Let's Have A BaL! (where there's not many recordings)

[mikealdren]

I'm looking forward to the new BBCSSO/Brabbins set. Much as I love the Davis/LSO set, there's a real feeling the fiddles are playing through gritted teeth! A violinist friend in the orchestra showed me the part of Symphony 2. My goodness, it's REALLY hard!

It's famously hard, the BBC under Boult got really messed up in the premiere and had to re-start. Having said that I've played it with a good amateur orchestra so it is possible and well worth it.

[Beef Oven!]

Kaikhosru Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's famously hard, the BBC under Boult got really messed up in the premiere and had to re-start. Having said that I've played it with a good amateur orchestra so it is possible and well worth it.

Yes - the only time I've heard it Live was a performance by the Leicester Schools Symphony Orchestra in about 1980. The Boult mess-up of the premiere was mainly the fault of BBCSO leader Paul Beard, who insisted that the violins have their parts re-barred so that he could count more easily. Small wonder the violinists, trying to count what they read and follow the beat Boult was giving, fell to pieces. There is a recording of the second performance that's been broadcast a couple of times - and you can still hear at least one player coming in at the wrong moment early in the first movement.

[MickyD]

A Sturm und Drang symphonies round-up of lesser-known and neglected 18th century composers.

[Beef Oven!]

John Cage - 4'33

[Bryn]

John Cage - 4'33

The Amadinda recording I find somewhat contrived. Of the 'straight' recorded performances I think the Frank Zappa about the most idiomatic.

[Barbirollians]

Barbirolli apparently thought Tippett's 2nd wasn't worth the rehearsal time !

[MickyD]

The Amadinda recording I find somewhat contrived. Of the 'straight' recorded performances I think the Frank Zappa about the most idiomatic.

Forgive my ignorance, but I always thought that 4'33 was just pure silence. How can there be any difference between performers?

[mikealdren]

Forgive my ignorance, but I always thought that 4'33 was just pure silence. How can there be any difference between performers?

When Floating Earth made their recording, they were proud of capturing the pianist walking to the piano and the acoustic of the hall.

[LMcD]

The best recording of 4'33'' is surely Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sounds of Silence'

[Richard Barrett]

Forgive my ignorance, but I always thought that 4'33 was just pure silence. How can there be any difference between performers?

It's not pure silence by any means, it's all the sounds that occur during a performance (although none of these are voluntarily made by the performer(s)).

[MickyD]

It's not pure silence by any means, it's all the sounds that occur during a performance (although none of these are voluntarily made by the performer(s)).

Thank you for enlightening me. Will anyone ever attempt a HIP performance?!

[Bryn]

Forgive my ignorance, but I always thought that 4'33 was just pure silence. How can there be any difference between performers?

Richard has made the main point. My criticism of the Amadinda recording stems from their building it from field recordings at three locations around Budapest.

[Pianoman]

Quite - friend and I ‘arranged’ this for clarinet and piano for a student lunch hour recital years ago, went down a treat ...more talking points than they’d had for some time in the bar afterwards !

[vinteuil]

Thank you for enlightening me. Will anyone ever attempt a HIP performance?!

... a HIPP performance wd have to take into account the performing conditions known / expected by Cage when composing the work. This wd include things like the kind of performance space, the kind of fabrics worn by performers / audience (in terms of rustle / swish factor, as well as sound-absorbing properties). In 1952, in New York, what proportion of the people (for example) wd be wearing synthetic as opposed to natural materials? Shoe leather / crepe soles? What background / street noises might have been expected, and which wd have been unknown (police sirens have changed a lot in 65 years... )

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