Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Leo Brouwer - Estudios Sencillos - again

A few years back I posted a Youtube of all 20 of Leo Brouwer's Estudios Sencillos which had the great virtue of showing the score along with the music.  I liked the pieces well enough that I got the score and was surprised to find that instead of time signatures, make that "metronome markings"  Brouwer had given a time duration indication at the end of the pieces, instead.  Those led me to the conclusion that that recording was, in almost every case, played far faster than the composer intended.  When a composer goes to the bother of giving an exact or close to exact tempo indication, deviating from that is a distortion of the piece.  

In the time between then and now, I've listened to several performances and haven't found any that, throughout the 20 pieces match Brouwer's time indications.  This series played by Patrik Kleemola does a better job with many of them though there are some that are, as well, played too fast.   I interesting to watch someone play the pieces, too, but I miss the score.   It's always interesting to see what different players will do with #20 in which Brouwer gives the player a bit of leeway in terms of improvisational choice. 



If the whole set won't play on this link, here's the link to the set

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