BaL 23.11.19 - Haydn: Symphony no. 102

[Master Jacques]

I think you will find she has done at least one futher Messiaen BaL since then. Are you not aware that the recording she chose has since been identified as a slightly modified clone of the recording by Paul Kim, whose Messiaen piano survey on the slightly esoteric Centaur label has since been highly acclaimed by many? If one is presented with a CD to review, one is obliged to take its accreditation at face value. Bryce Morrison, in The Gramophone also praised the recording to the skies, similarly accepting the attribution to the, as we now know, dying Hatto. Under its due attribution to Paul Kim, it is one of my favourite recordings of Vingt Regards, though the more opportunities I get to here the work performed, the better. Here's hoping Ian Pace makes a decent pair of fists of it at City University next month.

Thank you, Bryn - yes, now you remind me that the work was Vingt Regards, I am certainly aware whose original it was: Kim has been one of the handful of pianists whose reputation did benefit from the Hatto deception.

One critic who notably did not take those Hatto accreditations at face value was Rob Cowan, who pointedly avoided having anything to do with "her" CD issues whenever possible. I do remember that he had to play some of the "Hatto" Vingt Regards on his morning show, after Walker had chosen the it on BaL, and pointedly only gave the bare attribution without further comment.

[Master Jacques]

How exactly is it "old-fashioned"? With reference to what definition of "modern"...?
Where does the flautist slip up?.

I certainly don't mean to spoil your (or anyone else's) pleasure in the recording. It strikes me - just my personal opinion - as one of those essentially neo-romantic, millennial interpretations of Haydn which give the impression that the music needs peppering up, dressing with lemon juice and garnishing with chilli flakes - just as conductors such as Beecham playing these great works in the 1950s used to do, though not in quite the same way.

You are right to pick me up on loose usage, though. I accept that my "modern" may be "old fashioned" these days! My "modern" refers to those more dispassionate performances (whether on instruments old or new) which aim to let Haydn speak for himself without emotive interventions - the likes of Davis, Bruggen or Harnoncourt will do very nicely for starters. Little of Mr Williams's "messin' about" there.

Fey's flautist fails to articulate the rhythms cleanly rather often (part I suppose of what other posters identity as "not quite top class" orchestral playing), notably with the first subject of the main 1st movement allegro, where there are subtle smudges both times around. I don't really want to get into who's listening to the recording on what - my criticism of the sound was secondary to my dislike of Fey's jumpy, micro-managed interpretation.

[jayne lee wilson]

But what does it really mean, to "aim to let Haydn speak for himself"?

Here's conductor Ottavio Dantone, in the notes to his outstanding Accademia Bizantina album of Haydn 78-81....
"It is well known that eighteenth-century music contains more “non-written” elements than written ones. Discovering these hidden aspects, therefore — the secret codes that reveal the music’s varying emotions from the most intimate to the most intense — is a highly interesting and creative process. With composers such as Haydn this search is even more stimulating because, like all great musicians, he took great care over the inner voices and the accompanying parts. At times the violas, other times the wind, bring out something not necessarily indicated in the score, allowing them to express to the fullest extent the many rhythmic, dynamic and harmonic elements that cannot be written, because they come from the sensibilities of the composer and performer. All this serves to enable the listener to enjoy these notes in all their splendour — even the ones hidden away. Happy listening!"

You can find similar comments about performer intuition or creativity in various contexts, even in the letters and comments of such as Bruckner, Brahms and their own performers, friends and contemporaries...
Did Mozart play his Piano Concertos with the same cadenzas, ornaments etc., each time? Surely not. "Emotive interventions" or as I would put it, freely creative performances or details within performances are what keep music, especially the most familiar classical masterpieces, fresh and alive.....(the very fact of their individuality or idiosyncrasy is why they will often inspire, or provoke, very different responses).

I think this is what Mahler meant when he said "the most important part of the music is not in the notes".

***
Try as I might & scrutinise as I can, I still can't hear any problem with the first flute's articulations, or that of the Heidelberger Sinfoniker generally. I think they play this symphony quite brilliantly, exactly as they wanted to, at that particular time.....and above all with far more individuality and affection than many a supposedly or reputedly "great" orchestra or conductor will often manage.

[BBMmk2]

Abbado didn’t get the thumbs up then. Pity.

[Master Jacques]

Jayne, I think we're so deeply at cross-purposes over the interesting matter of "letting Haydn speak for himself" that it is unhelpful to pursue the question, at least on this thread.

Fidelity to the written notes in the route guide we call a printed score - or a manuscript indeed - is, we would totally agree, the easy part. It's what happens beyond that which is the question. I don't disagree with what Dantone says, though of course one conductor's idea of "hidden aspects" is another's idea of "over-interpretation". There lies the rub.

The Fey recording is one side of the line for you, the other for me. The greatest performers are not necessarily those who never do anything the same twice: capriciousness is more often a nightmare for fellow performers. And orchestral dynamics can never be a matter for mass spontaneity: the conductor has to be in charge and can't change what's been minutely rehearsed "in the moment". Enough said. Happy listening!

[ardcarp]

A very personal opinion about what ‘letting the composer speak’ means. I wasn’t going to contribute any further to this thread. But my mind was changed just now on hearing a movement from a Stamitz symphony on R3. It was played by The London Mozart Players directed by Bamert. It was not played on period instruments, but combined great precision and clarity with a lovely sense of line and phrasing. Was this ‘letting the composer speak’? By contrast, listening to the admittedly brief snippets of Roy Gooidman and The Hanover Band on yesterday’s BAL was for me a cold bashing through of the dots. Was this ‘letting the composer speak’? All music we hear (or make ourselves) is inevitably coloured by our own experiences and by the spirit of our times. Incidentally, I found Stamitz instructive....a child of the Baroque embracing the spirit of his times...in listening to late Haydn.

Sorry if I’ve rambled.

[Master Jacques]

All music we hear (or make ourselves) is inevitably coloured by our own experiences and by the spirit of our times. Incidentally, I found Stamitz instructive....a child of the Baroque embracing the spirit of his times...in listening to late Haydn. .

Wise words. I'm also struck by what you have to say about the "sense of line", so vital (for many of us, perhaps) in freeing music of the Stamitz-Haydn period to "speak for itself". By the way, I also agree with you about the Goodman/Hanover Band performances, which have always struck me as slightly crude and cold (though in that good-humoured way which passes for "Haydnesque"!)

[HighlandDougie]

Well I’ve just listened to the Fey, somewhat prompted by comments above. (I should say I’d probably only listen to this symphony (great through it is) once or twice a decade - there are, after all, 103 others, not to mention A+B!) But I’m too mean to buy the winner as it’s not available for streaming as it’s on Hyperion. I have at least Tate, Beecham and A Fischer in my collection, but last listened to the Minkowski, which I enjoyed more than JLW did. So to Fey - a delight for those who know the symphony quite well, oozing with life, energy, electricity, all that good stuff. A bit eccentric at times, some of the tempi very quick indeed, some phrasing a little quirky. But - and this important to me - if I hear a middle of the road performance of something I know quite well, my listening can go into a sort of auto-pilot, which I know isn’t healthy. There was never any danger of that here. The sound, incidentally, is somewhat reverberant, a little reminiscent of the Fischer, series, but better than that. A very wide but not terribly deep stereo spread, with full value given to the divided violins. There’s a sense of listening to a very good orchestra, perhaps not in the first class, but with oodles of character. I’m delighted to have heard it, but I can see why it might not be a ‘safe’ library choice.

Recording quality is an area of subjective judgement but my complaint about Fey - on CD, not via streaming - was what I found to be a lack of reverberation. Maybe I'm just used to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw - or maybe it's my CD transport/pre-amp/amp/ATC speakers combination - but I find it to be clear with, as Goon says, a wide orchestral spread but dry and, to repeat myself, rather boxy. The review in Music Web talks about, "The Heidelberger Sinfoniker is recorded in a much closer perspective, which has its impressive qualities, but can make you feel a bit bruised if listening at a decent volume through headphones". So perhaps I should just settle for, "closely recorded". Fey's slamming on of the brakes for the Trio - an interpretative quirk on his part (aka "mannerism") which, for me, makes little musical sense (as in, "why?") and which, sorry, Jayne and Goon, is just one example of why I have little time for Fey's London Symphonies. I will await Giovanni Antonini - it might be a long time but his stylish Haydn is much more to my taste.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

“Letting the composer speak” is usually a euphemism for putting the composer in handcuffs and blaming him/her for the inadequacy of dots on lines to express human emotions; to deny the developments made after the dots were penned to paper; to deny the possibility that today’s musicians are capable of thoughts that will breathe new life into these dots.

Haydn can’t speak. He’s dead. But we can give him a helping hand.

[Master Jacques]

Fey's slamming on of the brakes for the Trio - an interpretative quirk on his part (aka "mannerism") which, for me, makes little musical sense (as in, "why?")

Fey is not alone of course in slamming on the brakes (though others don't do it to quite that degree). I'm interested in where this particular manner comes from; and though I'm wide open to correction, I believe it harks back to the late-romantic "tradition" of playing Haydn in Austria and Germany, at least as far back as Mahler.

Although Beecham may not conform to our current ideal of Haydnesque good taste, I think the initial "spring cleaning" he did on Haydn playing (in not countenancing those pedestrian trios, for example) was of great value, in preparing the way for Harry Newstone's more radical re-establishment of Haydn's classical style, working in collaboration with Robbins Landon. I had the privilege of collaborating with Newstone and his Haydn Orchestra (on a production of L'infedeltà delusa many decades ago) and he would have had short shrift with such indulgences! We are formed by our own experiences, for sure.

[Master Jacques]

“Letting the composer speak” is usually a euphemism for putting the composer in handcuffs and blaming him/her for the inadequacy of dots on lines to express human emotions; to deny the developments made after the dots were penned to paper; to deny the possibility that today’s musicians are capable of thoughts that will breathe new life into these dots.

Haydn can’t speak. He’s dead. But we can give him a helping hand.

He's not dead in any important sense! And as to whether he would have seen music as being there to "express human emotions" ... well, I doubt he would have gone along with any such romantic notion. But then, who am I to speak for him? Sometimes, though, I feel the "helping hand" he's offered these days is rather too close to helping far-from-lame dogs over styles.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Giving a composer a helping hand" is usually a euphemism for arrogant looking down on a composer and thinking that "we" know better than s/he did what is communicated in the score, and that the performers' idea of "human emotions" is more important than the composers' ideas. The results of these self-indulgent "breathing new life into" the Music is usually the aural equivalent of halitosis.

Haydn speaks in his scores - the "dots" are as eloquent as the "squiggles" that form the letters of a Shakespeare sonnet for those performers who make the effort to pay attention to them; they need respecting, not given "a helping hand" (which is usually armed with a Joy Buzzer).

[verismissimo]

"Giving a composer a helping hand" is usually a euphemism for arrogant looking down on a composer and thinking that "we" know better than s/he did what is communicated in the score, and that the performers' idea of "human emotions" is more important than the composers' ideas. The results of these self-indulgent "breathing new life into" the Music is usually the aural equivalent of halitosis.

Haydn speaks in his scores - the "dots" are as eloquent as the "squiggles" that form the letters of a Shakespeare sonnet for those performers who make the effort to pay attention to them; they need respecting, not given "a helping hand" (which is usually armed with a Joy Buzzer).

And yet … Haydn was a pupil of and assistant to arch-decorator Porpora, and Mozart's work was intended to be decorated by the performers, as eloquently demonstrated by Mackerras and others. it's not only the dots!

[Master Jacques]

And yet … Haydn was a pupil of and assistant to arch-decorator Porpora, and Mozart's work was intended to be decorated by the performers, as eloquently demonstrated by Mackerras and others. it's not only the dots!

I'm glad you remind us that Haydn, Mozart - and Beethoven too (c.f. Rosen on the piano sonatas passim) - were centrally in the business of transferring the manners and idioms of the opera house into the concert hall. Yet when it comes to symphonic (or even quartet) writing, the vocal-style decorations of opera can only apply to the melodic line, and only then when that's under the hand of a single player. But your central point - that it's not only the dots - is absolutely fair, and therein lies many an interpretative squabble!

[gurnemanz]

Random thoughts re Let the composer speak: Another factor is surely performance (public or private) v studio recording. Earlier composers were obviously only writing with the former in mind, i.e. not thinking about the repeated hearing of an identical performance, set down using retakes, coffee breaks, acoustic tweaking, correction of imperfections etc. Strictly speaking, therefore, it seems to me that no meticulously produced and edited modern studio recording can ever be what Haydn would have "spoken". Nowadays, performers can choose to do things in a live rendition which on repeated hearing might become irksome and would be avoided in the studio. I enjoyed the Fey Haydn 102 but probably won't feel the need to go back so often. The holding back of the beat in the minuet, for example, would for me become tiresome over time and is the sort of wackiness which would probably also eliminate it as a BaL recommendation.

In similar vein, I recently heard Die schöne Müllerin from Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees. He sometimes uses embellishment of the musical line. It is known that singers at the Schubertiades, eg Michael Vogl, used to decorate the music with grace-notes and such like, presumably in a different way each time. I think I might enjoy that at a live recital (and wish I could have attended one of Schubert's soirées) but in this studio recording it seems out of place.

One reason why Bob Dylan continues to tour heavily, aged 78, is that, despite all the studio recordings he has made, he firmly believes that a song only truly come into existence when it takes shape live in front of an audience. The studio recording might be great in many ways but it is still a fossil.