Top speed and weird opening of RR 8.1.22

[cloughie]

If you don't want to continue this line of discussion fair enough - but I'm bound to wonder what is meant by "what it has become". As we've said, there's room in the world for HIPP and HUPP and various shades that are neither completely one or the other. But let's recognise each of them as a different stage in the understanding and communication of historical musics. HIPP and various more or less diluted versions of it are gradually replacing HUPP, possibly eventually to be replaced by something else (time travel?), just as the musical style represented by Haydn and Mozart was replaced by that represented by Schubert and Beethoven, and so on. Those are all facts, not opinions.

Simply that some of the HIPP ideas and recordings are very good and I have many of these on my shelves and don’t misunderstand me I am not anti-HIPP but the HIPP development seems to have given licence to certain conductors and ensembles to mess around with tempi for effect and frankly to make different statements, some of which appear to me to bear little resemblance to the original.
Also my ears don’t always warm to the sound of fortepianos, thin strings and rattly timps, which appear on some recordings
,- they may the order of the day 200 to 300 years ago but I do like pieces played on modern instruments - maybe not authentic but but I’ve grown to like them over the last 60 years - a personal preference!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I wasn’t going to return to this as we are collectively in danger of flogging a dead horse ( or beating a broken timpani) but I finally tracked down a still of the recording session for Savall’s recording session for the first 5 symphonies and very interesting it is too. This was in the Collegiale de Cardona in Catalonia - the photo shows the orchestra in the church . It’s a large stone construction- hence the echoey acoustic . Much more reverberant I would guess than the location for the first performance of the 7th symphony at the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. It looks like a pretty standard mic array with very little spot miking. I can’t tell from the array how they are configured but I suspect it’s a modified Decca tree. The thing that stands out is the elevated position of the splendidly bearded timpanist and the fact that he has a pine wood construction rather like a mini sauna behind him. This would have the effect of throwing his sound forward - unless it has some absorbing properties that aren’t visually apparent. On the other hand it might stop the omni- directional sound waves from the timps hitting the rear of the nave and reverberating even more. I have never seen a reflective wooden screen behind a timp player before - though I have seen absorbing screens placed around drum kits plenty of times - largely in a studio setting though.
I liked the Beethoven 5 performance ( good tempo ! ) though again I thought it overly reverberant and I don’t think a church acoustic suits this work. Fine for the Missa Solemnis but not this. The timps , to my ears aren’t as loud as in the Beethoven 7 - in fact they are rather thrilling and superbly played . It’s a good balance but too reverberant for me.
Incidentally when switched to mono the timps sound no louder relative to the band . If I had the energy to encode the performance at 128kps again I doubt they would sound louder relative to the rest of the band . However when the amp is set to mono the overall sound level falls . I suspect this is because there is a high S component in the stereo signal - the difference between the a and b channels - probably the echo in fact.
Just now waiting for 6-9 to reach Qubuz. Whatever the debate over HIPP performances I have certainly enjoyed listening to Savall’s work - though I just would like a drier acoustic.

[jayne lee wilson]

See my #120 for comments on the varying balances across the cycle (I've lived with 1-5 for a year, and 6-9 for over a week now, SACD/CD//24/96).

I'm not sure whether peering at the recording venue gets you far without hearing the hi-res results... (though I often seek out the halls/churches etc on Google images myself); its what the engineer does with it that matters (Manuel Mohino for the whole 1-9, right through to the SACD mastering; as he was for their Mozart 39-41).

On SACD/CD here, the timps in No.5 are at least as powerful as those in No.7; the orchestral balance very similar in the same hall (marvellously spacious and present here, not over-reverberant; (that wide-open Harbeth/ATC midrange works wonders as usual)).
Just compare the climaxes in 5(ii) with the 7th finale to hear what I mean. But remember, that 7th finale is almost a timpani concerto; vital that their sound comes (emphatically) through - as I described it, an elemental groundswell. These are clearly artistic decisions, not just engineering compromises.

Listening to No.9 for the third time now, my initial reservations are falling away; yes, those winds in i-ii are obviously more recessed than in all the other Catalogne tapings; but a higher volume does bring them out very well; the 1st movement (with its aforementioned, remarkable formal innovations) powers through like a rocket.
It is a little disconcerting as the balance shifts into the adagio and choral finale (the adagio is one of the quickest ever, at a very flowing 11'22 (the stream gushing on after heavy rainfall..) - which I know many will balk at); the baritone is placed oddly forward at his first entry, but thereafter placed naturally with the quartet. But these are live performances, the ear soon adjusts, and the dramatic impact (emotional and musical) does tell on the ear and the heart in the conclusion....

No dead horses here! Just Savall's musical warriors, riding into battle and into glory!

[kea]

... from which I quote: What is this supposed to mean? That because Beethoven wasn't involved in conducting any more he had no idea of tempo when composing? Some composers never conduct and have a very good idea of what tempo their music should be played at. This argument strikes me as without merit, whatever else one might think about Beethoven's tempi. To be sure, every composer knows that tempi often have to be adjusted according to the acoustic of the performance space, but to ignore what the composer has written on the grounds that his deafness had ended his conducting career seems somewhat silly.

For the 9th in general, Beethoven did originally indicate different tempi for several movements and sections, and the revised tempi were obtained during the rehearsal process, at a time when Beethoven still had enough hearing left to understand exactly how fast he was conducting. The metronome marks in the Ninth Symphony thus already represent a compromise from an original, even faster vision, and are also the only metronome marks we know for sure to have been rehearsal-checked by the composer. They are the most accurate possible metronome marks in Beethoven's entire output. (Although there remain the questions of potential typographical errors which could clarify whether he meant, e.g. for the trio of the scherzo to be in the time of one or two bars of the preceding scherzo.)

You can obviously say, Beethoven was wrong about this, I know better than him and I am the conductor here while Beethoven is very dead, etc. You cannot say oh, we don't know what Beethoven really wanted because in this case we do in fact know exactly what he wanted, and—presumably—received.

I would also dispute the idea that a metronome mark is a "suggestion". It's an order, same as everything else in the score. If you as the performer can't fulfil that order, you have the option to perform a different, easier piece.

[RichardB]

I would also dispute the idea that a metronome mark is a "suggestion". It's an order, same as everything else in the score.

I would always say that everything in a score is a suggestion, not an "order"!

I do agree with EH about the acoustic of these recordings though, I would have wished for something drier, but I don't find that detracts from my appreciation of the performance because it doesn't result in loss of detail as is often the case.

[Ein Heldenleben]

See my #120 for comments on the varying balances across the cycle (I've lived with 1-5 for a year, and 6-9 for over a week now, SACD/CD//24/96).

I'm not sure whether peering at the recording venue gets you far without hearing the hi-res results... (though I often seek out the halls/churches etc on Google images myself); its what the engineer does with it that matters (Manuel Mohino for the whole 1-9, right through to the SACD mastering; as he was for their Mozart 39-41).

On SACD/CD here, the timps in No.5 are at least as powerful as those in No.7; the orchestral balance very similar in the same hall (marvellously spacious and present here, not over-reverberant; (that wide-open Harbeth/ATC midrange works wonders as usual)).
Just compare the climaxes in 5(ii) with the 7th finale to hear what I mean. But remember, that 7th finale is almost a timpani concerto; vital that their sound comes (emphatically) through - as I described it, an elemental groundswell. These are clearly artistic decisions, not just engineering compromises.

Listening to No.9 for the third time now, my initial reservations are falling away; yes, those winds in i-ii are obviously more recessed than in all the other Catalogne tapings; but a higher volume does bring them out very well; the 1st movement (with its aforementioned, remarkable formal innovations) powers through like a rocket.
It is a little disconcerting as the balance shifts into the adagio and choral finale (the adagio is one of the quickest ever, at a very flowing 11'22 (the stream gushing on after heavy rainfall..) - which I know many will balk at); the baritone is placed oddly forward at his first entry, but thereafter placed naturally with the quartet. But these are live performances, the ear soon adjusts, and the dramatic impact (emotional and musical) does tell on the ear and the heart in the conclusion....

No dead horses here! Just Savall's musical warriors, riding into battle and into glory!

Looking forward to hearing the 6-9 on Qobuz. I was listening to Beethoven 5 on hi-res 24 bit which is a good thing as I could detect very little of that stepped decline in the reverb you get on 128 and even 320kps . It’s possibly a kind of quantizing problem where the echo decays away unnaturally quickly . I guess the lower sampling rates can’t cope with the amount of info they are processing and as it approaches silence the ear can hear the decay happening unnaturally. There’s a parallel effect on hi def tv when the camera pans quickly which is why tv retailers often have special reels made up of static shots played off a server with zero compression - superior quality to what you’ll get at home.
In Beethoven 5 I did hear a bit of an a acoustic quality change at 2.48 (after the exposition repeat) and wondered if it was an audio edit though it would be bit odd to edit in the silence - the usual place is just before/on the note. In fact a timp beat was often a good edit point especially if they helpfully and consistently jumped the gun. But I guess with digital editing you can choose much more challenging points. Never done a digital audio edit (though plenty of video ones ) so I don’t know the ins and outs of it …if you will forgive the unconscious pun.
Anyway the overall sound all vastly better than R3 FM which at the moment with a 1040 mb high pressure is suffering badly from tropospheric ducting at the moment.

PS every time you mention Harbeths I go to the catalogue. I’m getting worried looks from Mrs H . But thing is we haven’t had a foreign holiday for three years and saved so much money really…..

[Bryn]

I would always say that everything in a score is a suggestion, not an "order"!

I do agree with EH about the acoustic of these recordings though, I would have wished for something drier, but I don't find that detracts from my appreciation of the performance because it doesn't result in loss of detail as is often the case.

I would concur with what you say there. I like to think of a score as, in effect, a recipe from which deviation might be called for depending on immediate circumstances.

[Barbirollians]

Might it be better if this discussion of the Savall Beethoven recordings were moved to the Beethoven symphony cycles thread ?

[Barbirollians]

SAVALL….LVB…..etc...

OK -so (off of 2-ch SACD as before) in the 9th (somewhat thrills & spills like the sacrosanct Furtwangler(s)), the timps & winds sound differently balanced from those in the 7th.

Winds in the 9th are slightly too recessed in (i) and (ii), lacking some presence, but noticably clearer and more forward in (iii-iv), where the sound is generally more immediate; recorded live across two performances, the different balances between the pairs of movements would probably be obscured by CFM compression/lossy codecs.
Same goes for the timpani; in the 9th i-ii, they sound lighter and are placed further to the right in the soundstage than in the 7th. The thrilling powder-keg-&-gunshot effect in the 7th, where they are also powerfully architectural, a groundswell to the whole band, is much less apparent. But in (iv) they are closer to the effect in the 7th (and the better for it, just when you need it most).

(The 8th is different again, more immediate still & a real thrill-ride, but of course in a different hall).

So as I said, the less the dynamic precision and the lower your resolution, the harder it is to perceive these things - and be fair to the recordings.
But what a terrific 7th this is, with that wonderfully headlong, head-over-heels momentum through the coda, to that final rapping out of the bare rhythm!

****
Fine survey by Richard Osborne within its limitations (lofty dismissal of instruments of certain vintages & the tempi thus associated...well, he would, wouldn't he?), but his comments on sonata-form in the 9th(i) are highly questionable; if it were not composed against the background of sonata (with truly intense thematic integration/transformation throughout, and strikingly so in the coda), it could not have such a devastating impact. But I guess that is another story....

Is he not quoting or at least paraphrasing VW’s essay on the symphony at that point ?

More odd is his failure to mention the Furtwangler/Philharmonia recording from 1954 which he previously raved about the year it won Gramophone’s historical record of the year .

[jayne lee wilson]

Is he not quoting or at least paraphrasing VW’s essay on the symphony at that point ?

More odd is his failure to mention the Furtwangler/Philharmonia recording from 1954 which he previously raved about the year it won Gramophone’s historical record of the year .

Osborne says of the 1st movement "defying precedent, it offers no clear narrative" and evidently approves of the VW quote that follows, going beyond it.

I am surprised at that as I said above.... it is clearly a very innovative sonata-form (e.g. the first thematic group is given a varied repeat before the 2nd group arrives; there is no actual exposition repeat though), with a very dramatic shape and goal. Thematic integration is intense; there is a terrific sense of arrival in the coda, with its combining of new versions of the main theme.
The three main climaxes - in the exposition; the end of the development which then charges headlong, or turns into, the D Major reprise (Bruckner does something similar in his 6th); then that apocalyptic coda; all based on the main theme. The music seems always in flux, but this gives the piece a dramatically clear sense of direction - the "narrative".

How do you, or others here, hear it yourself?

[cloughie]

I would concur with what you say there. I like to think of a score as, in effect, a recipe from which deviation might be called for depending on immediate circumstances.

Do you mean by this that ‘anything goes’ if to you it sounds OK?

[RichardB]

Do you mean by this that ‘anything goes’ if to you it sounds OK?

Well, anything obviously does go because whatever is done to a Beethoven symphony the score is still there and nobody gets hurt. But whether something "sounds OK" is not as simple a matter as you make it seem! Music isn't just "how it sounds" when it encounters a living, breathing and unique human listener at a certain moment in their life and their lifelong learning process. It's not just a question of soundwaves entering the ears and stimulating the brain's pleasure centres or whatever - music doesn't exist outside its context, and that in turn is dependent to a great degree on how much contextual knowledge you have, whether you see a piece of music as embodying a particular moment in history and culture, or as something "timeless", or some interweaving of both, and so on. To take an extreme example: there would be a huge difference in estimation of what "sounds OK" between, on one hand, someone hearing Beethoven for the first time who has no prior experience of classical music and, on the other, a musician or scholar who has studied Beethoven's music their whole life (not to mention that the musicians and scholars will often disagree among themselves!); and we all sit somewhere on that broad continuum.

What "sounds OK" at some point in one's growing experience might not "sound OK" at another. To take one personal example: when I first heard Bach's vocal ensemble music sung one voice to a part I thought to myself "surely this isn't how it sounded to Bach", but bit by bit, and after some study of the relevant literature, I first came to the conclusion that in fact this was a lot closer to how it sounded to Bach than with a choir, and second that hearing it sung by a choir no longer really "sounded OK" to me because the state of my knowledge had changed. To me there's something exciting about exploring how music might have sounded in its time and place, however unachievable that may be, however unknowable it is whether one has succeeded or not, whereas the idea of ignoring such things doesn't excite me at all. To take another example: none of Shostakovich's music "sounded OK" to me for many years, until a friend who knows how my mind works sat me down with a recording of the finale of his 4th symphony - to quote Luigi Nono's title, y entonces comprendió: "and then he understood". On the other hand, the first time I heard a HIPP recording of a Beethoven symphony, which was the 3rd with the Collegium Aureum, around the end of the 1970s, I immediately thought yes, this is clearly much closer to how this music should sound. I didn't require any persuasion. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other. It's like composing: sometimes something comes into your mind fully formed, sometimes it's a long struggle to reach a result, and nobody but you knows the difference.

[Bryn]

Do you mean by this that ‘anything goes’ if to you it sounds OK?

No. Anyone following this discussion over its many threads will recognise that the conditions alluded to are such as the acoustic environment, size of the orchestral compliment, etc As with a cooking recipe, the flexibility is limited.

[oddoneout]

Well, anything obviously does go because whatever is done to a Beethoven symphony the score is still there and nobody gets hurt. But whether something "sounds OK" is not as simple a matter as you make it seem! Music isn't just "how it sounds" when it encounters a living, breathing and unique human listener at a certain moment in their life and their lifelong learning process. It's not just a question of soundwaves entering the ears and stimulating the brain's pleasure centres or whatever - music doesn't exist outside its context, and that in turn is dependent to a great degree on how much contextual knowledge you have, whether you see a piece of music as embodying a particular moment in history and culture, or as something "timeless", or some interweaving of both, and so on. To take an extreme example: there would be a huge difference in estimation of what "sounds OK" between, on one hand, someone hearing Beethoven for the first time who has no prior experience of classical music and, on the other, a musician or scholar who has studied Beethoven's music their whole life (not to mention that the musicians and scholars will often disagree among themselves!); and we all sit somewhere on that broad continuum.

What "sounds OK" at some point in one's growing experience might not "sound OK" at another. To take one personal example: when I first heard Bach's vocal ensemble music sung one voice to a part I thought to myself "surely this isn't how it sounded to Bach", but bit by bit, and after some study of the relevant literature, I first came to the conclusion that in fact this was a lot closer to how it sounded to Bach than with a choir, and second that hearing it sung by a choir no longer really "sounded OK" to me because the state of my knowledge had changed. To me there's something exciting about exploring how music might have sounded in its time and place, however unachievable that may be, however unknowable it is whether one has succeeded or not, whereas the idea of ignoring such things doesn't excite me at all. To take another example: none of Shostakovich's music "sounded OK" to me for many years, until a friend who knows how my mind works sat me down with a recording of the finale of his 4th symphony - to quote Luigi Nono's title, y entonces comprendió: "and then he understood". On the other hand, the first time I heard a HIPP recording of a Beethoven symphony, which was the 3rd with the Collegium Aureum, around the end of the 1970s, I immediately thought yes, this is clearly much closer to how this music should sound. I didn't require any persuasion. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other. It's like composing: sometimes something comes into your mind fully formed, sometimes it's a long struggle to reach a result, and nobody but you knows the difference.

This says much of what I have thought while following this thread. Just because something is correct/right/ academically researched etc (and that concept in itself is a bit of a minefield for something that existed or happened centuries ago and is subject to human interpretation/conjecture/best guess) doesn't at the end of the day guarantee satisfaction (or indeed pleasure) to the human listener. Each person brings their own baggage to the listening process; that baggage may prevent accepting let alone liking the different ways of approaching performance and interpretation, or may mean repeated listenings to understand the rationale and differences and then perhaps like it. I have had decades of exposure to HIPP and much of it has enriched my listening, but there are times when my reaction has been "sorry, I just don't like that". The fad for playing things faster and faster regardless of the end result was one that I couldn't see the point of, and would choose not to listen to in some cases. I do realise that as a higgorant music lover what the music sounds like to me and the feelings it engenders are ultimately more important than whether it is "correct" . I should stress that that doesn't exclude listening to the various options on offer, nor that I don't change my mind about some things, just that I am all too aware of the way being a human adds uncertainty and opinion, which some see as being "wrong".

[Bryn]

No. Anyone following this discussion over its many threads will recognise that the conditions alluded to are such as the acoustic environment, size of the orchestral compliment, etc As with a cooking recipe, the flexibility is limited.

I should, of course, add a further proviso, bearing in mind my past and continuing association with the Scratch Orchestra and its Draft Constitution's section on "Popular Classics":

2 Popular Classics
Only such works as are familiar to several members
are eligible for this category. Particles of the
selected works will be gathered in Appendix 1. A
particle could be: a page of score, a page or more of
the part for one instrument or voice, a page of an
arrangement, a thematic analysis, a gramophone
record, etc.
The technique of performance is as follows: a
qualified member plays the given particle, while the
remaining players join in as best they can, playing
along. contributing whatever they can recall of the
work in question,-filling the gaps of memory with
improvised variational material.
As is appropriate to the classics, avoid losing
touch with the reading player (who may terminate
the piece at his discretion), and strive to act con-
certedly rather than independently. These works
should be programmed under their original titles.