Brandenburg 6

[Dave2002]

But, repeating myself, you should really accept the fact that there are two camps as far as performance style is concerned. (Or maybe three, ones who are only for HIP, ones who are totally against HIP, and those that tolerate both. I sort of fall into the latter, mostly prefering non HIP but occasionally hearing something that I consider well played in a HIP version).

I can cope with both, though have a preference for the HIP variety. Sometimes that can lead to too fast speeds though - it can just be overdone. I'm still wondering whether that Abbado (was it really him?) video version was slightly too fast. Was the video really from the 1960s - looks almost too good? It's not April coming round again, is it?

I was surprised by the Busch recording - slow but not unpleasant, though not for everyday, and the swoops are totally out for me, though amusing! Klemperer is really too slow. I think I've also got a recording of Furtwängler - probably number 3.
I prefer harpsichords to pianos in number 5, though Murray Perahia manages to make Bach on a piano enjoyable, and also in the keyboard concertos.

[cloughie]

....thanks for that - yes, it was charming. Do you know who the performers were? It was flagged up as a youtube of Claudio Abbado with Orchestra Mozart, which seems unlikely

Unlikely - why?

[heliocentric]

You should face the fact (...) you should really accept the fact

(yawn) I don't think I've indicated anywhere that there are "facts" I'm not "facing." My comment was on the vibrato, and you'd have to agree that nobody would play that piece now with as much vibrato as Klemperer's players whatever instrument they played it on!

Mainly though I just find it interesting that some decades ago it was normal to play no.6 with solo instruments, but not the others, whereas now it's more widely accepted that calling Bach's ensemble music "orchestral" reflects neither the way it was played or (more crucially) the way it was written.

[cloughie]

I can cope with both, though have a preference for the HIP variety. Sometimes that can lead to too fast speeds though - it can just be overdone. I'm still wondering whether that Abbado (was it really him?) video version was slightly too fast. Was the video really from the 1960s - looks almost too good? It's not April coming round again, is it?
I was surprised by the Busch recording - slow but not unpleasant, though not for everyday, and the swoops are totally out for me, though amusing! Klemperer is really too slow. I think I've also got a recording of Furtwängler - probably number 3.
I prefer harpsichords to pianos in number 5, though Murray Perahia manages to make Bach on a piano enjoyable, and also in the keyboard concertos.

I think it was the Klemperer that was 1960 not the Abbado - he'd still be in short pants then!

[heliocentric]

The Abbado recordings were made in 2007 or 2008. Even though the ensemble he uses is small, he conducts numbers 1 to 5.

[Ariosto]

(yawn) I don't think I've indicated anywhere that there are "facts" I'm not "facing." My comment was on the vibrato, and you'd have to agree that nobody would play that piece now with as much vibrato as Klemperer's players whatever instrument they played it on!

I don't think I can agree with your opinion about the vibrato - people do still play Bach with a similar amount of vibrato, and I do not find it at all excessive in that Klemplerer recording.

It must be that you do not like vibrato. Each to his own.

What may be more surprising is to find that viola players can actually do vibrato!

[MickyD]

This thread has prompted me to seek out some of the various HIP recordings I have on my shelves - it has been fascinating to compare them! I like the Kuijkens, although a little slow; Hogwood gets the tempo just about right for me, as does Koopman in 1985 with much the same players and he has an even more agreeable recording. Much as I admire Goebel's work, his version is the most bizarre of all, taking the movement at a cracking pace to make it almost unrecognisable! Or have our ears just got used to this first movement taking between six and seven minutes?

[heliocentric]

It must be that you do not like vibrato. Each to his own.

I wouldn't say I don't like vibrato, I would just regard it as an expressive device which loses all its expressivity if it's used all the time, which is of course more or less what Leopold Mozart had to say about it in his 1756 Treatise and which numerous practitioners and commentators have reiterated before and since. Leopold Auer writes in 1960: "As a rule I forbid my students using the vibrato at all on notes which are not sustained, and I earnestly advise them not to abuse it even in the case of sustained notes which succeed each other in a phrase." I don't hear that admonition being practised by Klemperer's violists in that same year! They seem unable to keep their left hands still. The Busch Chamber Players in the mid-1930s used much less vibrato than that, as did the Busch Quartet a few years later in their recordings of Beethoven.

[heliocentric]

I like the Kuijkens

Bear in mind that I'm talking about his 2009 recordings with La Petite Bande, not the 1994 recordings with the same ensemble or the mid-70s recordings with an ad-hoc ensemble directed by Leonhardt! The most recent recordings are really the freshest-sounding I've heard from anyone for many years.

[MickyD]

Ah, thanks for making that clear....I wasn't aware of the newer recordings, it is the La Petite Bande ones I have. Hmm, must try and get to hear the new set. I also like the newish set from the AAM with Richard Egarr.

[Dave2002]

The Abbado recordings were made in 2007 or 2008. Even though the ensemble he uses is small, he conducts numbers 1 to 5.

Ah - maybe that makes sense now. So he's not in #6 anyway? I was looking out for a much younger person - male obviously - and perhaps playing an instrument - such as a keyboard.

[Ariosto]

I wouldn't say I don't like vibrato, I would just regard it as an expressive device which loses all its expressivity if it's used all the time, which is of course more or less what Leopold Mozart had to say about it in his 1756 Treatise and which numerous practitioners and commentators have reiterated before and since. Leopold Auer writes in 1960: "As a rule I forbid my students using the vibrato at all on notes which are not sustained, and I earnestly advise them not to abuse it even in the case of sustained notes which succeed each other in a phrase." I don't hear that admonition being practised by Klemperer's violists in that same year! They seem unable to keep their left hands still. The Busch Chamber Players in the mid-1930s used much less vibrato than that, as did the Busch Quartet a few years later in their recordings of Beethoven.

Jasha Heifetz, probably the most famous pupil of Auer, used quite a bit, and did not play in the way that Auer reccommended. Other Auer pupils used quite a bit too. (Of vibrato ...)

In his book "Ricci on Glissando" Ricci suggests trying out playing no vibrato on long notes and a lot on fast semiquavers. (I do not think he meant players should do this in performance though ...). He goes on to say that any note without vibrato is a dead sound.

I suppose its fine not to use vibrato at times, and I never suggested it should be continious. But I did not find the players in the OK version of B6 to be using it excessively. But everyone to their own taste.

It could be dangerous to quote old Leopold - he was old fashioned even in Mozart's time. Don't forget that he told his son he had messed up the opening of the "Dissonance" quartet by writing wrong notes! Silly old fool!

[heliocentric]

He goes on to say that any note without vibrato is a dead sound.

Unless it's played on a clarinet or horn I suppose. Or for that matter a piano.

If Leopold Mozart was "old-fashioned" in 1756 his comments would presumably be especially relevant to music composed by the generations before his - by JS Bach, for example. However I'm not trying to use his words as some kind of gospel, just in support of the idea that vibrato gains in expressivity through being used as a particular kind of intensification, as opposed to all the time.

[Bryn]

This evening, after spinning the very enjoyable 6th from the 'Abbado' DVD I went on to sample Boult's (from the Bach to Wagner box). Sorry, I could only take a few minutes before I felt the need to clear my ears with MAK/Goebel. Ah, that's better!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The whole HIPP argument gets more and more like Catholics v. Protestants, Celtic v. Rangers, Bush v. Gore, etc. (Add more of your own.)
Can't we just accept that different people like different methods of playing, and that vIbrato was used in baroque times? this "holier that thou" attitude becomes ever more irritating.