Beethoven 9th "Mix Tape"

[JSngry]

Ok, I know, a profane idea, but never mind would you/should you...COULD you make up a mix tape of your favorite interpretations of each movement from different sources?

And upon so doing, would you be satisfied with the results as a unified interpretation?

You, mind you, would you be satisfied with it?

[Chuck Nessa]

Hah!!

[A Lark Ascending]

This is selling by the bucket load, apparently (app-arently, ho! ho!):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-app-reviews/10075579/Beethovens-9th-Symphony-app-review.html

I believe there's a glossary of profound things to say while listening if you want to impress the neighbours like 'such touch! such tone!', 'Fricsay saved my soul' and 'The way Bernstein blends the strings is simply sublime, darling.'

[JSngry]

Well, that's not a personal mix tape, is it.

[king ubu]

friggin' Fricsay's frigidly freckled fickleness!

Edited September 4, 2013 by king ubu

[JSngry]

am i right in thinking that that "thing" is just a DG label pimptool?

Not claiming any expertise here, quite the opposite, but I do have the Bernstein and find it mostly flaccid, which sorta works to make the 3rd movement all "pretty" and shit, but not even sure at that how much of that is due to the clarity of the recording. Besides, "pretty"...not interested.

And what is this "Best With Headphones" bizzola, eh? Best HEARD LIVE, I should think.

[king ubu]

Furtwängler, Bayreuth 1951 is amazing

[Rooster_Ties]

I wanna hear an honest to goodnes mash-up of different, well-known Beethoven themes and melodies (symphonic, chamber, solo-piano -- the late string quartets -- you name it!!). Semi-seriouly.

[king ubu]

with beats or without?

[A Lark Ascending]

am i right in thinking that that "thing" is just a DG label pimptool?

I've read some very good reviews of it (and David Owen Norris can be trusted to comment in an unstuffy manner; he's a regular on UK radio and TV programmes that try to explain classical music). I'd like to think it would use technology to help the listener unskilled in the mechanics of music through things like musical structure, how the composer develops and transforms themes, where Beethoven was breaking the rules, where building on tradition etc. That might all be obvious to those who can read music and can see inversions etc but to the unschooled listener, we miss a lot without having it pointed out (Anthony Hopkins book on Beethoven's symphonies does this brilliantly and unpretentiously). I'd have thought modern technology could do an excellent job of, say, following the transformations of a cell or theme and explaining exactly what the composer does with it. I'd love to see something like Sibelius 7 or one of Schoenberg's serial works unpacked this way.

I suspect the 'different versions' selling point is just there to suck people in. So much musical chatter seems to be about that vaguer, fluffier side of things because its easier to talk about.

As for the specific question, 'COULD you make up a mix tape of your favourite interpretations of each movement from different sources?' Yes you could. Not sure why you'd want to.

Edited September 5, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[Stefan Wood]

Furtwängler, Bayreuth 1951 is amazing

Is this the one?

And has anyone heard this one:

[JSngry]

I've long known just the Toscanini reading, which was enough for me, until Chuck hipped me to the Horenstein on Vox (and a later, live) version on YouTube, both of which are about as anti-Toscanini as can be, and both of which retain the full vigor and detail content as Toscanini's. The Bernstein on DG, though, just falls flat for me in spite of the marvelously clear recording quality (although if you get it even halfway right, this is one of those pieces where there's so much "there" there that you'd almost have to try to fuck it up in order to actually do so).

Neither Toscanini nor Horenstein are on that DG thing, though, so I'm left wondering if this isn't one of those label pimptools, even if it is useful, which I've no doubt that it is. Even if I learn the technical details, from it, am I going to be encouraged/directed towards non DG recordings? If not, then short term win for the tool, long term loss for the tooled.

But that brings us back around to the opening point - if/once one has heard enough interpretations of the piece, can one perhaps prefer one movement of one reading to the same movement of another in such a way that a compilation of preferences could create an ideal personal performance of the entire piece? Or does everybody get every movement "just right" within its own performance? Or do people just not think about this kind of music like that?

Furtwängler, Bayreuth 1951 is amazing

Is this the one?

Yeah, is that the one?

[A Lark Ascending]

This sort of thing always seems like going to Chatres Cathedral and then obsessing on the different interpretations of the ten guide books you've got.

No doubt each guidebook can help, the differences between them can be interesting. But the point is Chartres Cathedral, not the guidebooks.

[king ubu]

Furtwängler, Bayreuth 1951 is amazing

Is this the one?

Yeah, is that the one?

Yes, that should be it. Personnel is identical at least. I've got it as part of the big Legacy Furtwängler coffin ... no expert on his discography, really. Maybe someone more in the know can definitely confirm

Naxos also has it, it seems (some prefer their sonics):

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.111060

[Rooster_Ties]

This sort of thing always seems like going to Chatres Cathedral and then obsessing on the different interpretations of the ten guide books you've got.

No doubt each guidebook can help, the differences between them can be interesting. But the point is Chartres Cathedral, not the guidebooks.

AMEN to that!!!

[jeffcrom]

This sort of thing always seems like going to Chatres Cathedral and then obsessing on the different interpretations of the ten guide books you've got.

No doubt each guidebook can help, the differences between them can be interesting. But the point is Chartres Cathedral, not the guidebooks.

Lots of folks have disagreed with you on this position; my turn!

Your analogy is wrong. It's like touring Chartres with different tour guides. Imagine that you have a guide who doesn't turn on all the lights, hurries you past the Belle Verrière as if it's just another window, and doesn't seem to have much knowledge of the history and symbolism of the carvings of the Portail Royal. I would prefer a guide with deep, broad knowledge of the Cathedral, and with the taste and instinct to know just how long to linger at every window, tomb, and statue. In both cases, you've seen Chartres, but the experiences aren't equally satisfying.

I agree that the quest for the perfect interpretation can become an obsession, but.... Here's a personal story. Some years ago I was shopping in Tower Records in Atlanta. I already had two or three different recordings of Barber's Adagio for Strings - not that I had sought them out; it just worked out that way. I walked into the classical room just as the Adagio started playing over the sound system. It was the Thomas Schippers/NY Phil. version, recorded for Columbia in 1965. I had an immediate, visceral reaction to the music, stronger than on past hearings of the piece. I didn't know who it was, and I wasn't analyzing the performance in any intellectual way. I was just standing there dumbstruck, with a lump in my throat, and (I'll admit) brushing away tears. Needless to say, they sold a CD that day. The Schippers Adagio remains a different, and more powerful, experience for me that any other version I've heard.

And the Furtwangler 1951 is my favorite Beethoven 9 as well - not that I've heard as many as some folks here.

[king ubu]

:tup

[JSngry]

So...interpretation = tour guide/guide book?

That seems like it would make for not much fun, like ok, here's what it is, isn't that grand, now aren't you glad you came, back on the bus, thanks, do come again, and tell a friend while you're at it.

I mean, that's all very...functional, but it kind of reduces the music to being Sound For People Who Can't Read A Score instead of Here's Some Great Ideas And Here's ONE Way To Look At Them (There Will Be Others!).

And there's a lot of "classical music" that can be reduced to Sound For People Who Can't Read A Score without too much of an overall loss. It is what it is, math and architecture and all that('s good), and you know that due to time/place that was (more or less) the primary intent anyway and just don't fuck it up and it's Good Enough, if you want more, hey nice to have time for that in this day and time, so smoke 'em if you got 'em, and if you don't, oh well. At this point in time, not that big of a deal, really. And becoming even less of one.

But you get something like this, no, there is so much music there, so many ideas, so much that does not have One Clear-Cut Meaning (because, trying to make it real? compared to what, exactly?), that, hell, Failure To Consider Before Interpreting is just a cop-out.

My one Beethoven joke (and a historically inaccurate one at that) is that he was blessed to be deaf as he entered the last years of his life because he didn't have to listen to cats in rehearsal ask if him did he MEAN to write this note here I think this MIGHT be a copyist error, can you check it out please?

"Culturally" worlds apart, but if one can dig the harmonic gamesmanship of, say, a top-shelf Dewey Redman solo, then late Beethoven should be a delight. And vice-versa. Changes, baby, changes! At that level, it's not "classical" and it's not "jazz", it's music - setting up expectations and resolving them in ways, all (as in not just and/or only some) kinds of ways. It's not "hearing" versus "feeling", it's hearingfeelingfeelinghearing! That deafass motherfucker couldn't "hear" shit by then, but he could HEAR those vibrations (literally). Changes = nothing but vibrations (literally).

Don't dampen those overtones!

Just ordered the Furtwangler. If Ubu & Jeff both give it the rave, I want to hear it. Used copies cheap aplenty on Amazon.

[Stefan Wood]

All i want to know is if the 54 version lives up to all the praise it has received,

[A Lark Ascending]

This sort of thing always seems like going to Chatres Cathedral and then obsessing on the different interpretations of the ten guide books you've got.

No doubt each guidebook can help, the differences between them can be interesting. But the point is Chartres Cathedral, not the guidebooks.

Lots of folks have disagreed with you on this position; my turn!

Your analogy is wrong. It's like touring Chartres with different tour guides. Imagine that you have a guide who doesn't turn on all the lights, hurries you past the Belle Verrière as if it's just another window, and doesn't seem to have much knowledge of the history and symbolism of the carvings of the Portail Royal. I would prefer a guide with deep, broad knowledge of the Cathedral, and with the taste and instinct to know just how long to linger at every window, tomb, and statue. In both cases, you've seen Chartres, but the experiences aren't equally satisfying.

I agree that the quest for the perfect interpretation can become an obsession, but.... Here's a personal story. Some years ago I was shopping in Tower Records in Atlanta. I already had two or three different recordings of Barber's Adagio for Strings - not that I had sought them out; it just worked out that way. I walked into the classical room just as the Adagio started playing over the sound system. It was the Thomas Schippers/NY Phil. version, recorded for Columbia in 1965. I had an immediate, visceral reaction to the music, stronger than on past hearings of the piece. I didn't know who it was, and I wasn't analyzing the performance in any intellectual way. I was just standing there dumbstruck, with a lump in my throat, and (I'll admit) brushing away tears. Needless to say, they sold a CD that day. The Schippers Adagio remains a different, and more powerful, experience for me that any other version I've heard.

And the Furtwangler 1951 is my favorite Beethoven 9 as well - not that I've heard as many as some folks here.

I don't doubt that people of long listening experience will develop preferences; there is one poster here who often comments on different performances of baroque music who I read with real interest because he is talking from depth of experience rather than parroting what he's read elsewhere about a particular performer.

I don't doubt that people who grew up with these 'classic' performances when they were new or recent (or with them played round the house as kids) will have had their way of hearing the music shaped that way. The one composer I've gone through more versions than I can remember is Sibelius. I heard him first in some cheapo reissues in the early 70s of 50s recordings. By the late 70s I was dissatisfied with the technical limitations of the recordings and so tried some newer versions. I got better sounding versions but none satisfied because Collins' way with the music was etched on my brain. It's not that I think Collins had a unique vision (I suspect he was just one of the first to get a full cycle to LP) - it's just the way I heard it first (for the same reason I play Kubelik's Mahler, Boult's RVW etc). I think that some who proclaim the objective superiority of X's interpretations are often overlooking the fact that the power of that interpretation comes from where it fell in their listening experience rather than anything inherently superior in the interpretation.

I certainly don't doubt the brilliance of the musicians in question in their time - as musicians, pioneer interpreters of new music and of the recording of music.

What I do disagree with is the idea that these recordings possess some objective special quality that we must go back to listen to. I think that's pure Romanticism (some one a while back asserted that the best way to appreciate Bruckner was through the classic accounts; nonsense - the same can be achieved through modern recordings). Listening to older recordings is an option, not an imperative.

Yet when I read the classical threads here they constantly default into a highly conservative deification of old masters. And this sadly leads to some newer listeners thinking that this is the way you have to listen to classical music. Hoovering up ten Beethoven cycles in five minutes and then pontificating on which versions are fine.

Part of the problem is record company propaganda - nothing suits them finer than a belief that we all need ten Beethoven cycles. That way they can recycle their catalogues endlessly.

In the end I just find it tiresome to see a thread appear on, say, Bartok, get excited that I might learn some things about the music itself and then see the whole thread rapidly degenerate into 'I've got this version' or 'you ought to hear this version'. I lack the expertise to be able to comment beyond the impact the music itself makes on me personally; but after 35 years listening I'm pretty sure that most of those 'whose best?' discussions are pretty superficial.

[king ubu]

Yet when I read the classical threads here they constantly default into a highly conservative deification of old masters. And this sadly leads to some newer listeners thinking that this is the way you have to listen to classical music. Hoovering up ten Beethoven cycles in five minutes and then pontificating on which versions are fine.

I certainly object to this description of what I assume refers to my posts of some weeks back ... I don't think I ever pontificated (cool word, btw, I'll keep it in mind when I read your next sermon ) about anything here. I might have some opinions but I sure am no pontificator.

[A Lark Ascending]

I agree that the quest for the perfect interpretation can become an obsession, but.... Here's a personal story. Some years ago I was shopping in Tower Records in Atlanta. I already had two or three different recordings of Barber's Adagio for Strings - not that I had sought them out; it just worked out that way. I walked into the classical room just as the Adagio started playing over the sound system. It was the Thomas Schippers/NY Phil. version, recorded for Columbia in 1965. I had an immediate, visceral reaction to the music, stronger than on past hearings of the piece. I didn't know who it was, and I wasn't analyzing the performance in any intellectual way. I was just standing there dumbstruck, with a lump in my throat, and (I'll admit) brushing away tears. Needless to say, they sold a CD that day. The Schippers Adagio remains a different, and more powerful, experience for me that any other version I've heard.

Apologies for a double quote.

I understand this totally. You are expressing the very particular experience you had with a particular recording at a particular point in your musical exploration. We all experience music differently - different recordings, different contexts etc.

The issue I have with the 'versions' bun fights is that the 'for me' is so often left out.

Edited September 6, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[king ubu]

Well, what really is there, other than "for me"? Cogito ergo sum.

[paul secor]

I agree that the quest for the perfect interpretation can become an obsession, but.... Here's a personal story. Some years ago I was shopping in Tower Records in Atlanta. I already had two or three different recordings of Barber's Adagio for Strings - not that I had sought them out; it just worked out that way. I walked into the classical room just as the Adagio started playing over the sound system. It was the Thomas Schippers/NY Phil. version, recorded for Columbia in 1965. I had an immediate, visceral reaction to the music, stronger than on past hearings of the piece. I didn't know who it was, and I wasn't analyzing the performance in any intellectual way. I was just standing there dumbstruck, with a lump in my throat, and (I'll admit) brushing away tears. Needless to say, they sold a CD that day. The Schippers Adagio remains a different, and more powerful, experience for me that any other version I've heard.

Apologies for a double quote.

I understand this totally. You are expressing the very particular experience you had with a particular recording at a particular point in your musical exploration. We all experience music differently - different recordings, different contexts etc.

The issue I have with the 'versions' bun fights is that the 'for me' is so often left out.

When someone makes a post, I assume that it's their opinion - unless it's a discographical fact or something similar. It would be redundant for each post to include something like "for me". Can't recall seeing "for me" in many of the opinions in your posts.

Edited September 6, 2013 by paul secor

[JSngry]

So, I guess the proper answer to the original question is "could, but shouldn't, or if so, keep results private"?

Complicated question, but a simple answer!