Music and Memory

[LeMartinPecheur]

Did they tell us about all of the musical memory favourites discs - I don't recall hearing which Beethoven 5 though I assume it was VPO/Kleiber

I don't think they did. I was sitting with pen poised and only caught the ones I posted above. So AFAIK, no LvB5, St Matthew Passion or Firebird versions

[teamsaint]

One thing I always think of when I think about memory in music (as a listener) is the first episode of one of my favourite individual movements in Beethoven, the Adagio ma non troppo of Op. 74. The main theme takes up most of the movement—24 bars long and heard three times in full, but each time reinterpreted in terms of instrumental sonority and plenitude—and the second episode of the A B A' C A'' form is largely based on the main theme as well and initially sounds like a varied repeat of its second half. The first episode however is a new and very beautiful theme in the tonic minor, no part of which is ever heard again, except for the surprising and potentially very moving recurrence of its first four bars at the start of the coda after it seems as though the movement is actually over. This episode, its dramatic modulation to Cb major, its melodic ideas, and its soft off-beat pulses stick in the memory long after the entire quartet is over even though only those four bars are ever repeated. A lot of that has to do with the way Beethoven uses its various elements individually: the tonic minor as a presence throughout the movement including 6 bars of the main theme in the minor at the end of the second episode just before the main theme returns for the last time, the off-beat cello pulses throughout that final return, and—once the four-bar fragment of the episode has returned—the continued presence of Ab minor as a spectre almost to the end of the movement with very prominent Fbs and Cbs disrupting and destabilising the coda's attempts at a final cadence.

Another example that always comes to mind is the abortive "sonata form" in the first movement of Dvořák's Violin Concerto, which breaks down after the recapitulation of the "first theme" with the soloist leading a transition to the second movement. Until this transition the movement was a perfectly normal sonata form with a perfectly serviceable second theme in C major that almost any other composer would have repeated, or at least alluded to in some way, or at least wanted to reuse because frankly it's quite lovely. Dvořák does not. We still remember that theme quite well amongst the numerous other melodies throughout the work. I think part of that is because of tonal harmony—C major is the dominant of F major, the key of the slow movement, and therefore the slow movement "feels" like it resolves the unresolved C major of the exposition—and part of it is orchestration: the slow movement's opening theme is similarly scored for violin and lower strings. There are no direct correspondences between the two themes, but both make extensive use of scale fragments and tend to settle on long dominant pedals rather than properly resolving, and the more agitated middle section of the adagio sounds like an inversion of the first movement's main theme. Emotionally, we end up with the effect of one long movement in two tempi and two keys, based on one pair of ideas, but when you look at the music on the score the ideas in the second movement seem to bear no relation to those in the first. It's hard to point to any specific musical features that create that emotional effect. All I can say for sure is that the finale is definitely separate and, if seen as a counterweight to one long and diffuse movement, its length (817 bars?) and concentration of material do not seem extravagant.

Thanks for going to the trouble of posting this. I'll definitely revisit this with your comments in mind.

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought that the academic talking about her research was interesting. Perhaps the musical excerpts from 'favourites' could have been shortened but on the whole I enjoyed it.

The concept is potentially interesting, but I found the discussion incoherent, largely I think because the academic and her research weren't really focused enough for this Record Review context. As she said, her slant was more about what pieces/songs had marked people at what stage of their life (the 'Desert Island Discs' approach that she mentioned), whereas AMcG for the purposes of the programme seemed to be overlaying the more precise criteria of which interpretations of specific pieces were close to listeners' hearts and whether this varied over time. It resulted in the discussion falling back on the lazy solution (whatever the 'academic' get-up) of basically just playing the favourite recordings of the smallish 'test group' of listeners who had participated. Not especially enlightening.

Jeremy Summerly's interjections were the main reason I'm not sorry I listened to it though - especially his summing up that the research just went to prove that 'we're bad at our jobs'

[LeMartinPecheur]

How do people here with their often vast disc collections react to the concept of "particular versions that top the memory/favourites list" (wording from an earlier post, not her exact ones?) which seemed central to Loveday's research?

Yes, I know most of us have favourite versions that we're keen to share, but how often/easily do these change? And if we attend a concert is our first priority really to judge the performance against our memory-reference?

I guess some do a lot, but I don't seem to. I wouldn't really want a carbon-copy performance even if such were possible. In a concert or on a new disc I'm after a new experience. While I might initially be shocked to find that the new is radically different to previous experience (standards?) I'd in generally be pleased about this as long as it wasn't in flat contradiction to the score.

For instance, as for so many the Du Pre/ Barbirolli Elgar concerto was an early object of worship but it was never a norm for judging other performances. (Though might this have been different if I hadn't previously bought the Anthony Pini on Decca Eclipse?) In fact, the one recording I would really say is my engraved reference is a hopelessly 'wrong' one, the Barbirolli Mahler 6 slow 1st movement. It's been really hard work getting to see all the countless other performances I've heard and owned as themselves not 'hopelessly wrong'

Not sure if Loveday had fully recognized the difference between popular music and classical in this respect, though she did touch on it. In the former, what you remember usually is one particular disc. Cover versions don't do it for you, or at least not till the old one has become a piece of history and younger artists are entitled to start again with the same piece as it were 'from new'. Jazz I suppose is something else again, with almost an expectation that a new tune will immediately get taken up, bent, modified. Little idea of an 'original' that needs reverential reproduction at all.

[Bryn]

From last night's TtN listing:

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No 6 in F major, Op 68, 'Pastoral'

Conductor: Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Orchestra: Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Singer: Charlotte Margiono. Singer: Rudolf Schasching. Singer: Birgit Remmert. Singer: Robert Holl. Choir: Arnold Schoenberg Chorus. Conductor: Erwin Ortner.

?

and later on:

Ludwig van Beethoven

Divertimento concertante for Double Bass and Orchestra (4th mvt)

Performer: Sabine Meyer. Performer: Reiner Wehle. Performer: Diethelm Jonas. Performer: Albrecht Mayer. Performer: Dag Jensen. Performer: Georg Klütsch. Performer: Klaus Lohrer. Performer: Bruno Schneider. Performer: Niklaus Frisch. Ensemble: Bläserensemble Sabine Meyer.

??

[LeMartinPecheur]

Well Bryn, we're often told that TtN is the only place now left on R3 for innovative programming and non-standard repertoire!

[pastoralguy]

I always thought Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony was missing something!

[Barbirollians]

How do people here with their often vast disc collections react to the concept of "particular versions that top the memory/favourites list" (wording from an earlier post, not her exact ones?) which seemed central to Loveday's research?

Yes, I know most of us have favourite versions that we're keen to share, but how often/easily do these change? And if we attend a concert is our first priority really to judge the performance against our memory-reference?

I guess some do a lot, but I don't seem to. I wouldn't really want a carbon-copy performance even if such were possible. In a concert or on a new disc I'm after a new experience. While I might initially be shocked to find that the new is radically different to previous experience (standards?) I'd in generally be pleased about this as long as it wasn't in flat contradiction to the score.

For instance, as for so many the Du Pre/ Barbirolli Elgar concerto was an early object of worship but it was never a norm for judging other performances. (Though might this have been different if I hadn't previously bought the Anthony Pini on Decca Eclipse?) In fact, the one recording I would really say is my engraved reference is a hopelessly 'wrong' one, the Barbirolli Mahler 6 slow 1st movement. It's been really hard work getting to see all the countless other performances I've heard and owned as themselves not 'hopelessly wrong'

Not sure if Loveday had fully recognized the difference between popular music and classical in this respect, though she did touch on it. In the former, what you remember usually is one particular disc. Cover versions don't do it for you, or at least not till the old one has become a piece of history and younger artists are entitled to start again with the same piece as it were 'from new'. Jazz I suppose is something else again, with almost an expectation that a new tune will immediately get taken up, bent, modified. Little idea of an 'original' that needs reverential reproduction at all.

You are not alone when Richard Osborne did Mahler 6 for Interpretations on Record some years ago he pointed out that if you had got to know the work from either Barbirolli (slow) or the NYPO/Bernstein ( quick) they might well have spoiled you for other versions .

I got to know the work from the Classics for Pleasure reissue of the Barbirolli and I am still uttterly convinced by it and it took a long time to not find others impossibly quick .

[Pulcinella]

Once again, I find that, by judicious pruning of threads by our hosts, I have inadvertently spawned another thread.
Serves me right for going off topic on the BaL thread!


But talking of memory......
Our choir is performing one piece (at least) from memory in our next concert: I fail to see why!
After a minor rebellion at last week's rehearsal, at which I was pleased that I was not the only person who was going to find this difficult, the 'chosen one' was changed from Stravinsky's Pater noster to Duruflë's Notre père; I'm not sure that that will be any easier, but we shall see!

[LeMartinPecheur]

You are not alone when Richard Osborne did Mahler 6 for Interpretations on Record some years ago he pointed out that if you had got to know the work from either Barbirolli (slow) or the NYPO/Bernstein ( quick) they might well have spoiled you for other versions .

I got to know the work from the Classics for Pleasure reissue of the Barbirolli and I am still uttterly convinced by it and it took a long time to not find others impossibly quick .

Phew Barbs - what a relief! However misguided, I am not alone

PS Do you know the Barbirolli live recording with the BPO from Jan 1966, about a year before the NPO live and studio recordings? Not really different in approach but just as cliff-edge

It's interesting to read online reviews. That BPO one has the Andante first but my LP EMI set of the NPO recording is Scherzo first. Your CD version may not be, because apparently Barbirolli never ever changed his view that Andante came first. EMI reversed the order in the LP issue without his permission, in order to accord with the new Critical Edition. Much to his displeasure apparently, but their CD reissues have been faithful to his wishes.

[DracoM]

The Chapel Choir of which I was a member did a long weekend of singing all the choral services in a notable Northern cathedral in the resident choir's vacation.
Long, long drive back to home. In the dark we were unpacking etc and hanging vestments etc in choir wardrobe. Only a streetlight illuminating the east window. Just as we were going, the 13 yr old boy Head Chorister suddenly said ' we can't just leave it like that. Not after all that.....We have to sing'.

We gathered in almost pitch dark on the high altar. at about 1 a.m. plus. What shall we sing, we all asked? Head Boy Chorister said 'Ave Verum'. The Byrd setting. So he pitched a note, and we sang. We had never sung it without music in hand / on desk. No conductor, we sang it, literally note perfect. We were all so amazed, we then sang, without organ, Ireland's 'Greater love..' humming bits of the organ parts from memory. Again, pretty well note perfect. We were awed. Everything went very quiet, then we shook hands, some hugged each other, and we left the chapel.

We simply did not know we knew it. We had sung it maybe six or so times before over a three maybe four years period, but never without music.

[pastoralguy]

I remember an occasion when I was a student when a group of us performed a concert at an extremely prestigious boarding school for girls in Fife. One of the works on the programme was Milhaud's Trio for clarinet, violin and piano. As we sat down to play, our clarinetist realised she didn't have her music. In a panic, she left the stage leaving only us and as the seconds stretched into hours, (or so it felt like!), the pianist and I decided to play Elgar's 'Salut d' amour' from memory. It went extremely well and brought the house down and, at the wee reception afterwards, I was mobbed by all these attractive young ladies! (Ok, so I was a 20 year old male in a girls boarding school!). However, I remember thinking on the long drive back to Edinburgh that had I had weeks to prepare I would have been shaking like a leaf at having to play a piece from MEMORY!

Happy days.

[oddoneout]

Over the years various MDs have, (sometimes from exasperation as much as anything) told our choir 'Right, shut your books/put the music down and just sing it'. The extent to which the relevant bit of music can be remembered, and the difference in the quality of the sound produced,(largely due to getting heads up!) never fail to amaze.
For some reason I still find it easy to memorise much of the choral music I do for various concerts - useful when aging eyesight makes reading it increasingly hit and miss! - in a way I was never able to do when playing an instrument, even in my youth. Sometimes one or two words might get lost, but the notes are still there to carry over the temporary text malfunction,but I wouldn't like to have to stand up in front of an audience without the music in my hand even if I hardly look at it. I do wonder occasionally about the extent to which the process of reading the notes creates something of a barrier to actually producing the notes, and that once that option has been removed the brain can connect more directly to its memory banks and use different cues and prompts. It certainly feels different.

[rauschwerk]

I suppose that as a child I thought of playing the piano from memory as quite natural. I have a photo of myself aged 7 or 8 at a school concert, playing (as I recall) a Haydn sonata movement with no dots in front of me. I think my absolute pitch has always helped, along with muscle memory. If playing from memory had been an exam requirement, I would have been happy to do that. In later life, I have always preferred to play piano solos in public from memory, including a 75 minute recital. However, I have only ever memorised one fugue (from the 48) and jolly hard work it was too. Among other tricks, I wrote the piece out in open score in four different coloured inks and followed a recording from my score, but I'm not sure if that helped. The other kinds of music which defeat my memory faculties are atonal (Schoenberg Op 19) or serial (McCabe Bagatelles).

[BBMmk2]

What a load of tosh the Sunday Morning programme was!