The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[kernelbogey]

0559 7.12.22
Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783-1847): Piano Quartet in E minor [1825]
Performer: Klara Hellgren. Performer: Ingegerd Kierkegaard. Performer: Åsa Åkerberg. Performer: Anders Kilström.

An amiable work by a composer new to me - posted in wrong thread: it's from TTN.

[kernelbogey]

Yesterday a listener asked whether it was sacrilege to say that Bach's organ works sound better on a concert grand piano.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Sonata No. 4, BWV 528 (2nd mvt)
Víkingur Ólafsson.
I feel ambivalent about the Organ but have been occasionlly been very taken with Víkingur Ólafsson's recordings of these works (that I have heard on R3).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yesterday a listener asked whether it was sacrilege to say that Bach's organ works sound better on a concert grand piano.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Organ Sonata No. 4, BWV 528 (2nd mvt)
Víkingur Ólafsson.
I feel ambivalent about the Organ but have been occasionlly been very taken with Víkingur Ólafsson's recordings of these works (that I have heard on R3).

You really need an 8-octave Bosendorfer Imperial to do Bach organ music justice on a piano.

[smittims]

I wouldn't use the word 'sacrilege' in this context, even as a transferred epithet (no, we haven't strayed from 'pedants' paradise') but I believe the choice of instrument matters less in Bach than in more recent composers. Bach probably didn't expect to hear his music in many performances in which he wasn't playing or directing, so I don't think he would have been as critical about the 'wrong' instrument as a twentieth-century composer might.

Whether his organ music sounds 'better' on another instrument depends on what one means by 'better', a subjective notion when it comes to sound. I can't think of any of his organ works I'd prefer to hear on another instrument than an organ of his time or a modern copy, though some performances of them are worth hearing , depending on the performer, e.g. Byron Janis in the Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV 643 in Liszt's transcription, surely a memorable pieec of music making whatever the rightness of the instrument.

[Bryn]

You really need an 8-octave Bosendorfer Imperial to do Bach organ music justice on a piano.

A musical experience which sticks firmly in my memory as revelatory was awaking from a night when I crashed beneath Cornelius Cardew's ageing Broadwood (I had experienced a motorcycle breakdown and Cornelius had offered me shelter for the night) to his playing the Busoni transcription of BWV 564, a work I had previously only encountered in its original form fr organ. Bach was not, after all, averse to reusing his own works, in transcription for instruments other than those for which they were originally composed. I should, perhaps, add that it was Cardew's normal routine to start the day playing Bach on the piano.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I wouldn't use the word 'sacrilege' in this context, even as a transferred epithet (no, we haven't strayed from 'pedants' paradise') but I believe the choice of instrument matters less in Bach than in more recent composers. Bach probably didn't expect to hear his music in many performances in which he wasn't playing or directing, so I don't think he would have been as critical about the 'wrong' instrument as a twentieth-century composer might.

Whether his organ music sounds 'better' on another instrument depends on what one means by 'better', a subjective notion when it comes to sound. I can't think of any of his organ works I'd prefer to hear on another instrument than an organ of his time or a modern copy, though some performances of them are worth hearing , depending on the performer, e.g. Byron Janis in the Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV 643 in Liszt's transcription, surely a memorable pieec of music making whatever the rightness of the instrument.

Liszt’s Bach transcriptions are almost new pieces of music in their own right. Busoni’s and especially Rachmaninov’s definitely are. The way the latter romantically blurs the harmonies in his transcription of the E major violin prelude is deliciously inauthentic. I can imagine a lot of people hating it though. The problem is that virtually all their transcriptions require a near virtuoso technique esp Busoni. His transcription of the famous D minor Toccata and fugue (possibly by Bach ) is so full of challenges it’s hardly surprising that the only pianist I’ve heard play it live is Demidenko. Who then rattled off several of the Chorale prelude transcriptions as encores.
I wonder what their motive was for writing the pieces - it can’t have been sheet music sales.

[smittims]

'Bachmaninov' some called it .

As to motive, I think we have to think ourselves back to the time when they did it. The originals weren't played as often as they are today, if at all, and these pianists wanted to broaden their repertoire of showpieces and 'novelties'.

I was thinking this morning hearing Beethoven's Variations in C minor, one of a very small number of Beethoven pieces Rachmaninov played: I don't suppose he played the sonatas; they were a bit of a box-office turn-off for many until Beethoven specialists like Lamond and Schnabel braved the consequences and persevered . It's easy to forget how narrow the repertoire was before the early music revival; notoriously, Rachmaninov admitted in 1928 that he didn;' know Schubert had written sonatas; and as late as 1951 it was possinble for a respected critic to write of 'the shortcomings' of Schubert's piano music, hardly possible in a post-Brendel era.

[Piazolla]

Hannah during the week for me just gets better and better. The postcards from Berlin were pitched just right. And, somehow, saying the newsreader had just come into the studio 'with the news headlines and a stonking cup of tea' was ok because she also had deconstructed the Jean Mouton piece.

I agree about Hannah French, I would like to hear more of her, perhaps a replacement to Georgia Mann whose presenting style becomes very tiresome after a short while!

[antongould]

I agree about Hannah French, I would like to hear more of her, perhaps a replacement to Georgia Mann whose presenting style becomes very tiresome after a short while!

I have some sympathy with this view …..

[oddoneout]

I have some sympathy with this view …..

I think it can be helpful for listeners and presenters to have a break from each other occasionally.

[kernelbogey]

You really need an 8-octave Bosendorfer Imperial to do Bach organ music justice on a piano.

I didn't know such a thing existed. Do you know if that is what Víkingur Ólafsson is playing in the extracts broadcast, Alpie? They have a distinctive sound, in which the very low notes play an important role for me. If I find them I'll post a link.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I didn't know such a thing existed. Do you know if that is what Víkingur Ólafsson is playing in the extracts broadcast, Alpie? They have a distinctive sound, in which the very low notes play an important role for me. If I find them I'll post a link.

I really don’t know. There is another issue here. The lowest note of the 8-octave Bosendorfer Imperial is “C0”, which has a frequency of 16.35 Hz, which many people cannot distinguish as an actual note. My lower limit is around 30 Hz.

[Bryn]

I didn't know such a thing existed. Do you know if that is what Víkingur Ólafsson is playing in the extracts broadcast, Alpie? They have a distinctive sound, in which the very low notes play an important role for me. If I find them I'll post a link.

You might not immediately note their extended range. The lowest few piano keys are normally hidden under their own little lid.

[Ein Heldenleben]

You might not immediately note their extended range. The lowest few piano keys are normally hidden under their own little lid.

Oscar Peterson once demonstrated on TV those extra notes down to low C to a sceptical André Previn. Previn grimaced and slapped the lid shut. He was not impressed.

[ahinton]

You really need an 8-octave Bosendorfer Imperial to do Bach organ music justice on a piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INKRfCIAznc