Caliban undergoes a sea change

[Keraulophone]

Nick, I hope you will abandon the DSCH avatar and reveal your true self....

Do keep a jolly DSCH avatar!

[cloughie]

Nick, I hope you will abandon the DSCH avatar and reveal your true self....

...just like you do - real mame?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Since this is a thread of dramatic revelation please allow me to say that I have no problems with the “liberties “ Koch takes with Schubert - though the excerpts are so short I am not sure I am hearing the best examples. I am all for freedom in piano playing - so Many pianists these days just sound the same . 90 years ago they were instantly identifiable. We can never know for sure but I bet early 19th pianists used massive rubato , filled in chords , played asynchronously. My big problem is the piano sound. It just sounds out of tune to me - the strings seem to produce a decay with the frequencies beating against each other to an even more pronounced degree than a modern grand. I just don’t like fortepianos or early concert grands. Sorry but there it is ...

[Richard Barrett]

First of all, thanks Jayne for mentioning this release, which had passed me by completely. Regarding the B flat Sonata, of which I've so far only heard the first movement, the score does say "molto moderato" and I do think Koch is somewhere outside the range of feasible tempi implied by that indication. Also I don't really see what expressive or structural purpose is served by desynchronising the hands for emphasis in the way he does it, which sounds to me like a throwback to harpsichord technique where spreading a chord makes it sound louder, as a substitute for not having any other control over dynamics. The instrument sounds beautiful to be sure, and I would be the last to say this music "shouldn't" be performed in any way a pianist feels it might be, but clearly I don't have much personal sympathy with the way Koch (unlike say Schiff or Staier) feels about this piece, so I'm not sure about listening to the rest of it. I agree with Heldenleben that too many pianists sound the same, and this often goes also for pianists using period instruments (see Richard Taruskin's Text and Act), and maybe too many listeners listen the same too, but for me there's a difference between being jolted from my comfort zone in order to hear a familiar piece in a new way and feeling that this just isn't the piece as I understand it.

[Bryn]

First of all, thanks Jayne for mentioning this release, which had passed me by completely. Regarding the B flat Sonata, of which I've so far only heard the first movement, the score does say "molto moderato" and I do think Koch is somewhere outside the range of feasible tempi implied by that indication. Also I don't really see what expressive or structural purpose is served by desynchronising the hands for emphasis in the way he does it, which sounds to me like a throwback to harpsichord technique where spreading a chord makes it sound louder, as a substitute for not having any other control over dynamics. The instrument sounds beautiful to be sure, and I would be the last to say this music "shouldn't" be performed in any way a pianist feels it might be, but clearly I don't have much personal sympathy with the way Koch (unlike say Schiff or Staier) feels about this piece, so I'm not sure about listening to the rest of it. I agree with Heldenleben that too many pianists sound the same, and this often goes also for pianists using period instruments (see Richard Taruskin's Text and Act), and maybe too many listeners listen the same too, but for me there's a difference between being jolted from my comfort zone in order to hear a familiar piece in a new way and feeling that this just isn't the piece as I understand it.

Just you wait until you get to the final movement of D. 960. Richard. I find it quite beyond 'interpretive licence' the way the note values are so far departed from. Agreed, a beautiful instrument, but I too will not be venturing into the other two sonatas, having had quite enough with this one. I recall that when Gulda was asked why he played so little Schubert, he responded that he did not want to commit suicide. Fortunately, when, in 1967, he did record D. 960 (ORF), the result was far more life-affirming than what I have just listened to.

[ahinton]

'defamiliarisation'
'contemplative essences'.

I'm going to return my degree diploma and sue Southampton University on the grounds that they obviously sent out into the world with a grossly inadequate vocabulary and absolutely no feeling for music or indeed any serious subject-matter.
Perhaps I should get in touch with an administrator to discuss the possibility of changing my on-screen name to Redbrick Lowbrow.

So what you perceive to be your shortcomings in vocabulary and feeling for music or any serious subject are solely the responsibility of Southampton University?...

Just asking for a fiend...

[Barbirollians]

Welcome back JLW - now what do you think of only 46 minutes music on that new Beethoven PC 4 with just two overtures....

[Bryn]

Welcome back JLW - now what do you think of only 46 minutes music on that new Beethoven PC 4 with just two overtures....

Whatever jlw might have to say on the subject, I would venture, a regrettable waste of polycarbonate in the case of a CD but merely a little pricey for a download. Fortunately, I stream from QOBUZ, so, for me at least, it does not present a problem.

[Keraulophone]

had quite enough with this one

2020 RotY whatever else comes out...

De gustibus non est disputandum.

[jayne lee wilson]

Welcome back JLW - now what do you think of only 46 minutes music on that new Beethoven PC 4 with just two overtures....

Something of a fashion now, isn't it?

The CD set of the Tobias Koch Schubert may seem to indulge a similar extravagance with each sonata on a separate disc (no fillers).... but if you play physical discs, would you want to break them up? Surely not, and especially with these readings.
So some justification...and it is a very handsomely produced fold-out, with exceptionally insightful, original and detailed essays on Schubert and his music, including a fairly lengthy one from the pianist himself, which reads as a creative credo for his approach. Very convincingly too, though I didn't read it until I'd heard all three sonatas several times over, and many excerpts, comparisons etc.

Koch makes the point I outlined above (which I felt before I read him), that "the essential inner relationship between Schubert's last three piano sonatas dictate that they should be heard in immediate succession. The close encounter of the third kind: should not the narrative conflicts and rhythmic and harmonic signs of dissolution in the first two sonatas have already been grasped and experienced to fully understand the disquieting slowness and mystery of the final sonata, illuminated from within with its warm glow?"

Which comment may remind us of Harnoncourt (similarly adventurous and often accused of...."mannered phrasing") and Mozart's Instrumental Oratorium....

No booklet on Qobuz sadly, but you may track it down elsewhere. Tobias Koch's comments on the musical structures and how they relate to mood and emotion, their comparisons with Beethoven etc., are very interesting indeed, clearly elaborated and expressed. So a fascinating artist, however you respond to his musical creations on this particular release.

(if like me you are a Schumann obsessive do seek out that 3-disc set of the Violin/Piano Music with Landgraf - on the Genuin label)

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/schumann-r-violin-and-piano-music-complete-landgraf-koch-robert-schumann-johannes-brahms-albert-dietrich/4260036250435

....a fascinating contrast with the Maalismaa/Holmström).

[kindofblue]

Let us not be fooled by Caliban's 'self outing'. It has been long suspected that Caliban, now going under the name of 'Armstrong' has in fact been a deeply-embedded Soviet [now Russian] spy since the early 80's. French music aside, I don't trust a word he says.

[LMcD]

So what you perceive to be your shortcomings in vocabulary and feeling for music or any serious subject are solely the responsibility of Southampton University?...

Just asking for a fiend...

I can't really sue Southampton University, or indeed the local grammar school, seeing as my education was free right up to degree level. It's just that I don't want anybody to expect anything particularly profound in the way of musical analysis. I did think of turning into 'Redbrick Thicko', but decided that might be regarded in certain quarters as a tad provocative. Another possibility is 'Able Seaman Just Nuisance' (that's the name of the dog). My feeling for music is basically instinctive, and anything I've learnt has probably been the result of listening repeatedly to favourite works over the years.

Who the devil is your fiend, may I ask?

[Richard Barrett]

the disquieting slowness and mystery of the final sonata

... if, that is, you ignore the actual tempo indications!

[jayne lee wilson]

... if, that is, you ignore the actual tempo indications!

....moderato....andante.....sostenuto....allegro vivace.....con delicazza....ma non troppo......

Life, time and music can have many forms and variations of slowness....slow listening isn't the same as slow playing, whether metaphorical or not...
There is a slowness within speed as your relativistic perception sees the whole passage, the whole work, as it passes ....

The Buzzard soars above the meadow......tenses....shapes..... suddenly dives, seizes the mouse, sweeps away!
Then it is there, as always, soaring again.....

Time is both fast and slow according to your view....

[Ein Heldenleben]

... if, that is, you ignore the actual tempo indications!

Thing is every thing is getting slower in the piano world . I don’t know why - it’s supposed to sound more profound but give me Schnabel really.