Post by seth February 17, 2005 (21 of 40)
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beardawgs said:
but somehow I find it extremely unlikely that in Monesota back in 1935 Berlin Radio was recording their concerts and left the tapes for the Russians to discover them in 1945 next to their Furtwangler legacy.
You're missing my point...
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Post by beardawgs February 17, 2005 (22 of 40)
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seth said:
You're missing my point...
And your point being?
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Post by seth February 17, 2005 (23 of 40)
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beardawgs said:
And your point being?
This is a hypothetical. Of course it is extremely unlikely. But for the sake of argument, put history aside and consider how you would have to revise your opinions of the recording if you suddenly found out that there was nothing historically significant about it, that it was just some incidental Friday evening concert from the heartland.
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Post by tream February 17, 2005 (24 of 40)
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beardawgs said:
Right, I should have made it clearer – Toscanini was THE waiving metronome, at least in his Beethoven – his famous complete recording (1930s if I remember well) is still one the most boring music I’ve ever heard in my life. Years after I’ve heard those unfortunate recordings, I’ve red somewhere that Furtwangler apparently stormed out after just a few bars of opening of Beethoven’s 9th with Toscanini conducting, muffling through his teeth something like ‘bloody metronome conducting’.
Furtwangler was famously critical of Toscanini's conducting, as he was just about any rival's. So was Toscanini of course ("when Walter comes to something beautiful, he melts"). The Furtwangler-Karajan rivalry was famous both for Karajan's scheming and Furtwangler's intense jealousy. And so on, and so on. I don't think there's much to be learned from one conductor's assessment of a rival colleague (although Toscanini did recommend Furtwangler as his successor with the New York Philharmonic). And, with all due respect, I don't think we should be building up one performer (or composer) by tearing down another (My early mentor BH Haggin was notorious for this-very pro Toscanini, but at the expense of every other conductor, except Cantelli, of course).
It is interesting that what you seem to find interesting I find to be distorted. One of my criticisms of Furtwangler's way with Beethoven is what I perceive to be lack of core pulse around which to build the structure of a movement. It is not tempo variation per se that bothers me, but the lack of a firm beat. Two 9ths I admire -Reiner's with the CSO (it was the first 9th I heard in entirety) and Stokowski's (pretty amazing performance, actually) both have massive ritards in the first movement-different places-but these work, whereas Furtwangler's planned distortions (as they sound to me) are terribly distracting from the actual music - Beethoven with a beard. I understand that many of Furtwangler's ideas were based on Schenkerian analysis of the scores-I will have to look into that someday.
As for Toscanini-I think it is important to listen and decide (which you have). I don't find his Beethoven simply metronomic at all. I still believe the NYPO 7th to be the greatest recording of any Beethoven symphony ever. I don't like the 1952 9th-too fast for me. But I would listen to it before any of the 3 Furtwangler recordings I now own-Bayreuth, Lucerne and the 37 London performance. I really have tried to learn and love Furtwangler's Beethoven-but just can't.
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Post by beardawgs February 17, 2005 (25 of 40)
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tream said:
Furtwangler was famously critical of Toscanini's conducting, as he was just about any rival's. So was Toscanini of course ("when Walter comes to something beautiful, he melts"). The Furtwangler-Karajan rivalry was famous both for Karajan's scheming and Furtwangler's intense jealousy. And so on, and so on. I don't think there's much to be learned from one conductor's assessment of a rival colleague (although Toscanini did recommend Furtwangler as his successor with the New York Philharmonic). And, with all due respect, I don't think we should be building up one performer (or composer) by tearing down another (My early mentor BH Haggin was notorious for this-very pro Toscanini, but at the expense of every other conductor, except Cantelli, of course).
It is interesting that what you seem to find interesting I find to be distorted. One of my criticisms of Furtwangler's way with Beethoven is what I perceive to be lack of core pulse around which to build the structure of a movement. It is not tempo variation per se that bothers me, but the lack of a firm beat. Two 9ths I admire -Reiner's with the CSO (it was the first 9th I heard in entirety) and Stokowski's (pretty amazing performance, actually) both have massive ritards in the first movement-different places-but these work, whereas Furtwangler's planned distortions (as they sound to me) are terribly distracting from the actual music - Beethoven with a beard. I understand that many of Furtwangler's ideas were based on Schenkerian analysis of the scores-I will have to look into that someday.
As for Toscanini-I think it is important to listen and decide (which you have). I don't find his Beethoven simply metronomic at all. I still believe the NYPO 7th to be the greatest recording of any Beethoven symphony ever. I don't like the 1952 9th-too fast for me. But I would listen to it before any of the 3 Furtwangler recordings I now own-Bayreuth, Lucerne and the 37 London performance. I really have tried to learn and love Furtwangler's Beethoven-but just can't.
Dear Tream,
I worked with quite a few conductors, and the better they think they are, they more hate each other – not being a musician myself (I was the orchestra manager), I always find those rivalry stories amusing. The rivalry between F. and T. is legendary, as well as rivalry between Furtwangler and Karajan, or Celibidache with everyone else (thou I must admit that him labelling Haitink as “Nordic gazelle” is priceless).
The fact that I’m not a musician probably accounts large deal for my unquestioned devotion to Furtwangler. In my early 20s I was searching far and wide for a recording of Beethoven’s 5th that wouldn’t sound stiff and dry. Most of the recordings I’ve heard sounded just too literal, mere representations of the score, without any thought or vision outside the music itself. I’m always looking to hear in any performance of any work more than just reading the score, and after my first encounter with Furtwangler’s conducting (Beethoven’s 5th on EMI’s 1954 recording) I was blown away – for me he has all those qualities that can transpose the music into meaning, be it because of Schenkerian influence on harmonic analysis or flexible tempi. Needless to say, after that I dug out every F’s recording under the sun, and what fascinated me even more was comparing how his performances from different periods are different from each other, Beethoven’s 9th in particular. I see that as a proof of Furtwangler being a conductor capable of understanding music on a higher intellectual level, not seeing it just a string of black dots on a paper. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that everything that Furtwangler ever conducted is a masterpiece, I just can’t possibly say that Bayreuth performance is better than the Berlin one (or vice versa), they are so different and they mean different things – and for me that’s the bottom line of all this discussion about the importance of historical recordings.
But at the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preferences, like everything in life. I’ve tried hard to find something as stimulating in Toscanini’s conducting, but it has left me cold, even annoyed. When I listen to Toscanini, I have the impression that he’s not just telling me what the music is all about, but at the same time giving me all definite answers, leaving no space for doubt or questions. When he’s done I’m done too, the only thing I can do is take the record off and think what to listen to next. When Furtwangler’s done, I need time to sort out my thoughts and get my head around of whatever he was trying to say. F & T are for me at the opposite ends of the same scale, not scale in quality, but in style. I like my Beethoven broad and flexible, not definite, but open to discussion. I’m sure you know the story when Beethoven was shown newly constructed metronome. “Nonsense” he replied, “one must feel tempo, tempo can not be measured”.
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Post by beardawgs February 17, 2005 (26 of 40)
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seth said:
This is a hypothetical. Of course it is extremely unlikely. But for the sake of argument, put history aside and consider how you would have to revise your opinions of the recording if you suddenly found out that there was nothing historically significant about it, that it was just some incidental Friday evening concert from the heartland.
Well, I have to say, the recording sounds unmistakably as Furtwangler, and even if it turns out to be the Minnesota recording from ’35 I would still cherish the disc as one of the most exciting performances of the 9th ever – and not just for it’s tempi or (lack of) precision, but for the sheer energy and excitement of all the performers, especially the choir entrance in the final movement. I’m not saying that’s the proper way to enter with the choir, but have you ever heard anything similar to that?
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Post by tream February 17, 2005 (27 of 40)
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But at the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preferences, like everything in life. I’ve tried hard to find something as stimulating in Toscanini’s conducting, but it has left me cold, even annoyed. When I listen to Toscanini, I have the impression that he’s not just telling me what the music is all about, but at the same time giving me all definite answers, leaving no space for doubt or questions. When he’s done I’m done too, the only thing I can do is take the record off and think what to listen to next. When Furtwangler’s done, I need time to sort out my thoughts and get my head around of whatever he was trying to say. F & T are for me at the opposite ends of the same scale, not scale in quality, but in style. I like my Beethoven broad and flexible, not definite, but open to discussion. I’m sure you know the story when Beethoven was shown newly constructed metronome. “Nonsense” he replied, “one must feel tempo, tempo can not be measured”.
There's a good story about Toscanini conducting against a metronome-after a few measures he was ahead. His comment " Bah! Man is not a machine". Toscanini was known for subtle tempo variations. And while Beethoven may have scoffed at the metronome when first shown, he took great pains to assign metronome markings to his scores.
Personally, I prefer a re-creative artist to attempt to present what the creator of the work was trying to say. I'm interested in what Beethoven has to say, and what bothers me about Furtwangler's interpretations in what you find attractive in them-Herr Furtwangler is getting between me and Beethoven with his own ideas about how the score should go, irrespective sometimes of what is actually printed on the page. This is not the same as reading a score-music comes alive only when played. I don't like matter of fact literal readings either-this is how I feel Heifetz plays the Beethoven violin concerto for example, as a series of problems to be solved. But if I'm interested in Furtwangler's world views I should be listening to his Second Symphony, not his arch distortions of someone else's work. (Yes, this is all IMHO.)
The good news for both of us is that you can listen to Furtwangler's recordings and I can listen to another conductor's recording.
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Post by dspiel March 16, 2005 (28 of 40)
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"Personally, I prefer a re-creative artist to attempt to present what the creator of the work was trying to say."
And thus the age-old debate of what was the creator trying to say, and how do we best achieve that. Is the score exactly what Beethoven was trying to say? Or is it some sort of guide to help us come to what he wanted to convey? Or simply put: follow the score exactly, or "interpret"?
As an example: Furtwangler goes far beyond what anyone else does with the final prestissimo of the finale. Listen to Roger Norrington and you get it MUCH slower. But there's an interesting problem, in that the preceeding prestissimo is given a metronome marking of 132, which is actually not at all that fast. The last prestissimo has no metronome mark, so it leaves us guessing what to do. Norrington carries over the previous metronome marking, whereas Furtwangler literally takes the passage prestissimo.
So: What was Beethoven trying to say? Did prestissimo mean the same thing at the very end as in the previous occurrence? Or did he this time mean literally prestissimo, as fast as you can go?
I can't say I'm sure one way or the other. But it's an interesting problem, deciding what to do in order to actually convey what Beethoven meant.
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Post by tream March 20, 2005 (29 of 40)
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dspiel said:
"Personally, I prefer a re-creative artist to attempt to present what the creator of the work was trying to say."
And thus the age-old debate of what was the creator trying to say, and how do we best achieve that. Is the score exactly what Beethoven was trying to say? Or is it some sort of guide to help us come to what he wanted to convey? Or simply put: follow the score exactly, or "interpret"?
As an example: Furtwangler goes far beyond what anyone else does with the final prestissimo of the finale. Listen to Roger Norrington and you get it MUCH slower. But there's an interesting problem, in that the preceeding prestissimo is given a metronome marking of 132, which is actually not at all that fast. The last prestissimo has no metronome mark, so it leaves us guessing what to do. Norrington carries over the previous metronome marking, whereas Furtwangler literally takes the passage prestissimo.
So: What was Beethoven trying to say? Did prestissimo mean the same thing at the very end as in the previous occurrence? Or did he this time mean literally prestissimo, as fast as you can go?
I can't say I'm sure one way or the other. But it's an interesting problem, deciding what to do in order to actually convey what Beethoven meant.
Yes, all we have for Beethoven is the score to go by-and perhaps tradition, but as Mahler put it, "Tradition is laziness"-or as Toscanini put it, "Tradition is the last bad performance". Re-creation of music is an inexact science, and it is instructive to hear the variations of interpretation of Mahler's music by 3 of his disciples-Walter, Mengelberg, and Klemperer.
Ever hear Mengelberg's recording of Mahler's 4th?-totally different than Walter's, and far more subjective and "romantic", if romantic is defined by heavy portamento of the kind that was regularly practiced by orchestras at the turn of the last century. Did Mahler play it Mengelberg's way, or did he play it Walter's way, which is closer to Klemperer than it is to Mengelberg? Or did Mahler have another way entirely? So even in a case where we have recordings made by conductors who actually worked with the composer we have no clear evidence beyond the score.(And to make things more interesting, Mengelberg did something that neither Walter nor Klemperer did, which was to play all of the symphonies, which he did in the 1920's. Does this mean he was more faithful to the master than the others? And then, as an aside, do we consider Stokowski's reading of Mahler's 8th as the most authentic, as he was present at the premiere of the 8th and gave the first US performance, in 1915?).
I believe that Beethoven could have annotated his scores to show the kinds of editorial changes in tempo and phrasing that Furtwangler introduces, and would have. I also trust my ears-that the final prestissimo of the 9th, as Furtwangler takes it, sounds ridiculous, as do the lurching opening chords of the Eroica. Of course, Beethoven himself was unable to actually hear how his score for the 9th sounded, so we don't know what kind of modifications he might have made after hearing it performed live. But a recreative artist has to start with the score, which has an internal integrity of its own.
OK, what does this mean for SACD? Not sure, but I'll try to find a connection.
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Post by Rob March 20, 2005 (30 of 40)
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I'm a casual classical music listener & would like to know if there is a consensis best perfomances of the ninth and of those which has the best sonics to date on SACD? I know that it is subjective but any tips would be helpful as I don't want to buy 5 sacds to find one that I like or should I wait for a while as there are no signifigant sacd disc to date?
Thanks Rob
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