As Richard Barrett wrote, "the raison d'être of that society was to perform mostly new and unfamiliar works, under economic restrictions of scale, to an audience that would have heard them either not at all or in inadequate performances, which is of course no longer the case, especially with recordings of almost everything being available"; this was perhaps not so very far in principle from the raison d'être behind Liszt's piano arrangments of all the Beethoven symphonies. That said, given the sheer amount of work involved in the Bruckner 2 arrangement, it is indeed somewhat puzzling; Tony Payne's work on Elgar 3, for example, was quite a different matter and it's far easier to see why he invested so much time and energy in that, because we'd not have had the piece at all without it (although there are some - no names mentioned, of course! - who might not have minded having to be deprived of another Elgar work!)...
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I was present at the premiere performance by Pinnock and RAM orchestral students of this work in the presence of anthony payne and it was hugely enjoyable.
What's more, it sent me back to other more familiar performances.
Winners all round I'd say
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In all of those cases I think it would be readily possible to detect a sense of necessity which doesn't apply in the Payne/Bruckner case. Unless the necessity was to please amateur51, that is, in which case fair enough.Originally posted by Sir Velo View PostI seem to recall a few long forgotten composers by the names of Berio, Mahler, Schoenberg, Liszt and Mendelssohn et al who had a habit of going back and "improving" on their predecessors' output, with some not completely artistically negligible outcomes.
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Sure, but let's not forget that not all of their work with past composers' material was intended necessarily to be regarded as "improvements" on it per se; the reputation of Godowsky, for example, suffered decades of near-abuse from people who chose to regard him as having committed the sacrilege of trying to "improve" on Chopin's études, which not only couldn't be done by anyone but also wasn't at all what Godowsky had sought to achieve in his monumental cycle of 54 studies on them.Originally posted by Sir Velo View PostI seem to recall a few long forgotten composers by the names of Berio, Mahler, Schoenberg, Liszt and Mendelssohn et al who had a habit of going back and "improving" on their predecessors' output, with some not completely artistically negligible outcomes.Last edited by ahinton; 10-04-14, 11:46.Comment
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I think that depends to some extent on what might be meant by "necessity" here; "necessary for what", exactly?. Are Schönberg's / Liszt's / Busoni's / Elgar's / Godowsky's / Rachmaninov's / Holloway's / ×××'s Bach arrangements / transcriptions / paraphrases / gildings "necessary"? In their own right, no doubt - indeed some very much so - but whether or to what extent they might be considered "necessary" to the listener's appreciation of Bach's own works is open to question (and, of course, Bach himself made no small number of arrangements of other composers' works). Payne's arrangement is no more likely to take precedence over Bruckner's original than it was intended to, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it cannot merit a legitimate life of its own.Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostLast edited by ahinton; 10-04-14, 12:41.Comment
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Deuced civil of youOriginally posted by Richard Barrett View PostIn all of those cases I think it would be readily possible to detect a sense of necessity which doesn't apply in the Payne/Bruckner case. Unless the necessity was to please amateur51, that is, in which case fair enough.
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I wish I could get him to complete some of my unfinished works!Originally posted by Alison View PostComment
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The why not ask him?! (though Bruckner 2 wasn't "unfinished", of course)...Originally posted by Lordgeous View PostComment
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