[lit-ideas] Re: Fan Fluttering 101

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:35:43 +0000 (GMT)

--- On Sun, 15/2/09, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The most recent batch of concert pianists have the same
> risk-averse approach to classical music. Rather than
> go-for-broke interpretations, interesting rubato, or novel
> interpretive quirks, contemporary players are prone to
> produce sterile, error-free renderings. By
> "sterile," I mean you hear the piece perfectly
> produced, but do not connect to it at any point, and leave
> the hall feeling like a ghost.

Don't go to many concerts or know how "recent" Eric means, but does this apply 
to recordings? I go to the books when choosing versions of classical music (the 
Penguin or Gramophone guides) and if they both thumbs-it-up that'll usually do 
me (they often don't, go figure?): but take the biggest of double-thumbs-up and 
go on Amazon and you'll still find reactions to, say, Uchida's version of 
Mozart's piano sonatas 
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00005QDYG/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=2)
 or Gardiner's Beethoven's symphonies 
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-Symphonies-ORR-%C2%B7-Gardiner/review/product/B0000057EO/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)that
 echo Eric's comments on sterile, technical perfection; the same recording 
entrancing some and repelling others. 

What lies behind this divergence? Reasonable disagreements as to where artistic 
value lies? Unreasonable ones? Unavoidable ones, since artistic values like 
bringing out interlocking patterns to exhibit the formal, structural properties 
of the music might simply conflict with making the music more emotionally 
expressive or surprising [cf. Bach]. Taking our pre-formed standards into any 
act of evaluation (a friend once suggested to me that the first version of any 
classical piece with which you familiarise yourself is usually then the one 
that will seem the natural standard-bearer)? Do commercial pressures underpin 
risk-averse performances, particularly with recordings? [Karajan's Beethoven is 
now a bit too slick for me, but I can almost taste its appeal to the 
Merc-driving bourgeoisie and how he and the BPO would be a global cash-cow for 
DG). 

I'm not likely to buy a second version of most pieces (only once have I gone 
mad and simultaneously bought five versions of the Goldberg Variations) so how 
can I second-guess the books, especially given that nearly all the 
recommendations have some kind of excellence? One of the few times I've had 
pause is over their top-rated harpsichord versions of Bach's Gg Variations 
(Hantai) and The Art of Fugue (Moroney), and here my 'disagreement' is really 
only that, compared with the piano, the harpsichord sounds cold and 
inexpressive an instrument.  

The world of pop and rock raises similar questions of course and worse: if you 
look at AMG on-line or read magazines like 'Mojo' it sometimes seems that the 
reviews and the star-ratings are phoned-in from different and differing 
departments.  

Donal
Adding music once again to the long list of ting I must learn more about 




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