Record Review: non-BaL discs reviewed, etc.

[HighlandDougie]

And then everything just got stuck in the mud

That's always the downside of hearing performances as bleeding chunks - or gobbets or whatever. I was really disconcerted on first hearing by Barenboim slamming on the brakes but it needs to be heard in the context of the performance as a whole. For me, his idiosyncracies in the first movement notwithstanding, it all makes sense in the end - Barenboim clearly cares for the music to which I found myself responding strongly. I was deeply moved by the performance ( and remain so after a number of hearings).

[HighlandDougie]

I must remember to send you my new address.

Struggle with V-W? The parcel grows larger by the minute. PM me that new address prontissimo.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's always the downside of hearing performances as bleeding chunks - or gobbets or whatever. I was really disconcerted on first hearing by Barenboim slamming on the brakes but it needs to be heard in the context of the performance as a whole.

- I think my disappointment was made greater by the fact that the opening sounded so good: I'd been thinking how superb it was when suddenly it just fizzled out into "What are we going to do now? Anybody got any ideas?" I can understand that this might be part of a long-term intderpretive strategy on Barenboim's part (it's certainly piu Lento!) - but Elgar's own recording, and Boult in the '40s and Solti in the '70s keep the momentum and energy which is so important to my love of this work. A shame (as far as I'm concerned - 'tho' handy for my Schumann-depleting wallet) - Elgar conducted and performed by non-British Musicians (and what Musicians!) was such an enticing prospect.

Still is - and I was listening on less-than-state-of-the-art equipment; perhaps Barenboim brings out the lower lines more urgently than I could hear? Oh, stop it! I'm getting all tempted again!

[Pabmusic]

I heard the clip on CD Review this morning, which merely served to remind me that I just don't get his symphonies whoevers playing them. Apart from the opening melody of the First, they really don't make sense to me. I can't get into them, finding them a sort of aural pot pourri (I can hear Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, etc.) whose elements, counterpoint and internal logic I can't seem to fathom.

That's sad, because so many people do. I don't think it's useful to 'hear' Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, etc., in the music because it's palpably not by those composers. I'd say that Schumann, Delibes, Saint-Saens, Massenet and Parry were more obvious, but that's no more helpful.

Elgar creates his own sound-world that's not really like anything else (late Faure, perhaps) but in which the moment-to-moment feelings of the composer are nested within strong architectural structures. It is anxious, 'fussy' even, and is very seldom relaxed, as if the composer is embarrassed - or surprised - to have shown his inner self. Neither of the two symphonies makes for comfortable listening.

At least, that's what I think.

[Thropplenoggin]

That's sad, because so many people do. I don't think it's useful to 'hear' Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, etc., in the music because it's palpably not by those composers. I'd say that Schumann, Delibes, Saint-Saens, Massenet and Parry were more obvious, but that's no more helpful.

Elgar creates his own sound-world that's not really like anything else (late Faure, perhaps) but in which the moment-to-moment feelings of the composer are nested within strong architectural structures. It is anxious, 'fussy' even, and is very seldom relaxed, as if the composer is embarrassed - or surprised - to have shown his inner self. Neither of the two symphonies makes for comfortable listening.

At least, that's what I think.

Thanks, Pabmusic. I did 'warm' to the First for a while - how not to with that opening melody - but for me the music lacks cohesion. As you write, 'it is anxious, 'fussy' even, and is very seldom relaxed', and I struggle to follow its argument. It feels too episodic to me, as it continually shifts through the gears, trying out new rhythms, sounds, what have you. And when the First's 'nobilmente' theme comes back at the very end (a neat trick, but also quite a cliched one by that time) I find it submerged behind lots of brash crashes and not foregrounded as, say, Sibelius might have done. I do feel Wagner's influence on Elgar (and other, later symphonists) is overlooked. I'm not saying it is conscious replication; but you can hear how the harmonic language of Tristan and Parsifal has filtered into it. In Sibelius, too. But perhaps it's just me noticing things. I heard a squeaking automatic door in Sainsbury's the other day which was the exact same pitch and descending interval as the start of Beethoven's 9th.

[Pabmusic]

...And when the First's 'nobilmente' theme comes back at the very end (a neat trick, but also quite a cliched one by that time) I find it submerged behind lots of brash crashes and not foregrounded as, say, Sibelius might have done…

Consider the scoring when the 'big tune' comes back at the end of the first symphony (fig.146). Oboes, cor anglais, 1st bassoon, 1st horn, and last desks (ie: the only strings playing it) of 1sts, 2nds, violas and cellos are all marked ff - as they'd perhaps have to be, with the crashes ff and sf in the rest. But 3rd trumpet (which also has the tune) is mf. Clearly, Elgar doesn't want a loud, triumphant return - at least at first. He probably wants the impression of a struggle - most of the orchestra wants to drown out the big tune. Things don't right themselves till 147.

You may be right about Wagner, except that Elgar's opportunities to hear Wagner before 1908 had been limited to a series of holidays in Bavaria in the 1890s. It's easy to forget that people couldn't download the latest version of Parsifal then!

[Thropplenoggin]

Consider the scoring when the 'big tune' comes back at the end of the first symphony (fig.146). Oboes, cor anglais, 1st bassoon, 1st horn, and last desks (ie: the only strings playing it) of 1sts, 2nds, violas and cellos are all marked ff - as they'd perhaps have to be, with the crashes ff and sf in the rest. But 3rd trumpet (which also has the tune) is mf. Clearly, Elgar doesn't want a loud, triumphant return - at least at first. He probably wants the impression of a struggle - most of the orchestra wants to drown out the big tune. Things don't right themselves till 147.

You may be right about Wagner, except that Elgar's opportunities to hear Wagner before 1908 had been limited to a series of holidays in Bavaria in the 1890s. It's easy to forget that people couldn't download the latest version of Parsifal then!

Thanks, Pabs, although I felt the highlighted comment condescending, bordering on the facetious and wholly unwarranted. I would have thought you of all people would understand the way such experiences as hearing Wagner (even if only once) can stain the subconscious for life, imprinting themselves in ways the listener perhaps isn't even aware of until much later. Especially for a composer. But I'm also thinking here of crypto-amnesia and other ways these experiences re-emerge in the creative life of composers, writers, etc. It seems to have happened to Nabokov with Lolita.

[Pabmusic]

Thanks, Pabs, although I felt the highlighted comment condescending, bordering on the facetious and wholly unwarranted. I would have thought you of all people would understand the way such experiences as hearing Wagner (even if only once) can stain the subconscious for life, imprinting themselves in ways the listener perhaps isn't even aware of until much later. Especially for a composer. But I'm also thinking here of crypto-amnesia and other ways these experiences re-emerge in the creative life of composers, writers, etc. It seems to have happened to Nabokov with Lolita.

Oh dear! Surely, I needn't answer the point directly, because you can't think I was being condescending towards you..? But it's a point I have made before and people have been genuinely surprised to realise that it was very difficult to hear Wagner at the time. It's not condescending, either. To be so would require me to think something like "stupid proles, they don't even realise that…" which would be utterly reprehensible, and is completely untrue to boot.

I still think my point has merit, though.

[amateur51]

But I disagree about N-S; I was really taken up by the verve of what was played yesterday morning.

I agree about the verve which was delightful but as Andrew was comparing two sets of recordings I was surprised that he didn't comment on how recessed the N-S recording sounded compared to the Rattle.

That'll be my ears again

[Thropplenoggin]

Oh dear! Surely, I needn't answer the point directly, because you can't think I was being condescending towards you..? But it's a point I have made before and people have been genuinely surprised to realise that it was very difficult to hear Wagner at the time. It's not condescending, either. To be so would require me to think something like "stupid proles, they don't even realise that…" which would be utterly reprehensible, and is completely untrue to boot.

I still think my point has merit, though.

Much obliged for the clarification. I read it wrong. I now see your meaning. But even if they couldn't hear it performed, surely they had access to the scores? All those inky dots and volutes are, sadly, lost on me, but as for composers, don't they hear the music when they read the score? You are well placed to answer

[Pabmusic]

Much obliged for the clarification. I read it wrong. I now see your meaning. But even if they couldn't hear it performed, surely they had access to the scores? All those inky dots and volutes are, sadly, lost on me, but as for composers, don't they hear the music when they read the score? You are well placed to answer

You're right. And Elgar attended a performance of Parsifal at Bayreuth not so many years before he started Gerontius. He also owned a score of Die Meistersinger. Augustus Jaeger said that (rightly in my view) Gerontius could not have been written by someone who didn't know Parsifal. But (and it's a rather big 'but') he was 42-3 when he wrote Gerontius. Most of his music before that has echoes of Delibes, Saint-Saens and Massenet - composers he had known from his youth (and whom he'd played in orchestras)*. Dvorak too (known since he played unfer him at Birmingham in 1884 (6th Symph & Stabat Mater).

* And Schumann ("my ideal!") whom he'd discovered in 1883.

[silvestrione]

I agree about the verve which was delightful but as Andrew was comparing two sets of recordings I was surprised that he didn't comment on how recessed the N-S recording sounded compared to the Rattle.

That'll be my ears again

He did most definitely comment, calling the N-S 'distant', or some such.

[amateur51]

He did most definitely comment, calling the N-S 'distant', or some such.

My apologies to Andrew and thanks to you silvestrione

I could happily live with both sets of performances ... but that's me

I've had several symphonically Schumann earworms ever since - what do the neighbours think?

[amateur51]

You're right. And Elgar attended a performance of Parsifal at Bayreuth not so many years before he started Gerontius. He also owned a score of Die Meistersinger. Augustus Jaeger said that (rightly in my view) Gerontius could not have been written by someone who didn't know Parsifal. But (and it's a rather big 'but') he was 42-3 when he wrote Gerontius. Most of his music before that has echoes of Delibes, Saint-Saens and Massenet - composers he had known from his youth (and whom he'd played in orchestras)*. Dvorak too (known since he played unfer him at Birmingham in 1884 (6th Symph & Stabat Mater).

* And Schumann ("my ideal!") whom he'd discovered in 1883.

Delightful and typically lightly-worn erudition Pabs - many thanks

[teamsaint]

I really enjoyed this Discovering Music on Elgar 1.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018sw44

Here is one on Elgar 2, which I haven't heard.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01d0zyl