspect that the majority of my Goldbergs will remain piano-bound, as I think it sounds "nicer" (I told you this would be anti-climactic!).

My only other thought is to extend the landscape analogy, in the light of your post. To recap, the main elements of the analogy so far are:

music = landscape
composer = explorer/pioneer
musical score = map

At the risk of overreaching, I'm now inclined to add that the musical instruments used in performance are analogous to vehicles for travelling through the musical landscape. The performer is the driver, and the audience are his or her passengers. This helps your case, as it could be argued that the musical terrain suits some vehicles (instruments) more than others. Likewise, one would not be advised to cross the Gobi desert on a skateboard (though it might be an "interesting" experience to try it).

No doubt there are problems with this analogy, but it seems worthy of further exploration. It holds out the promise of middle ground between two opposing viewpoints, neither of which are attractive to me:

1. The composer's decision (plus contemporary practice) is final when it comes to the interpretation of music - I find this position unduly restrictive.

2. Anything goes! The composer's opinions don't matter at all - This is the trap that post-modern aesthetics falls into in proclaiming "the death of the author"; I find the position intrinsically implausible, and pernicious in its tendency to put all interprtations on the same level.

As in so many other areas, it's the middle way for me on this issue!

Dear Droo!

I am thinking through the fog of an impromptu party arrived at ealier through a foot of water in the least flooded street in Worceter connecting the two halves of the city either side of the Severn! first call to get some beer, and second to first foot it!

Th Police took precisely no notice of one mad Pole and and one mad Englishman, striding purposefully towards the torrent, as others were told not to! We have returmed as un-noticed as we went, completely ignored by the Constabulary!

So I read you post with pleasure, and you are causing me to think frelshy on a subject I love, without worrying that we may or may not agree, but rather in a hope that we will enjoy the converstaion and grow in an undertanding, but which may or may not much alter our relative positions.

Sorry not to be more compst mental [compus mentus], but there are times! Zyviets, and Fosters!

ATB from Fredrik

Glad to be of service! In terms of my analysis:

quote:

PS: On one level you are absolutely right in the sense that all too many permances are still managed without, apparently, the most rudimantary understanding of what was meant by the rather precise notation of musical Graces [including Trills], and not only by Bach, though JSB was punctilious about what he did intend. He left a table of his Grace notation and their correct rendereing, though this does not vary except in small detail from tables laid down by French composers in the immediately precedeing decades- especially from the Couperins.

The Modern [inverted] Trill still had not completely superceded the Baroque conventions by the time Schubert wrote the Trout Quintet [note the Trilling in the Violin Part in the Fourth, Variation Movement], so we may well consider that an awful lot of Trilling performed nowadays is actually wrong, and demonstarably so!

and, especially, the last sentence, puts you much closer to position 1 than you are to position 2, or even the middle position (if it exists!). Or so it seems..

Dear droo,

I am sure that you are right on the surface level. I take the blueprint of what is written, and what we can define as what is meant, as the aim, before the work of the player can really start, and which is to bring out the intended living aspect of the msuic, the heart-beat, the pulse, the emotional and sublimated aspects of it.

These aspects concern the way the basic framework is nuanced, rhythmially, in terms of drive or relaxation of the pulse, eeven the ideal registration on a harpsichord or organ for example, or dynamic shading on the piano.

But ever the pragmatists, the choice of instrument is not quite an absolute for me as my earlier posts have suggested. What I see as the prefereable choice is not the only satisfactory one.

The magic exists beyond the written notation or even the actual mechanical and technical act of perfoming the written notes on the instrument, but I do see the limits of a fairly strick adherence to the correct instrument and reading of the notation as the starting point, alone. If that is all the performances does, then it is likely to be fearfully dull! I prefer a performance which retains the musical spirit, even if some of the style is not perfect, or even the wrong instrument is used! There are performances which not only get all the stylistsic aspects right, and also speak ata very humaine level, and these are the ones I would hope people will eventually discover on records and find in concert halls...

ATB from Fredrik