Mendelsshon Plays Beethoven

[mspaceray]

Mendelsshon played Beethoven Piano Concertos in Rome in the early 1830s but he complained that the musicians were not up to the challange,why would this have been,I should have thought Rome would have a plethora of superb musicians?

[Rutradelusasa]

Maybe he was refering to something like their touch. Italian orchestras were already used to play lots of Rossini, wich required a light, agile touch, often refered as the Italian style. To play Beethoven, an orchestra needed much more emotional depht than Rossini, even tough they also had to be fast and accurate, they should have much more intense dinamics, stronger fortes, softer pianos.

That could be it as it could not... Is that quote all Mendelssohn said?

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by mspaceray:
Mendelsshon played Beethoven Piano Concertos in Rome in the early 1830s but he complained that the musicians were not up to the challange,why would this have been,I should have thought Rome would have a plethora of superb musicians?

msp,
Even before I read rutra..'s reply, I had the same thought that he expressed. Italian and German music underwent parallel development, and the requirements of each (esp. in Beethoven!!) were quite different. I should have imagined that the Leipzeig Gewandhaus under Mendelssohn may have attacked Rossini a touch heavily in return. Just a thought..
Regards, Gurn

[mspaceray]

I'm curious to know just how much rehearsal time a professional musician would be allowed for an unfamiliar piece of music?

[mspaceray]

sorry it took so long to get this quote,Peter Mercer-Taylor said in his Life Of Mendelsshon
"The impoverishment of Romes musical life became clear at once""the orchestra are beneath contempt...the paple singers are old and unmusical...and do not execute even the most established pieces properly""
Later Mendelssohn met with Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann who had known LVB well and together they lamented"there was not a person in Milan who cared to hear Beethovens music.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by mspaceray:
sorry it took so long to get this quote,Peter Mercer-Taylor said in his Life Of Mendelsshon
"The impoverishment of Romes musical life became clear at once""the orchestra are beneath contempt...the paple singers are old and unmusical...and do not execute even the most established pieces properly""
Later Mendelssohn met with Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann who had known LVB well and together they lamented"there was not a person in Milan who cared to hear Beethovens music.

I read somewhere that when Toscanini took over La Scala in Milan almost a century later, similar conditions prevailed. The orchestral playing was sloppy, the singers were sometimes out of synch with the orchestra, the audience routinely conversed with one another throughout the performance, etc. Toccanini imposed order and discipline with draconian force. Perhaps these are two isolated instances of Italian performance sloth, or perhaps that was the way it was in general in Italy during the Romantic and early modern eras. It seems odd that if the latter is true, Verdi would have stood for it. (?)

The Wagner Ring recordings that Furtwaengler later made with the Italian radio rchestra, RAI, show some orchestral sloppiness also. Of course this is only a radio orchestra, but the horns are even out of tune in some places. To this day, I've never heard an Italian orchestra mentioned among the world's best. I hope I'm not offending anyone of Italian extraction. We're only talking here of orchestral execution, not of the great creative achievements of this nation.

[John Rasmussen]

Harold Schonberg in The Great Conductors spends several pages describing how bad the Italian orchestras were. His most serious charge against orchestras in the early 19th century was that players saw playing as an opportunity to show off, rather than a cooperative undertaking; violinists would play everything in double stops, woodwinds would add innumerable ornaments, and no one listened to the singers or soloist(s).

In response to an earlier question, today's major orchestras can play anything from the Classic or early Romantic period at sight. But more modern pieces take more time. It's typical to have four rehearsals for a major concert; if there's a soloist, he will only show up for the last rehearsal or two.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
[B] I read somewhere that when Toscanini took over La Scala in Milan almost a century later, similar conditions prevailed. The orchestral playing was sloppy, the singers were sometimes out of synch with the orchestra, the audience routinely conversed with one another throughout the performance, etc. (?)

B]

I have read about this being the case with other orchestras as well. Can you imagine going to a concert under these circumstances? We'd all demand our money back! And rightly so! It's a good thing the concerts are more 'disciplined' now.

Joy

[Joy]

Originally posted by John Rasmussen:

In response to an earlier question, today's major orchestras can play anything from the Classic or early Romantic period at sight. But more modern pieces take more time. It's typical to have four rehearsals for a major concert; if there's a soloist, he will only show up for the last rehearsal or two.

I went to a concert last year where before hand they were discussing rehearsals, etc. and they said four reherarsals. I must tell you I was surprised it was only four! I would have thought more considering how good they sound! Real professionalism!

Joy

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited March 04, 2003).]