Strauss 150 Anniversary

[Dave2002]

I'm really enjoying some of the music and discussions related to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss. COTW has been really good, and also some of the afternoon programmes this week. Also, it feels as though Strauss as a conductor was very close to what is now called HIPP - or maybe I haven't got that right. The discussion and examples of his performance of Mozart's music suggest that his approach was very close to some of today's HIPP/authentic movement, though he may not have thought of it that way. He may not have studied performance practices from earlier times, but simply adopted his own, which in some ways at least seem to coincide with the current views on this topic.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wonder if it isn't more a case that what might be called (with the very greatest respect and admiration) the "Wagner/Furtwangler approach" to Music making wasn't as wide-spread as it became in the middle of the 20th Century. Listening to other conductors from the '20s and '30s (not least from Toscanini and even conductors like Bohm* and Klemperer whose later performances became more inward-looking) demonstrates that the brisker, lighter, "livelier" "Mendelssohnian" school of interpretation was still a strong tradition.

And Furtwangler himself wasn't averse to it - the first Movement of Mozart's G minor symphony (K550) has all the zip, pazzazz and fire of any HIPP recording.

(* - there's a recording from the late '30s/early '40s of Bohm conducting Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. It's only the recorded sound that would prevent anyone who doesn't know it from identifying it as a performance by some young conductor today "trying" to "get back" to Bruckner's intentions. Very different from the grace and lyricism of his stereo recordings.)

[Richard Barrett]

Behind this phenomenon I think is that, in the years since Strauss (and Furtwängler and Böhm etc.) were conducting, interpretation has become much more standardised, along with orchestral playing, instrument-building, conservatory education and many other aspects of music-making. The growth of historically-informed performance confuses the issue somewhat, but (as Reinhard Goebel has pointed out) that way of doing things has also developed its orthodoxies. The interpretative spectrum between Böhm (or Strauss) and Furtwängler was an accepted part of the musical landscape in its time.

[Roehre]

Behind this phenomenon I think is that, in the years since Strauss (and Furtwängler and Böhm etc.) were conducting, interpretation has become much more standardised, along with orchestral playing, instrument-building, conservatory education and many other aspects of music-making. The growth of historically-informed performance confuses the issue somewhat, but (as Reinhard Goebel has pointed out) that way of doing things has also developed its orthodoxies. The interpretative spectrum between Böhm (or Strauss) and Furtwängler was an accepted part of the musical landscape in its time.

Of which the comments and critics re a double bill in the Concertgebouw [Mahler 4 before the interval conducted by Mahler, Mahler 4 after the interval conducted by Mengelberg] also bear witness.