Originally posted by jayne lee wilson
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Comparison between Beaux Arts and Sonniere, here:
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I wish Gramophone guide would name the reviewers, like Third Ear and BBC Music Magazine Guides. The latter has a review by Jeremy Siepman, who says he prefers the period quartets of Bilson et. al and the Mozartean players to the Beaux Arts. But he picks Curzon & the Amadeus Quartet as his library choice.
Comparison between Beaux Arts and Sonniere, here:
Last edited by Mal; 23-06-19, 18:46. -
Heavens. I do think that is a poor, sketchy and inaccurate review to say the least....(!)....I suspect anyone hearing Sonnerie on a good, revealing system would respond more positively, unless they still have some vestigial aversion to period instruments...(which are especially lovely, beautifully & bracingly played here). Stanley Sadie had been writing with great insight, appreciation and artistic empathy about period-instrument classical recordings since the 1970s, including the Hogwood/Schröder Mozart Symphony Cycle, starting in 1979.Originally posted by Mal View Post
Donat's comments on the cadenzas give the game away.
Oh how shocking to the delicate classical senses that a pianist should be so inventive! This is classical music you know, no room for individuality here! What would Mozart have thought....Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 24-06-19, 05:01.Comment
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I've only ever had Curzon/Amadeus on a Decca Eclipse LP of uncertain age.
So I've invested in Bilson and friends … yet to arrive. Come quickly, postman.Comment
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What's wrong with a sketch? People pay a lot for Picasso sketches. The reviewer has a serious CV: "Misha Donat was a senior music producer at BBC Radio 3 for more than 25 years. He now works as a freelance writer, lecturer and producer. He provides programme notes on a regular basis for the Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Royal Festival Hall and other venues. He is currently working on a new critical edition of the Beethoven piano sonatas being published by Bärenreiter." This means I take him as seriously as you & Stanley Sadie, Jayne, so who am I to believe?Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
If he finds it "workmanlike rather than inspired" I can't see how you can call him inaccurate. That's just how he felt! OK, even with his considerable expertise, he might not have the particular mental set to get inspired by this performance. But that's useful information to me. If an expert like him doesn't get it then there's a good chance I will not! Then again, Jeremy Siepman, another BBC long timer wasn't inspired by the Beaux Arts! I wonder if they had long arguments in the coffee room? :)
So who gets nothing but "he's inspired!" comments, without any negative comments from anyone? It's looking like Curzon! There's a bargain box that might be worth a listen:
Anyone heard this? Is Document's remastering up to scratch? Have Naxos or anyone else produced a better remastering?Last edited by Mal; 24-06-19, 09:03.Comment
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My first version isn't on the list either. Walter Klien and members of the Amadeus Quartet, originally on DG. When my lp collection was destroyed in a flood and I couldn't afford to buy CDs for many years I keenly missed this music. Eventually I made do with Rubinstein and the Guarneri but when I saw the Klien lp in a resale store along with a few other old favorites it motivated me to buy a turntable. The Klien is still excellent but in truth the Rubinstein is as well and so are sever5others that I have heard since, although I have never heard an HIPP version.Comment
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Just believe your own ears - once you've heard it. Then you'll know how wonderful it is....Originally posted by Mal View PostWhat's wrong with a sketch? People pay a lot for Picasso sketches. The reviewer has a serious CV: "Misha Donat was a senior music producer at BBC Radio 3 for more than 25 years. He now works as a freelance writer, lecturer and producer. He provides programme notes on a regular basis for the Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Royal Festival Hall and other venues. He is currently working on a new critical edition of the Beethoven piano sonatas being published by Bärenreiter." This means I take him as seriously as you & Stanley Sadie, Jayne, so who am I to believe?
If he finds it "workmanlike rather than inspired" I can't see how you can call him inaccurate. That's just how he felt! OK, even with his considerable expertise, he might not have the particular mental set to get inspired by this performance. But that's useful information to me. If an expert like him doesn't get it then there's a good chance I will not! Then again, Jeremy Siepman, another BBC long timer wasn't inspired by the Beaux Arts! I wonder if they had long arguments in the coffee room? :)
So who gets nothing but "he's inspired!" comments, without any negative comments from anyone? It's looking like Curzon! There's a bargain box that might be worth a listen:
Anyone heard this? Is Document's remastering up to scratch? Have Naxos or anyone else produced a better remastering?
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Widely available on disc or stream.
I called it inaccurate because of my own ears' evidence, especially about the k452 larghetto, which is beautifully done. Perhaps he didn't give it enough time, to adjust to the sound world and the interpretative approach, compared to familiar references. (Busy guy!)
Donat's comment about "workmanlike" is about the arrangement of k452 (not the overall performance) which is probably not by Mozart, though he seems to have written an alternative, shorter ending for it later, as played on this recording. (Another point of interest).
Donat is evidently a very achieved musician and scholar, way above my amateur music-lover's level, but (from years of review reading), I have the distinct impression that he took against the individuality of the performance in respect of the cadenzas (which are unusually exciting and imaginative; describing k452's as "mercilessly dragged out" Donat overstates his case unfairly), and probably the rubato and strikingly dramatic dynamics too. Possibly takes against the instruments as well, which prejudicial aversion was more common back then. Stanley Sadie was with "the movement", sympathetic to its sounds and aims, almost from the start. He knew the HIPPs catalogue very well, and you could always trust the accuracy and detail of his many reviews.
Sonnerie here is unusually expressive in the context of a period-instrument group, quite daring really, and especially given its release date of 2001, when authentic-instrument recordings of classical chamber music were pretty scarce. Many orchestral HIPPs recordings were metrically strict with tempi and phrasing up to then.Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 24-06-19, 13:57.Comment
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I've sampled their K478 on youtube and, I'm sorry, it doesn't do it for me. But neither does my current CD - the Nash Ensemble :) The ones that, for me, really make it sound like the masterpiece it is are Haebler, Brendel, and Pressler (Beaux arts.) All intriguingly different, but, for me, they produce the "died and gone to heaven" feeling that this transcendental masterpiece should inspire. Nothing gets better than this, in the hands of these masters.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostComment
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Sorry Mal, but I have to stick to my guns here and say that 256kbps aac won't do the recording justice in a critical appraisal (especially comparing it to a CD, it isn't like-with-like).... and again, if it is a very different experience from your familiar references you may need to live with it for a while, to learn to dance with it and sing its song...not a popular view I know, but that's how I hear these things.Originally posted by Mal View Post
Doing a Qobuz Studio whistle-stop tour of (coincidentally) that very k478 finale, I took in - Ysaye, Menuhin, Kuijken, Bilson etc....
The most striking thing was how especially suited to authentic instrumental sonorities these specific works are. For me there's often an inherent balance problem with the modern grand piano against modern strings in chamber music, they almost never blend well, and in Mozart or Haydn the piano can easily sound too full, dull or dominant, ill-defined or even muffled against the ensemble's warmth & sheen, and the contrast doesn't seem a fruitful one. I felt this from my first experiences of such works and avoided piano trios, piano quartets etc for some years.
Bring the fortepiano/gut strings back in - the problem just falls away and the music springs into life, with the potential for greater articulacy, tonal and dynamic variation....
The same goes for later chamber music e.g. Brahms, where an Erard or Streicher can be revelatory.
So I genuinely came to feel that these chamber works simply weren't written with anything like the powerful sound of the modern grand in mind, and may suffer tonally in the use of it. However speculative a listener may feel the use of historical pianos to be, it is usually the result of very fastidious research and restoration. More importantly it lends the music felicitous and highly idiomatic expressiveness, arising from the sound itself..
(Delightful & surprising modern-instrument exception playing now... - Amadeus/Klien (DG), rather light, agile, delicate strings, very refined pianism with more chiselled piano tone in the quicker movements (if again too full/overpedalled in e.g. the k478 andante, where the piano sounds closer). It can't offer all that period ensembles can, but the allegros at least are beautifully done. Lovely warm recording too.)Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 24-06-19, 20:54.Comment
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Far from the instruments themselves being the culprits, I think the real problem is over-close microphone placement in so many chamber music recordings.Comment
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Greatly enjoying Klien (my go to man for the solo Sonatas) with Amadeus Qtt on Spoty.Comment
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Lol! I rather like what Paul Lewis does. I think I was given this as a present! Shock, horror!Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostAre you sure you're feeling alright, Bbm?
Maybe you need a little lie down.
Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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Can't find a stream, Hyperion don't allow it. But I found Paul Lewis with another excellent trio in K493. Heavenly! Prefer it to the Nash Ensemble; more lyrical and dance-like. On this evidence, Lewis joins my short list... now getting rather long :)... Great video as well:Originally posted by BBMmk2 View Post
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Yes, mine to. Listened to his K478 on Youtube. Great momentum in the first movement, matching Haebler perhaps:Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
Bernard O'H on Amazon certainly likes it: 'Listen to the maelstrom in the first movement of the G Minor Quartet at 6’21” and the unbelievable intensification at 6’59” – God gave us ears to hear such things in their fury. Listen to the maelstrom in the first movement of the G Minor Quartet at 6’21” and the unbelievable intensification at 6’59” – God gave us ears to hear such things in their fury. Speaking of which, Hans Keller stated that K 478 "furnishes conclusive proof, more than any other single masterpiece of his, that Mozart's was the only true omniscient ear of which we know.” Here, in the perfect fusion of power and poetry, his maxim comes home to roost. JL observed to me that never before had he heard K 493 so coruscate in the afterglow of Figaro. It’s true. Susannah and cast run amok and effortlessly so."'
Yup, he's right, it's gun stuff! I love that "omniscient ear". Tell it like it is Bernard and Hans.
But I think Pressler and Brendel have an edge in the slow movement; the former *so* lyrical, the latter *so* majestic. So Klien doesn't quite make my shortlist. (Neither does Curzon, mainly for sound quality issues...)Comment
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They are right annoying!!!!Originally posted by Mal View PostCan't find a stream, Hyperion don't allow it. But I found Paul Lewis with another excellent trio in K493. Heavenly! Prefer it to the Nash Ensemble; more lyrical and dance-like. On this evidence, Lewis joins my short list... now getting rather long :)... Great video as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZmOhZGZIk8Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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