THE EARLIEST PRE-ELECTRIC recordings by legendary artists are generally fascinating, especially if they were made well enough and are in good enough condition to give you some real ideas of how they sang or played, the idea that you could name one or, more as "the greatest" isn't artistic judgement, it's ad copy.
Ephraim Zimbalist (the violinist, not his son the actor) and Fritz Kreislers' 1915 performance of the Bach Double Concerto is an interesting recording by two legendary violinists of that era, interesting for a lot of things but as historically informed Bach performance, not so much. On the other hand there are recordings of legendary performer-composers such as Eugen Ysaye playing their music and others such as Joseph Joachim playing music composed for them by composers such as Brahms, pieces they played in front of and sometimes with the composers. Some of the early singers were still impressive performers of pieces they sang for the composers in the period before recording. Emma Eames, Adelina Patti, Pol Pancon, etc. Alas, there were no students of Bach or Mozart or even Beethoven alive to make it to even the earliest recordings. If the students of their students of their students are a dim reflection of the performance practice of them is highly doubtful. We know that even Liszt, answering a critic, admitted that he played Beethoven, who he had heard and played for, in an audience pleasing way instead of as Beethoven would have.
In regard to the comment, while there's no way to really know, Joachim's Bach recording of the g minor adagio from the Suite BWV 1001strikes me as closer to the performance practice as described by contemporary musicians of Bach's time. I'd rather hear either Zimbalist (who really was, by evidence of the recordings, a great violinist) or others in repertoire more suited to their style of playing. But when I go looking for the early stuff the most interesting to me is hearing composers playing their own music or those who composers chose to premier their music and who learned it under the composers' instruction playing it. Fritz Kreisler also shines better in repertoire closer to his own time, including his own composition. His use of vibrato and his choice of tempos in Brahms is especially fascinating.
-------------------
Though I haven't really listened to a lot of them and haven't really studied them, I have come to have my opinion of SOME of the player piano rolls recorded by composers who were great performers changed for the better. Those of Enrique Granados strike me as genuine artistic artifacts. Here is one he made in 1908 of his own piece.
Quejas, ó la maja y el ruiseñor
I've always thought Granados was a far more significant composer than he is generally considered to be, though some of that may have been his untimely death when the Germans sank the Sussex at the height of his creative life. The witness stories that he died trying to save his wife Amparo - neither of whom would have been on the boat if Woodrow Wilson hadn't requested he play a recital for him - might make a tragic opera.
For comparison, here's an acoustic recording of him (not perhaps played back to its best possible effect) playing an improvisation on El Pelele in 1912.
One of the comments says that this recording has been re-done using the Zenph computer system in which acoustic recordings are processed by computer analysis to reproduce the notes, the pitch, the duration, the volume, the attack and their arrangement to be played back on a piano by the computer. I haven't heard that, given how impressed I've been with the piano rolls maybe that would convince me too. The one recording I've heard some of by that method was done in order to get a Stereo version of Glenn Gould's "First Goldberg," a project I can't say would interest me much to hear. I am not a Glenn Gould fan, especially not his Bach or Mozart or Beethoven playing. Especially not those composers. Even given the recent research into tempo from that period which might, AND THAT'S A BIG MIGHT, justify some AND THAT'S A VERY DEFINITE SOME of the slow tempos Gould was infamous for there are other aspects of his playing that I can't tolerate, especially his playing music he disdained for commercial reasons and his self-indulgences, even extending to altering the composers' note choices.
Anyway, I think I've gotten this topic out of my system for a while. Kind of makes me miss being an active musician because of the pandemic. At my age nostalgia is fatal to continuing the artistic effort as opposed to wallowing in my own past. I think I'll go see what Stephen Drury and the Callihumpians are getting up to these days.
UPDATE: Well, there's a reason I call him "Stupy" a number of them, actually, one is that he was stupid enough to let me know how I could get under his thin skin when he picks a fight with me. If he were smart he wouldn't pick fights with me and he especially wouldn't let me know how to annoy him when he tries to.
As to his accusations of antisemitism, I figured that one out. He's such a jerk that he's always annoying people and if he can pretend they don't like him because of his ethnicity he doesn't have to face the fact it's because he's an asshole.
No comments:
Post a Comment