Schubert, Franz (1797-1828)

[RichardB]

Lovely lines...here's David Constantine's translation

Thanks for that. I would have posted a translation but I didn't have time to look for a good one!

[Maclintick]

Until the arrival of LP it was not uncommon for musicians to 'miss bits out' (i.e. make cuts, not just avoid repeats) because they felt the piece was otherwise too long. Mengelberg, and even Beecham in Delius, were no exceptions. The present day belief that we must be faithful to the composer's intentions is more recent than it seems.

Also, we should remember that artists who began their recording careers in the 78 rpm era such as Schnabel and Curzon would have been made aware of the side-length limitation of shellac discs -- in the case of D960 a positive disincentive to include the first movt repeat, in order that the piece could be accommodated on as few discs as possible. With the arrival of vinyl & playing times of "heavenly length", artists such as Serkin & Kempff, who also began recording in the 78 era, restored repeat and 1st time bars in their later LP accounts.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Also, we should remember that artists who began their recording careers in the 78 rpm era such as Schnabel and Curzon would have been made aware of the side-length limitation of shellac discs -- in the case of D960 a positive disincentive to include the first movt repeat, in order that the piece could be accommodated on as few discs as possible. With the arrival of vinyl & playing times of "heavenly length", artists such as Serkin & Kempff, who also began recording in the 78 era, restored repeat and 1st time bars in their later LP accounts.

This has been suggested before. But the example I mentioned of Furtwangler's recordings of Mozart's Symphony no. 40, suggests it may not be so easily explained. On his 1948/49 78 rpm HMV recording, he did play the repeat in the first movement. But his earlier live recording, he didn't, even though in performance there was no such obvious time limit.

[smittims]

Yes, I think it's unwise to make a hard and fast rule, with so may artists recording so many works: some of course will have insisted on observing repeats even on disc. There was though for several decades a belief that a recording was different from a performance in that you could play , say side one repeatedly before moving on. And records were expensive in real terms: In 1951 an 'album' of five discs , containing say 45 minutes of music, retailed at 50-60 shillings at a time when British Railways were offering 100s. for a forty-hour week in a skilled job (crane driver), before tax of course. So four discs instead of five was a sales incentive.

But cuts persisted for a long time. Kletzki made a cut in 'Transfigured Night' on LP in the 1950s. And Rachmaninov's second symphony and third concerto were still recorded with some cuts until Ashkenazy/Fistoulari's 3rd concerto and Kletzki's 1967 Geneva recording of the second symphony made it virtually compulsory to record the works complete. Before that even Rachmaninov Devotees such as Ormandy and Previn recorded the second symphony with some cuts but afterwards even their cncert perfomances were always complete.

The subject of the influence of recording on performance is of course a vast one, and has many aspects which don't always fit one trend. For instance, it used to be accepted unquestionably that fast tempi on older recordings were due to side-length, but apart from a few well-documented individual cases this has been shown to be a fallacy.

[Petrushka]

Returning to Schubert, I'm happy to hear the Great C Major with all the repeats - except for the one in the last movement. I find that repeat to be contrived in the lead up to the second time round and it doesn't, in my opinion, work.

[RichardB]

Returning to Schubert, I'm happy to hear the Great C Major with all the repeats - except for the one in the last movement. I find that repeat to be contrived in the lead up to the second time round and it doesn't, in my opinion, work.

I don’t much like the last movement of that symphony, but if I do listen to it I want to hear all the repeats. Missing them out doesn’t solve the problem of its thin material for me. Still, once more it’s quite a different case from the B flat sonata.

[Mandryka]

Here's a bit of Schubert to cheer everyone up

[JasonPalmer]

enjoying ave maria, an interesting composer who died young, wish i had known he was cotw as would have tried listen in during the week

obviously we need more trails for cotw in other programs !

[JasonPalmer]

This piano tro is great, have emailed composer of the week suggesting they need more trails on the popular programs to boost listeners.

[AuntDaisy]

enjoying ave maria, an interesting composer who died young, wish i had known he was cotw as would have tried listen in during the week

obviously we need more trails for cotw in other programs !

This Schubert COTW is mainly a repeat, but the final episode was omitted due to the Queen's death (announced the day before).

Please Jason, no more trails.

[french frank]

Please Jason, no more trails.

You are not the first person to express this view, AD. Jason, please note.

[Rolmill]

obviously we need more trails for cotw in other programs !

and

have emailed composer of the week suggesting they need more trails on the popular programs to boost listeners.

along with any number of other examples.

Seems like blatant trolling to me, and surely breaks house rules ("do not...post messages which are designed to be provocative").

[Response: A final warning has now been given - ff]