Prom 17: 28.07.16 - Roger Norrington conducts Berlioz, Beethoven and Brahms

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A full string section using vibrato doesn't normally sound wobbly at all - it just enriches the tone.

I refer m'learned pal to my #15, and to this photograph from 1914:

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, the fact that Ysaye was told off by his teacher for using it all the time,

Statistically unreliable. There seem to be a couple of these every century.

and the use of con vibrato expression marks in scores, for example.

Much more compelling, as I conceded some months ago.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Statistically unreliable. There seem to be a couple of these every century.
Much more compelling, as I conceded some months ago.

Indeed - but it is difficult to prove a "norm", precisely because it is a "norm": changes/alterations/differences in patterns of behaviour are commented upon and reported upon because they are changes - regular, everyday conventions don't get written about/recorded. Thus, Leopold Mozart (who described vibrato as "arising from Nature herself, and which can be used charmingly on a long note not only by good instrumentalists but also by clever singers.") condemns "[p]erformers ... who tremble constantly on every note as if they had the palsy" - and his comments are taken as good sense by his contemporaries and successors: there are no written defences of indiscriminate vibrato (on short note values/fast Music, for example) which there would most certainly be if Leopold were not discussing something that good players all did. (If you like, substitute "amplification" for "vibrato" - there are undoubtedly Musicians who use amplification all the time that they perform, but that doesn't mean that it's a universal performing technique, appropriate to all Music-making.)

But, for me, the acid test isn't Leopold - it's the marvellous effect that experimenting with different types or degrees of vibrato has on Music-making that gives such a wider spectrum of shades to the Music being performed, which I find much more deeply satisfying and vigorous and downright Musical than an unthinking, unvaried homogeneity of wobble that characterizes much (by no means all) routine string playing.

[bluestateprommer]

Fun start to this concert, with a sprightly Béatrice et Bénédict overture. String vibrato sounded trimmed, but not entirely desiccated.

Just before the concerto, one irrelevant observation (for those who are in the RAH this evening): having seen Robert Levin perform concertos in concert, one rather annoying mannerism is his chord playing with the orchestra during tuttis, in a very showy manner (not quite Lang Lang extreme, but very noticeable enough), where it's more the sound of the piano with the tuttis all the time that annoyed me. (I don't really need to hear Robert Levin continuously for 35 minutes in a concerto, saying "Look, I'm here!" all throughout.) With a fortepiano, it wouldn't be such a big deal, and would actually be fine. But with a concert grand, it just doesn't work for me. However, Robert Levin is a formidable intellect and a fine player, so 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

[Petrushka]

Regarding another aspect of performance practise: portamento. Many years ago (1981 actually) I attended a concert given by Abbado and the LSO in the Teatro La Fenice in Venice (pre-fire). The acoustic was unbelievably dry, and the odd thing was that the LSO sounded just like a recording from the 1930s minus the crackles. I wonder, therefore. whether the very process of recording at that time gives a false impression of reality?

[seabright]

For what it's worth, the solo cello at about 3 minutes in, on this 1924 acoustic 78 of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto with Stokowski and his Philadelphians (not to be confused with their 1929 electrical remake) is definitely playing with vibrato. Not that it proves anything either way, as they may have been doing things differently in the States! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKFl2mg8bVg

[DracoM]

Well, Levin seemed to be playing most of the way through more or less every tutti in the first movement as far as i could tell. I turned off after that.

[Once Was 4]

Hmmm! Reminds me of an attempt to merge two orchestras in these islands about 25 years ago (fought off by hard work by - amongst many others - the 4th horn of one of them - never underestimate those 'tailend Charlies'!) They were going to merge the two with losses of jobs but of course they would not be doing that with the managements - they would all stay put wearing their suits in their offices - the poor bloody players would work for one lot one day and the other lot the next.

At a meeting (at which I was present) a certain viola player (not a player in one of the affected orchestras) asked what would happen when the two Chief Conductors started swinging handbags at each other - possibly when one wanted to sack the other's pet player. Answer came there none.

[ARBurton]

Well I thought the Brahms was rather good, after almost being put off by the frantically frenetic opening bars...

[Bert Coules]

What a wonderfully dignified and moving farewell from the leader tonight, and a truly emotional sign-off with the Elgar.

[Tony Halstead]

Something rather irreverent occurs to me - it might not be a matter of needing to make louder sounds as much as the string players, hearing themselves for the first time as a result of these recordings, used the old fiddlers' trick of splashing the vibrato on all over like Brut 33 in order to cover up inaccurate intonation?

But those string players simply could not have 'heard themselves for the first time' within the context of a recording session in the 1920s or earlier ( or later), since the very process of 'playing back' the master disc that they had just created would have destroyed the disc!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But those string players simply could not have 'heard themselves for the first time' within the context of a recording session in the 1920s or earlier ( or later), since the very process of 'playing back' the master disc that they had just created would have destroyed the disc!

Yes - I was imagining their responses after hearing the finished recording, rather than a session "playback"; but that would imply that there is a body of very early recordings featuring vibrato-free out-of-tune string playing, and I don't know of any such.

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 17. SWR STUTTGART SO/LEVIN/NORRINGTON. R3 RADIOPLAYER LIVE HDs @320 KBPS.

From the very first bars of the Berlioz Béatrice et Bénédict Overture, the qualities and character of this great orchestra were apparent: a warm, full, very rounded tone, pure, largely vibrato-less violins, rugged, clear-pitched cellos and basses; primary-coloured winds, then brilliant, penetrating brass. They followed Norrington with a rare responsiveness, discipline and virtuosity, that lithe quick-fox agility, the turning of a phrase on-a-sixpence which puts most other orchestras I've heard at the Proms this year to shame.
A wonderful start!

Opening with a widely-spread chord on his singing, ringing fortepiano-soundalike Steinway, Levin made his embellishments and accompaniments to the orchestra an essential part of his solo role; always audible on the HDs webcast in the busiest passages, the lovely mellow bass of the instrument (and perhaps the positioning, pointing upstage, keyboard towards audience, as the presenter described) ensuring its perfect orchestral balance. Personally I can't get enough of creative (re)interpretations of familiar classics, most especially of concertos (I love the Schoonderwoerd/Cristofori Beethoven and Mozart series), and tonight's Beethoven G major was a brilliantly executed example. The orchestra was the phrase-by-phrase equal of Levin's volatility and elegance, lightly intoned and precise, with Norrington drawing out those microdynamic shifts that keep the music so alive in the moment. And improvised as ever in such a moment, Levin's 1st movement cadenza made me hold my breath - a marvel of vision and imagination.
Those gruff, brusque strings at the start of the andante con moto were answered by a solo voicing of songful, whispered appeals; then a great breaking into song at the piano's climax, Orpheus in full, yearning voice - wonderfully contrasted, marvellously played.

Levin's inventiveness really took off in the finale, freshly creative in almost every paragraph; Norrington came back with terrifically lively, hard-edged dynamic punches. Thrilling stuff!

***
The intro to the Brahms Symphony No.1 was very swift, lightly emphasised and transparent; but with weighty timpani beneath to keep music and mood well-grounded. Norrington moved carefully (rather than swept) into the allegro at a moderate pace, but found a nice offset between swinging momentum and lyrical, flowing delivery of the melodic lines. Again those emphatic, penetrating brasses in the coda. Good too, to hear Norrington taking the exposition repeat. (Well, it was quite a rare event until conductors such as him took things in hand...)
Lovely clear winds in a slow movement that (given this conductor's erstwhile reputation for its opposite) never lacked warmth or beauty of string tone; portamento a welcome touch. Not to mention a vibrato-rich solo violin....

All through this performance I was struck by that balance of the lyrical, the clearly sung melodiousness (always led by those tonally pure violins) with the dynamic and the dramatic; that sensitivity to subtle shifts of level even in the allegretto grazioso, which was allowed more tonal amplitude and character tonight, not just thrown off as a brief aside.
I don't mind Norrington's (or anyone's, bring it on!) spring-boarding off into the main allegro in the finale, following the largamente. And I certainly don't mind his thrillingly paced climaxing into the work's coda, his skilled rhetorician's emphasis in just the right places - those SWR brasses the stars once more.

***
The SWR STUTTGART SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE ORCHESTRA OF THE SWR STUTTGART, FREIBURG AND BADEN-BADEN!

[BBMmk2]

A lovely prom concert, if I don't say so myself! A very sad one too. A rather poignant speech, I didn't get the woman's position in the orchestra, but very sad this orchestra is no more.

[Richard Barrett]

A full string section using vibrato doesn't normally sound wobbly at all - it just enriches the tone.

More correctly: it changes the tone, in a way that some interpret as "enriching" it. There are living composers who write in the preface to their scores "no vibrato (unless otherwise indicated)'. Iannis Xenakis habitually wrote "NO VIBRATO!" at the top of his scores, although this was often ignored by orchestral string players.

The issue here is not whether all orchestras are supposed to have played without vibrato previous to the early 20th century. The issue is that playing with less vibrato than is common nowadays was one of the possibilities. It is uncontroversial that orchestras sounded much more different from one another in previous times than they do now, and vibrato would certainly have been an element in the differences between them. This is clear from all the "contradictory" (ie. geographically/historically/aesthetically varied) evidence that is often cited by both "sides" in this unnecessary argument. I don't see that much more needs to be said on the subject.