Originally posted by Mandryka
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... if you are looking for a HIPP take on these you might like to look at Jan Vermeulen's recording
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Thanks Maclintick: your recommendations are perfect. For lots of reasons I find I'm fascinated to learn more about 'FS's all-too-brief life' - more so than any other composer.Originally posted by Maclintick View PostComment
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I think that's a dauntingly time-consuming task. But detail from others, above, indicates where to look.Originally posted by Bryn View PostComment
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It's a very odd interpretation to me, almost as if in its deadpan, un-nuanced manner Richter wants to present the composer as autistic and awkwardly lacking in grace of any kind. Such insistent obviousness could almost be a Satiean satire. TBH I've never really "got" Schubert, but this performance seems determined to remind me why. His influence probably explains why I find Bruckner's heavy handedness and tendency to drift so hard to take on board.Originally posted by Mandryka View PostComment
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The key word for me to make sense of it is groping. Richter proceeds as if groping his way along. It's something that I got from Alexander Lonquich, and I think it's an interesting way of making sense of some of Schubert's long form music. Beethoven marches confidently, heroically, to his goal. In the long form music, Schubert feels his way along blindly, timidly, towards something uncertain.Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
Wonderful the pulse in the left hand, a heart beat, it starts about 90 secs in and just continues on and on -- organic, the heartbeat of the groping uncertain traveller. Similar things happen in Sciarrino.Last edited by Mandryka; 06-03-23, 18:48.Comment
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Not sure whether this is apocryphal but I read that Richter’s recording of the slow movement of the late B flat sonata slow movement is a very popular funeral request . Not in the Our Love Will Go On class but up there. A lot of the “groping” quality for me comes from Schubert’s harmonic progressions which are so very intriguing .Originally posted by Mandryka View PostComment
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I think the first time I heard a Schubert Piano Sonata was on R3 well over 50 years ago. It was the D major D850 played by Clifford Curzon. Still fairly new to classical music, I was totally entranced from beginning to end, in sheer delight at being led through a masterwork by a maestro. The magic of it remains for me to this day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPdDhMUy5ZU&t=82sComment
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I was in my late 30s when I first really took notice of Schubert. I think this had a lot to do with the appearance around that time of things like Andreas Staier's recordings of the late sonatas. Aside from the unique harmonic/textural qualities of his music, as others have mentioned, there is his inexhaustible melodic imagination which I don't think anyone before or since has come near, as if he was able to tap into some kind of collective unconscious such that hearing the music for the first time you seem to feel that you've already known it all your life. To a certain extent this is the result of the folk-song-like quality of some of his melodies of course. And then there is the equally unique expressive world his music inhabits, which is even more difficult to describe in words. But none of these attributes is really separable from the others.Comment
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Thanks for that. I note that the set that Youtube upload comes from is available to stream, losslessly, from QOBUZ, and presumably other such streaming services. Another boxed set that I already have rather many of the recordings it comprises. I'm happy to 'make do' with the different hassle of setting up to stream (as against getting the CD out of its box and putting it in the CD deck).Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
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So much to say so little screen-time......
The last three piano sonatas became an obsession in my late teens (and Tobias Koch's recording changed my life (again) in 2020), I never stopped loving Schubert after that, especially the stormy or elegiac works like the D784 sonata, or the adventurous vastnesses of the D887 Quartet. I soon wished there were more orchestral and chamber works, I played them so much on borrowed LPs or on Radio 3.....
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The most exciting recent development has been the renewed interest in the complete D759 (8th) Symphony, with two very different-sounding completions: Mario Venzago's more interventionist approach with the KO/Basel on Sony, and the CMW/Gottfried on Aparte. Both show that how you play the work, the scale and intensity, the architectural grasp of 4 movements from the outset, then a minor key ending, makes a big difference to its impact, especially given the sheer familiarity of the "Unfinished". And most especially true of the finale which with all the (vital) repeats is a substantial 11'+ in the recent recordings, where with Mackerras it was just 7'+.
Hearing Mackerras again now, the shortness of his finale, the plainness of the reading, does it no favours qua finale, despite the high quality of the performance and recording.
For me the 8th sounds even more stunningly "modern" as a four-movement piece, given the dark defiant energies of the scherzo; the strange, downbeat jaggedness, the circular "trapped" intensities of that finale, played this way...
So much more than an "entracte"! (This always reminds me of Brahms describing his 4th Symphony to Von Bulow as "just a few entr'actes"...; or Mozart's K563 "Divertimento"....)
If you avoid the notes before hearing the Venzago, you'll get a startling twist-in-the-tale. But they are very detailed in their historical and musical arguments. Great reading as you recover from the shock...
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Also: do seek out the Weingartner Orchestration of the 7th Symphony, D729 (CPO or Berlin Classics; this version is far more compelling than the bare, plain Newbould), which might change your view of the 8th (and the 6th too). It was complete in sketch form, and whilst "unfinished" in other ways, is essential and very enjoyable Schubertian listening: the whole cycle may look different to you in the aftermath....
Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 07-03-23, 01:56.Comment
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Thanks, Gurnie. I still spin this frequently nearly 50 years after I bought it, and it still sounds marvellous. BTW, I seem to remember reading somewhere that he recorded it on a Bösendorfer in Vienna. Wonderful cover detail from a painting by Schubert's friend Moritz von Schwind Der Spaziergang vor dem Stadttore -- the top-hatted FS and Vogl are depicted next to the left hand cypress (arborists welcome to correct for my poor tree-identification skills)Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
Last edited by Maclintick; 07-03-23, 17:53.Comment
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What is the forum's view about the first movement repeat in D960
(Sorry, a chestnut I know.)
I certainly remember the first time I heard it, and just not believing my ears!Comment
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Essential, as are all the Schubert exposition repeats that I know of....and in fact most symphonic repeats in most classical compositions. Interesting to know which repeats, if any, listeners here consider optional.... from the personal or artistic POV.....Originally posted by Mandryka View Post
D960 isn't alone in Schubert of course, in taking on epic length with such a repeat. D894, D956, D887, D944.....
Heavenly lengths are part of his vision, and it almost seems as if the longer the work, the more important the repeat feels for the balance of it. The key contrast in sonata is statement/development, and without the repeat this can seem underemphasised; especially where the recap is very different from the exposition itself (eg 3rd Symphony). The coda can also be very developmental. Or where you have a very short, blink-and-you'll-miss-it development (eg 2nd Symphony) the recap can feel like a repeated exposition! So it seems vital to me....
(Have you heard, or seen, how long Tobia Koch's D960 (i) is? Out-Richtering Richter himself by several minutes...)....Comment
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Alfred Brendel performing D894 in the Chapel of the Royal Naval College in about 1978. Gurnemanz's eloquent description of being "entranced" by Clifford Curzon could equally describe my reaction at the time to AB. Have been in thrall to Schubert's piano sonatas since then - many fine live performances of which Radu Lupu in D959 stands out.Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
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The forum as such doesn’t have a view. For some, those repeats are an essential part of the structure. For others, it depends…Originally posted by Mandryka View Post
In order of importance in symphonies, I’d place repeats into three categories in order of importance.
1. Short repeats, particularly in Menuetto and Scherzo movements. These are almost universally followed, though even in Beethoven’s symphonies (7 & 9 in particular) some conductors choose to omit some longer repeats. In Da Capo sections, repeats are observed by some - a matter of taste.
2. Exposition repeats. I remember buying my first miniature score (Mozart 40) only to discover that Furtwängler observed the exposition repeat in the first movement, but omitted them completely in the 2nd & 4th movements. Later, I acquired a live Furtwängler recording of the same symphony, when he didn’t observe the first movement repeat either. My own view is along the lines of Brahms and Dvorak, regarding longer exposition repeats as unnecessary, once an audience knows the work, and with recordings in particular, listeners have many opportunities to do so. When hearing a performance with an exposition repeat omitted, some will feel cheated. I just feel a sense of relief, as I was listening to it the first time. I may reread a chapter of a Dickens novel when I haven’t grasped something, but music is different: by the end of the exposition, the composer has presented the material and has skilfully shifted to a new key in preparation for the development, why not proceed?
3. Development/recapitulation repeats. These seem to me to be both unnecessary and undesirable. Once a work has reached the end, is seems bizarre to do a clunky deja-vu jump back to the middle of the last movement. The only benefit seems to be to extend the work for a few more minutes, or possibly to compensate for those who weren’t listening properly the first time around.
Repeats in sonata form movements evolved from binary form dance movements, but as these movements grew in length, composers gradually dropped them, with the second half repeats disappearing first. Mozart’s 34th is an interesting mix. The first movement has no repeats at all, looking ahead to Beethoven’s 9th, but the finale of 34 has both halves repeated.
Moving into the 20th century, Elgar’s 2 completed symphonies don’t have exposition repeats, but the sketches for the 3rd symphony show clearly that he wanted an exposition repeated, and it’s there in the Elgar-Payne elaboration. However, Elgar was very much in his declining years when working on that late work, and I suspect the repeat was merely a way of making the work longer. (I say this as a huge Elgar enthusiast.)Comment
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