Guilty secrets - the bits you miss out

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've no doubt fhg will now prove that "maybe the opposite is also true..."

No doubt!

My own "preference" is for the Fugue as Finale - the preceding movements feel (to me) to lead towards it, in mood and structure. And the way the Beklemnt gasps of the Cavatina take us to such remote emotional intensities - only the rigour of the Fugue can balance this. (Although the sans souci Rondo can provide an alternative, in a good performance.

At the same time, I realize that this is asking probably too much of human performers. The Grosse Fuge is by itself nearly impossible to perform: just getting your fingers in the right place in the right time requires superhuman dexterity. Then you have to balance the intellectual ferocity of the formal ideas with the knife-edge psychological expression - too much consideration for the structure, and the emotional drive is lost; too much emphasis on the panorama of emotional states, and the essential structural control goes down the plughole! To ask the performers to perform it after the previous movements of Op 130 goes against Health & Safety regulations, surely? And the Rondo Finale is a pleasant, witty piece - how/when do we perform it if not as a Finale? As an encore???

[verismissimo]

This is my own-up. Not with recordings, but in performance: I've never got to the end of Il trovatore. It always seems just too absurd and I think how nice it would be to go and have dinner instead. #

In the long run, that's too expensive. So I don't even try it now.

Some good music in it though, best listened to on ancient recordings like this one with Frances Alda and Caruso: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S7ybDiPwb8

[teamsaint]

Elgar 1 IS brilliant IMV
but Sea Pictures and DOG are dreadful
I find this odd ..........thassorl

Elgar IS I agree, a good example of a musician who can seem to alternate between genius and banality.
But its surely odd that we find it odd. there is something to which we are indifferent at best in even our best loved body of work, isn't there?
I think this tells us something about our wider(celebrity driven) culture, and suggests that we too often don't trust our own critical faculties..in fact we are taught early that nanny (journos, academics, commentators etc) knows best.
MrGG, you must have seen all too often the quashing of original thought in your working life?

[pastoralguy]

There are a lot of blank staves, especially in the brass...

If only that were true of certain other composers compositional techniques...

[David-G]

(Tangentially - How many pianists give us their own ornaments or cadenzas in a Mozart concerto? What's the problem?)

Robert Levin not only gives us his own ornaments and cadenzas, but improvises them. He never plays the same cadenza twice, not even in rehearsal and performance. I have heard him play several Mozart concerti, these concerts are always extremely exciting.

[Roehre]

No doubt!

My own "preference" is for the Fugue as Finale - the preceding movements feel (to me) to lead towards it, in mood and structure. And the way the Beklemnt gasps of the Cavatina take us to such remote emotional intensities - only the rigour of the Fugue can balance this.

My thoughts as well. But I like to add that IMO the Fugue balances neatly the opening movement too.
And another consideration: I do think that the last quartets should not to be considered as one solid group of works.
The late quartets IMO fall apart in 3 groups of works
I: op.127;
II: op.132, 130/133 and 131 (i.a. united by thematic relationships as well as an increasingly experimental approach of the medium string quartet);
III: op.135 + finale 130, where this last group IMO are the first works of what would have been a new, more simple, if you like "classical" style of Beethoven's. As a consequence there is IMO a stylistic rupture between the original movements of 130 and its added finale.

[Pabmusic]

How about Elgar's Sea Pictures ? I can't be bothered with any of it except Where Corals Lie, and has anybody ever got though the whole of Starlight Express ?

It's a little unfair to include The Starlight Express, since much of it is melodrama (ie: to be spoken over) and very short links. Definitely never intended to be listened to without the dialogue. The trouble is that the play is so dire that no-one would mount it now. A BBC attempt to broadcast it in the 60s was ruined by poor sound balance, so that the music was inaudible against the voices. For committed Elgarians like me, recordings of the complete incidental music are valuable, but only as curiosities. I have listened to it all through, but only once, and I don't expect I'll do so again, but I will 'dip in' occasionally. It's much in the same vein as a recording of the 'complete' score from a contemporary film - it doesn't make for satisfactory listening.

[Pabmusic]

Here's how I generally listen to recorded music.

If I'm intending to listen to a multi-movement work all through, that's what I'll do, in one of two ways. Either I'll just listen in an abstract way, letting the music unfold naturally, or I'll use a score (I have about 3,000 scores here). If I use a score, the experience is different from the 'abstract', and I'll listen very analytically for the structure and the composer's success (or otherwise) in achieving what it seems to me was intended, or simply in negotiating the awkward bits. In both cases, there's no question of leaving out sections.

But most listening is done ad hoc (I'm doing so right now), usually by choosing something to fit the particular mood I'm in. Now it is a Symphony in D by Dittersdorf - lighthearted and suitable for a sunny morning (which it is here). Very often, I'll choose individual movements, so the session becomes quasi-CFM, but that's because I want the variety, and it's not planned.

But, all this said, I have never left out a movement of anything from principle, because I just didn't like it. Where I do find a movement boring, and I have a score, I'll often use it with such a piece, since I'm forced to concentrate harder. Or I'll make a pot of tea.

[Thropplenoggin]

While we're discussing listening choices, what about LvB's Op.130 String Quartet?

I've no doubt fhg will now prove that "maybe the opposite is also true..."

JLW & FHG: There is a detailed discussion of the Grosse Fuge, its replacement and comparisons with the Ninth's finale in Lewis Lockwood's book on Beethoven, 'The Music and The Life'. Most of it flies over this pith-helmeted noggin but given your grasp of music theory, I imagine you'd get a lot out of it. He discusses pretty much every one of his work's in-depth, as well as interlarding such discussions with biographical details.

[verismissimo]

Elgar IS I agree, a good example of a musician who can seem to alternate between genius and banality.

Emerging list here? Beethoven...

[Thropplenoggin]

Emerging list here? Beethoven...

Shome mishtake, shurely?

I can only think of pot-boiler/money-spinner 'Wellington's Victory', the irony being the public loved it.

[Barbirollians]

Sung by Janet Baker , however, Sea Pictures is a different piece altogether .

For genius and banality surely Wagner is your man .

[Serial_Apologist]

Sung by Janet Baker , however, Sea Pictures is a different piece altogether .

I.e. for me, if anything, made even worse!

For genius and banality surely Wagner is your man .

For genius and banality, Messiaen is my man.

[MrGongGong]

I.e. for me, if anything, made even worse!

I thought it was just me
but had a quick listen to check ...................

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

JLW & FHG: There is a detailed discussion of the Grosse Fuge, its replacement and comparisons with the Ninth's finale in Lewis Lockwood's book on Beethoven, 'The Music and The Life'. Most of it flies over this pith-helmeted noggin but given your grasp of music theory, I imagine you'd get a lot out of it. He discusses pretty much every one of his work's in-depth, as well as interlarding such discussions with biographical details.