Beethoven, Ludwig van that ilk (1770 - 1827)

[vinteuil]

... am I right in thinking Beethoven was content for it to be performed thus?

... and in the end - what weight might we give to the fact that Beethoven might (or might not) have been 'content' for it to be performed thus? In what way does that increase (or not) our appreciation/understanding/love of this work/these works??

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - the GF was published under a separate Opus number (Op 133 - the Bb S4tet is Op 130). That lighter replacement Finale was the last piece of Music he completed: nothing else in the last four months of his life.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and in the end - what weight might we give to the fact that Beethoven might (or might not) have been 'content' for it to be performed thus? In what way does that increase (or not) our appreciation/understanding/love of this work/these works??

It certainly "increases", in the sense that the knowledge that he was content for it to be performed so gives us more information about the work and the composer's attitude to it. This sort of knowledge is disturbing only to those who would cling to the "organic" idea that a great piece of Music can only "go" in one, intimately and internally "predestined"/"logical" way. (It was this idea that led to Haas' pick'n'mix splicing of the 1887 and 1890 versions of the Bruckner #8. For him, "alternative valid versions" was a concept that betrayed and was contradicted by everything he'd learned and believed in. Wordsworth was more fortunate in his editors!) For me, such different options, each valid in their own way, gives these works a vaster set of choices and possibilities; widens the panorama that they offer. (Gives us 15 - at least - Bruckner Symphonies, too, rather than just 10-and-three-quarters.)

[Serial_Apologist]

It certainly "increases", in the sense that the knowledge that he was content for it to be performed so gives us more information about the work and the composer's attitude to it. This sort of knowledge is disturbing only to those who would cling to the "organic" idea that a great piece of Music can only "go" in one, intimately and internally "predestined"/"logical" way. (It was this idea that led to Haas' pick'n'mix splicing of the 1887 and 1890 versions of the Bruckner #8. For him, "alternative valid versions" was a concept that betrayed and was contradicted by everything he'd learned and believed in. Wordsworth was more fortunate in his editors!) For me, such different options, each valid in their own way, gives these works a vaster set of choices and possibilities; widens the panorama that they offer. (Gives us 15 - at least - Bruckner Symphonies, too, rather than just 10-and-three-quarters.)

Yes I agree.

[silvestrione]

I see Simon Rattle is performing the Christ on the Mount of Olives oratorio in this anniversary year, and a performance from the Barbican is on R3 on Friday night. I know nothing of this work. Does anyone know it? Like it? Have recordings?

[silvestrione]

I see Simon Rattle is performing the Christ on the Mount of Olives oratorio in this anniversary year, and a performance from the Barbican is on R3 on Friday night. I know nothing of this work. Does anyone know it? Like it? Have recordings?

Oh dear....(yawns)...

[LMcD]

I must admit I've never heard it. Presto's list of recordings show that Kent Nagano and Berlin forces were awarded a Penguin rosette.

[gurnemanz]

I paid no attention to it until I got the Brilliant Classics complete Beethoven over ten years ago which contained a good version from Helmut Rilling and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart. I found it interesting and perfectly listenable-to without it making a huge impression or being something I would wish to go back to very often. I recently read Jan Swafford's large Beethoven biography and revisited it in the light of references made there, which included some positive comments. Amongst other things, he makes a point along the lines that it was a useful exercise for Beethoven to find out what kind of work he did not want to write.

[LMcD]

There are quite a few complete performances on YouTube.

[Mandryka]

Narratio Quartet, op 18s.

Astonishing new release! PI and period technique: you have been warned.

Booklet here

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/wyjkao/narratio-quartet-beethoven-early-string-quartets

There is definitely a new wave of HIP - this idea


. . . perhaps we have also lost something along the way? The ability to feel how groundbreaking and visionary this music was in those days. My colleagues and I feel that using instruments that are comparable to those of the time has helped us enormously in getting somewhat closer to the surprise, the bewilderment and the rapture that the musicians in Schuppanzigh’s quartet must have felt when they first came face to face with the newest and most innovative chamber music of the day.

makes me think of what Bjorn Schmelzer says about Machaut and Brumel.

[AuntDaisy]

Narratio Quartet, op 18s.
Astonishing new release! PI and period technique: you have been warned.
...
There is definitely a new wave of HIP - this idea

. . . perhaps we have also lost something along the way? The ability to feel how groundbreaking and visionary this music was in those days. My colleagues and I feel that using instruments that are comparable to those of the time has helped us enormously in getting somewhat closer to the surprise, the bewilderment and the rapture that the musicians in Schuppanzigh’s quartet must have felt when they first came face to face with the newest and most innovative chamber music of the day.

makes me think of what Bjorn Schmelzer says about Machaut and Brumel.

Thanks, I think. Bit disappointed that Ms. de Hoog was on cello.
BTW, to be truly authentic, do the musicians need to have fleas, the pox or other historical ailments?

I wish you hadn't sent me down the Schmelzer rabbit hole - this article (with Schmelzer's long reply) was more than enough.

[Mandryka]

I listened to their op 18/2 this morning -- it's quite a shock to the system.

I wish you hadn't sent me down the Schmelzer rabbit hole - this article (with Schmelzer's long reply) was more than enough.

Sounds to me as though you'd really enjoy the Schmelzer/Kuijken correspondence

https://www.goldbergstiftung.org/file/mar2009_eng.pdf

Thanks, I think. Bit disappointed that Ms. de Hoog was on cello.

Why?

BTW, to be truly authentic, do the musicians need to have fleas, the pox or other historical ailments?

That should be easy to do.

[vinteuil]

.... the Schmelzer rabbit hole - this article (with Schmelzer's long reply) was more than enough.

... many thanks for that - I found it really interesting. Lots of stuff you could argue about, but he/they is/are asking really quite deep questions. It's many years since I was professionally involved with the early music world, but I was happy to be reminded of the issues underlying a lot of the thinking.

If you want real authenticity - my understanding is that the Margrave of Brandenburg said - "o thank you, young Joh: Seb: - just what I've always wanted" - and proceeded to lock the scores away in a desk unperformed - I think an 'authentic' performance shd therefore be with an audience confronted with a stage on which is a desk with a locked drawer containing the scores of the Brandenburg Concertos...

.

[smittims]

Surely 'authentic' means 'what the author did (or would do). Bach did perform much of the music of the Brandenburgs in earlier versions , some in his cantatas and some in earlier versions of the concertos. But to try to recreate the sound of those performances, and those of Beethoven's op.18 quartets , would involve I think more than musicology. We'd have to recover what the musicians of the time knew (no middle-or-late Bethoven, no Berlioz or Wagner,let alone Stravinsky) and forget what we know.

And this is where 'early music' often goes astray in my opinion. So often what I hear is a modern performance for a modern audience. and all too often an attempt to excite the audience 21st-century style by making the music sound new or modern in some way. I'm all for a fresh interpretation, but when they claim it's 'authentic' I smell a rat.

I did listen to the samples of the op.18. I didn't find the playing as strange as I was expecting. But it didn't seem to me to reveal the music behind the notes in the waythat , say, the Amadeus quartet do.

[Mandryka]

I did listen to the samples of the op.18. I didn't find the playing as strange as I was expecting. But it didn't seem to me to reveal the music behind the notes in the waythat , say, the Amadeus quartet do.

Certainly not in the way that Amadeus do. Compare Narratio and Amadeus in op 18/1 and try to say which is more perceptive and revealing, I can't.