Dream concert

[Rod]

Originally posted by BKistner:

It's happeing on that emotional rail. It's the "voice". And it is a new soul-wise quality he brought to people. Händel did not bring anything new, soul-wise.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. There is a very sincere and 'human' quality I get from Handel and Beethoven to an extent much higher than from any other composers. I suggest it is this sincerity of expression that brings us closer to the 'soul'. Combined with their supreme command over form and content, I, for one, ask no more from this art form.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by BKistner:
Did i say Monk? Did i say Paganini? Another 2 dream concerts. I want to hear both live.
[/B]

I was fortunate enough to hear Monk live several times at the Five Spot cafe in New York in the late fifties. Quite an experience.

[BKistner]

Rod,
i am not downranking Händel except in the eye-opener, horizon-widener, mental-innovator game. I am not claiming he had no voice of his own.

I am claiming he did not bring something new. He brought to ultimate perfection what was already there, according to the historian i am referring to and according to me own feeling, if the latter has any relevance here.
Bach provided 2 new qualities: 1) he freed music from utility character, he ranked music up to being absolute music. 2) His music had exactly the sort of religiousness and devoutness to God the people's hearts were longing for at that time: he prayed thru his playing.
Should i dig up new details, i tell about it in the other thread.

What i was primarily getting at here: Händel has his own voice. Bach has his own, very different one. What i claim: you are sensible and receptible to Händel's voice and idiome but not to Bach ones. It has to do with your own emotional compatibility. The same with me: i am compatible with Bix', Bird's, Trane's, Monk's voice, but not with Satchmo's voice.With Coleman Hawkins' but not with Lester Young's voice.
And that's fine with me. I am not perfect and, well aware of my own subjectivity and limitedness, i embrace it

Chazz,
i have some Monk live recordings on vinyl, on original pressings. Monk Live at the Five Spot, among them. Atmosphere is quite dense, one can tell from the ambience. Yes, quite an experience all the more as i am hooked on his play. Voice thing.

Recently i was treated with a mean derogatory statement by some guests, , die-hard "classical" lovers, they measured him by what they were used to from "classical" pianists. , die-hard "classical" lovers, they measured him by what they were used to from "classical" pianists: "Monk is anti-piano"
So i treated them with some Monk, very early one, when he was still playing Stride (as a proof he could do it by the book if he wanted) and then with the real stuff.
The gal who made the statement and another guy guy left soon (not mourned, i am not fond of temple desecration in my place), the more open-minded ones stayed and tried to figure out "what's this Monk stuff about, after all". All admitted (a pianist among them) that they never really heard a man tackle a piano like this and with such strange but stunning harmonic and rhythmic results. The pianists was stunned most: there are not so many blue notes Monk is playing, why is this so Blues-soaked? He finally swallowed my me-layman's statement: it's Monk's touch and rhythmics and phrasing which are sufficient alone to soak the music in Blues, the blue notes are adornment.
Monk could use his both hands independently, even his fingers independently to a degree Glenn Gould would have been envious of. The right hand did know what the left hand did but didn't care. And inverse . And that's one of Monk's ways to create those incredible rhytmic tension. BTW, IMO he was the best accompanying pianist of modern Jazz, provided the musician soloing did not get confused by what Monk considered best to help the solist musically. Like feeding chards sounding completely weird if played alone, at a complete weird moment. Lifting some mediocre solos up three classes by that. Miles Davis however was confused so much, he forbade Monk to accompany him on the famous Xmas session 1954.

For Rod and Peter and all who play the piano themselves: Monk had adapted the habit of whipping his *stretched* fingers down on the keys. Of course, not a light and sensible touch is posible that way. No pearls-on-a-string touch. But OTOH, it is very percussive and also forcing the piano to overtones it is not eager to produce otherwise. It's like driving a guitar amp ito distortion.

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Greets,
Bernhard

[Rod]

Originally posted by BKistner:
Rod,
i am not downranking Händel except in the eye-opener, horizon-widener, mental-innovator game. I am not claiming he had no voice of his own.

I am claiming he did not bring something new. He brought to ultimate perfection what was already there, according to the historian i am referring to and according to me own feeling, if the latter has any relevance here.
Bach provided 2 new qualities: 1) he freed music from utility character, he ranked music up to being absolute music. 2) His music had exactly the sort of religiousness and devoutness to God the people's hearts were longing for at that time: he prayed thru his playing.
Should i dig up new details, i tell about it in the other thread.

What i was primarily getting at here: Händel has his own voice. Bach has his own, very different one. What i claim: you are sensible and receptible to Händel's voice and idiome but not to Bach ones. It has to do with your own emotional compatibility. The same with me: i am compatible with Bix', Bird's, Trane's, Monk's voice, but not with Satchmo's voice.With Coleman Hawkins' but not with Lester Young's voice.
And that's fine with me. I am not perfect and, well aware of my own subjectivity and limitedness, i embrace it

Well I have just spent a little time in the CM dept of Virgin Megastore here in Oxford Street, listening to some Bach chamber music. Though I had not heard this music before I could instantly recognise it as Bach's, for it's sheer lack of character and melodic interest, it came across as almost robotic.

Perhaps this is perfect music, where any character associated with the composer has been successfully extinguished from his compositions. If this is so I'll stick to the imperfect variety.

As I have said before the Parthenon was deliberately constructed using 'imperfect' dimentions (eg subtle curves instead of straight lines in the columns, some of which were not spaced equidistant with the others). This was done because the visual effect of using what one would at first expect would have the unexpected and paradoxical result of making the construction look 'wrong' to the viewer - and thus these 'imperfections' were introduced by the architects to make it look 'right'. I suggest that perhaps same goes for music. Perhaps Bach is ignoring (or cannot 'see') that the result of this perfect manner of construction produces something quite cold, undynamic and unengaging.

With respect, you do not want to know what I think about Jazz!

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited December 13, 2002).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
Well I have just spent a little time in the CM dept of Virgin Megastore here in Oxford Street, listening to some Bach chamber music. Though I had not heard this music before I could instantly recognise it as Bach's, for it's sheer lack of character and melodic interest, it came across as almost robotic.

Perhaps this is perfect music, where any character associated with the composer has been successfully extinguished from his compositions. If this is so I'll stick to the imperfect variety.

As I have said before the Parthenon was deliberately constructed using 'imperfect' dimentions (eg subtle curves instead of straight lines in the columns, some of which were not spaced equidistant with the others). This was done because the visual effect of using what one would at first expect would have the unexpected and paradoxical result of making the construction look 'wrong' to the viewer - and thus these 'imperfections' were introduced by the architects to make it look 'right'. I suggest that perhaps same goes for music. Perhaps Bach is ignoring (or cannot 'see') that the result of this perfect manner of construction produces something quite cold, undynamic and unengaging.

With respect, you do not want to know what I think about Jazz!

Probably not, but can you admit the probability that there is something emotionally in Bach which you do not pick up and others do?

[BKistner]

Chazz,
hmmm, yes agreed.'fraid there is some inner urge growing to say something not-so-pleasant.

Rod,

i do not want to convince you. I could now ask you which performances, then i could go into the shop, see if they have it, probably find as boring as you did. Futile.

Today i had a phone conversations with my friend Manfred, he was not fully convinced there are no other performers up to the job, and he was curious and mking his own experiences. Task was : Violin sonatas and partitas. He went thru quite a number and also bought some from the narrowed choice. We both independently ended up with the same two musicians, one playing it with the period bow and one with the modern, straight bow.
We both agreed, these two and noone else comes near.

So if you say, you went into the store and listened to some Bach chamber music, and expected something good is almost as futile as playing the lottery the first time and expect to win the jackpot.

Then, inspired by you, i listened to quite some Händel meanwhile and i find it an enrichment. Of course, i am picky with performers, and i took care not tolisten to the dummies and newbies. But it is amazing to me that i did not reject any of the pieces i heard because of the performance. Even on the radio when i had no acess to performance choice. It always was atleast pleasant to listen to, of course there were differnces noticeable, but no musician played the golf ball into the Rough, all kept their balls on the Fairway and atleast reached the Green.

With Bach, this is different, remember my overview concerning Bach is bigger than concerning Händel. With Bach, only very few musicians keep their ball on the Fairway, the rest is in the Rough, seeking the ball and not finding it and one or two get the ball on the Green.

According to math, probability calculus, one would expect about the same Gaussian distribution of performance quality for both composers if both composers present about the same challenges for the musician. Bach is another class of challenge to the musician IMO. And i am not talking about manual ability.

You might say by the same statistics that Bach is inferior.

But that leads to nothing, even subjective judgements on performance do not matter because my and your understanding what a good performance is may differ dramatically although in some case it may be aligned.
I remember quite clearly, before i left this forum more than a year ago (because of your high-volume intolerance, that must be said) that you recommended an Eroica performance to me which gave me the creeps. It was Jordi Savall cond. Les Concerts des Nations with period instruments .. and i thot, why did heenter conducting, he was such a wonderful performer for Bach and other Baroque master on the cello and viola da gamba. So there.

I would expect you react as massively negative on some performances i recommend to you. I would not have a problem with that, you are entitled to your own preferences. But you should pay that same respect to other members personal preferences (take Chazz or me for practising) and express your thoughts in a less derogatory way, in a way that is not understood as desecration of the other's temple.

"my fax copier is better than your mobile phone" pissing contests do not interest me, i said so before. I just wonder why you have such an inner urge to see your highly subjective point of view commonly accepted as absolute truth and why you persist to smash that in the face of other members, Chazz and me for instance.

For the record, i am adressing not literal statements, i am adressing how your argumentation arrives at me (and AFAICO from Chazz's responses, at Chazz).

Do you believe such pissing contests are enjoyed by the community? Why don't we be constructive and family together, why don't we try to inspire each other and find out what we have in common instead of what separates us ... and what else secondary war places exist!

I already found out what we have in common: we both are very fond of Beethoven and of a particular performer of Beethoven, Paul Badura-Skoda. That's great, that's a start.

I invite you to visit me. Should your way lead you to Munich on day, give me a note, drop by, and we can listen to some music together, e.g. Bach, if you like. But, to be clear about that, i am not intending to crusade you for Bach. Ok?

As we are on it (and i intentionally ask here, i refuse to sweettalk you into this), i would be terribly interested in getting a CD copy of the Badura-Skoda Beethoven performances on the period instrument. After my friend introduced me to Badura-Skoda's Beethoven play on the modern pianoforte and i found his way to play Beethoven suits me a lot, i am curious, wrong, dying to listen to his performance on the period fortepiano.
I would gladly buy it, just, it is out of print and noone seems to have stock anymore. If i could get a copy from you and pay for your expenses, i would still have to find out how to send money to Badura-Skoda directly to cover the artist's salary. Do you see any possibility how this could be arranged? MP3 is out for me, it is killing the music IMO.

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Greets,
Bernhard

[Joy]

Can't we just enjoy Bach's music for what it is without taking it apart completely. I, for one, truly like his music. It's a pleasure when it comes on the radio, you can always tell who it is, he had his own type of style. Some of his music is absolutely beautiful while another may be just pleasant to listen to. I like his 'never ending notes', at times so fast and his beautiful melodies. Just a pleasure to listen to.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Probably not, but can you admit the probability that there is something emotionally in Bach which you do not pick up and others do?

Yes, I have just elaborated this point in the 'appropriate' chain.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Rod]

Originally posted by BKistner:
Chazz,
hmmm, yes agreed.'fraid there is some inner urge growing to say something not-so-pleasant.

I have nobly resisted this very urge myself with regard to some of your 'essays'. So we are equal in this respect.

With regard to your latest opus, which I read with rather more interest as it was mercifully free of Jazz references, I have only time to answer the point regarding Saval's recording of the Eroica (the Handel and Bach issue getting, I accept, too much exposure here). Firstly My recommentation primarily concerned the issue of tempo, especially with the first movement, which is so often laboured (certainly not con brio as requested). Saval's is certainly the most spirited account I have heard in this respect. The period instruments lend a colour and edge that one does not ever hear in the modern equivilent. I'm not into 'Wagnerian' Beethoven, whereas I know many others are. There is this duality within the Beethovenian scene. Not that I want a dryly detached performance, but rather something of the true Enlightenment spirit - airy yet firey and dynamic as opposed to the post war excess of lard was have been plagued with for years.

Originally posted by BKistner:

MP3 is out for me, it is killing the music IMO.

Then, alas, you will not be partaking of the Badura-Skoda (on Fortepiano) mp3s I will be uploading next year? It is the collosal amount of garbage released each year that is killing Classial Music, whilst the good Beethoven stuff on 'display' at the rare page almost never gets performed or recorded.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited December 14, 2002).]

[spaceray]

"my fax copier is better than your mobile phone" pissing contests do not interest me, .


Do you believe such pissing contests are enjoyed by the community?

[/B]

I don't understand this,as far as I have read
Rod has never suggested that you should feel about Bach as he does,he simply states his opinion take it or leave it.
But his opinion really seems to annoy you?

[Rod]

Originally posted by spaceray:
I don't understand this,as far as I have read
Rod has never suggested that you should feel about Bach as he does,he simply states his opinion take it or leave it.
But his opinion really seems to annoy you?

I hadn't read that line in his latest 'opus'. Perhaps my last post would not have been so polite if I had. If he had read all of my comments on this matter he would have realised that the status quo is already a pissing match - a match that Bach has clearly won in the music community. I am merely offering an alternative assessment of the situation - take it or leave it. I don't take as gospel everything the 'professors' tell me with regard to matters of musical taste.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited December 14, 2002).]

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Rod:
Well I have just spent a little time in the CM dept of Virgin Megastore here in Oxford Street, listening to some Bach chamber music. Though I had not heard this music before I could instantly recognise it as Bach's, for it's sheer lack of character and melodic interest, it came across as almost robotic.

Perhaps you are not tuned mentally to the melodic interests that Bach poses. One has to hear the melodic derivations from one voice to the other and on account of insensitive performances and poor sound engineering these points are not emphasized as they should. Without the proper emphasis on the right parts at the right time good contrapuntal music sounds like noise.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

Perhaps you are not tuned mentally to the melodic interests that Bach poses. One has to hear the melodic derivations from one voice to the other and on account of insensitive performances and poor sound engineering these points are not emphasized as they should. Without the proper emphasis on the right parts at the right time good contrapuntal music sounds like noise.

The notes are all too perfectly placed Sorrano - everything has this almost mathematical precission and thus a sence of predictablity and monotony always creeps in to ears used to more engaging music. Beethoven's textures are very robust with 'holes' and fermatas (pauses). And Handel is more akin to Beethoven in this respect. To be honest I see very little room for matters of interpretation with Bach regardless.

Every bar from Beethoven is composed to attract the musical attention and engage the mind, which is why Beethoven (and indeed Handel) is so poor 'background music', but Bach is perfect in this respect (and why Jazz fans always have a few Bach pieces in their collections). Paradoxically for all Bach's cleverness his music comes across to 'easy' on the ear for me, as does virtually any Romantic piece. To be honest I think all eras of CM composition suffer with this problem. Which is why I can only 'stomach' Handel and Beethoven to any significant degree, the others simply aren't consistanty interesting enough. Even with B and H it has to be done right - I heard Barenboim commit murder with the Pathetique earlier today. Think I'm being too fussy?

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited December 15, 2002).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
Every bar from Beethoven is composed to attract the musical attention and engage the mind, which is why Beethoven (and indeed Handel) is so poor 'background music', but Bach is perfect in this respect (and why Jazz fans always have a few Bach pieces in their collections). Paradoxically for all Bach's cleverness his music comes across to 'easy' on the ear for me, as does virtually any Romantic piece. To be honest I think all eras of CM composition suffer with this problem. Which is why I can only 'stomach' Handel and Beethoven to any significant degree, the others simply aren't consistanty interesting enough. Even with B and H it has to be done right - I heard Barenboim commit murder with the Pathetique earlier today. Think I'm being too fussy?

I don't think fussiness is the issue. As I think we have agreed elsewhere, you don't pick up what is in Bach's music, which goes far beyond simple mathematical correctness, for whatever reason you don't pick it up. It may be simply a matter of taste.

It is for you to decide whether or not you are being too fussy, seeing as you can only 'stomach' Handel and Beethoven in a glorious culture of Western music that goes back centuries and includes several other geniuses and many great composers. To me it would be a little sad to only be able to listen to a limited number of pieces by two composers, in strict order, and to only have rock and roll to turn to for some variety (while disparaging jazz!).

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
To me it would be a little sad to only be able to listen to a limited number of pieces by two composers, in strict order, and to only have rock and roll to turn to for some variety (while disparaging jazz!).

Absolutely, there is a wealth of glorious music out there both before and after Beethoven and to select just two of admittedly the highest peaks, but to dismiss the rest as boring and irrelevant seems rather narrow. It is certainly not the approach taken by Beethoven himself whose interest stretched back to Palestrina and beyond.

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'Man know thyself'