Music Chat: Why LPs by Conductors Born in the 19th Century Reveal Correct Performance Practice

[@Xavier_Diabolu]

I think the audience should do its part in ensuring that the concert experience is truly historically informed. Every performance of The Rite of Spring should end with a riot.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

And no one should wear deodorant.

[@anthonycook6213]

According to Robert Craft, Stravinsky got cross with Leonard Bernstein for making an unscored tempo change in his performance the Rite; Bernstein tried to justify it as the performance practice established by Stokowski!

[@donaldallen1771]

Except the riot didn't occur at the end. It started a lot sooner than that :-) I had the privilege of being introduced to Pierre Monteux when I was quite young, but already insane for Le Sacre. He took my hands in his and said something very kind (unfortunately I don't remember what he said). This was after a performance of Le Sacre at Tanglewood. I think it was about 70 years ago, more or less.

[@paulbrower]

@@donaldallen1771 And there should be no flush toilets at concert halls playing music of a certain times. Heavy smoking should be mandatory with early-twentieth century works. Shostakovich smoked like a chimney, so one must smoke to get his music!

[@Ryan-on5on]

@@paulbrower Also, to truly immerse audiences in the atmosphere of the historical period, all audience members must wear clothing appropriate to the era in which the featured music was composed. Ergo, men attending a Wagner or Verdi concert should be expected to come fully decked out in proper nineteenth-century evening wear, including dark tails and trousers, satin gloves, silk top hats, and winged collars, while women are free to choose any formal dress styling so long as it dates either before 1883 or 1901. Anyone not meeting this dress code will be turned away for the sake of period authenticity!

[@ColinHarrison-wy8ho]

It doesnt get any more sensible or lucid than this! Mr.Hurwitz for president!

[@b1i2l336]

A fascinating, informative, and very important video, Mr. H! Thank you for cutting through all the nonsense passing for authentic performing practice today. In addition, your mastery and use of vocabulary is awesome and highly entertaining. I think Mr. Handel would have loved the last Beecham recording of MESSIAH! There is one area of well documented past performance practice, however, to which I think we need to return. I work as a professional voice coach, and will say that singers have a challenging time singing in the idiocy of a pitch that has been pushed higher and higher, so yes, I would like vocal music at least to be performed at the tuning of the time of the composers. Singing Verdi at A = 432 is what Verdi established, and the singing technique vastly improves when singers are allowed to perform his music at that tuning. A raft of the most famous Opera singers of their time unsuccessfully tried to accomplish this return to truth, but those string players and uninformed conductors were having none of it. I once prepared a soprano at the standard A = 440 for a Verdi Requiem performance that was to take place in Belgium. When she came back, she said "I will never sing there again; the A was at 458." 458!!! She could barely get through it. In Vienna the A = 448. Stop the insanity!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Good point there!

[@kellyrichardson3665]

EVERYTHING you say here is true, and nobody is saying it but you. I am a composer and I have been (the only one) saying this for years. Both performance practice (until these dingbat "authentic" nutcases began getting press) has continuously improved, dramatically, over the years. Progress, as well, in the making of instruments -- what they can do, how they sound, etc. -- has been tremendous. NO composer (not a real one -- that is another topic) does not want their music to sound better, which it does thanks to all these improvements, and I wish everyone alive listened to your presentations. We truly live in a world where The Emperor's New Clothes is the norm, and you my friend are the only kid in the crowd yelling, "But he's not wearing any clothes!"

[@jg5861]

Wow, you actually did it right away! I was one of the requesters and this made my day, thank you again and again!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thanks for the idea!

[@smurashige]

I think the reliance on texts, as opposed to listening, assumes that something written is believed to be stronger evidence. I think this assumption is misplaced. In art history, primary source texts often supersede what you actually see. So often, interpretations of works of visual art require some sort of "textual evidence." If you try to make an argument from close scrutiny of what you actually see, but don't have any texts to back you up, your ideas are deemed unsupported. Oh, the interpretation might be interesting, but let's move on to something that's "provable", which means that it is based on textual evidence. The need for the evidence of writings arises from the desire to avoid subjectivity. We trust words more than we trust our eyes, or our ears, in the case of music, but I think we can reverse the relationship between text and performance: let's interpret what people wrote, based upon what we actually see (or hear). As you've said before, while there can be disagreement, eventually there arises consensus. Through active listening and looking, through experience, through curiosity and open-mindedness, through discussion, some kind of agreement arises. A case in point might be Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven 5th recording. We can agree that it is a great performance, even if it's one we don't necessarily enjoy. Another point you've made, as has Taruskin, is that the "authentic" period performance folks don't need, and should give up, is the idea of authenticity. The quest for historical authenticity is a trap that imprisons imagination and creativity. I've enjoyed many period instrument performances, and generally have preferred them in early and Baroque music, but I couldn't care less whether they are historically accurate. I think some of the best ones transcend historical authenticity, for example, Trevor Pinnock's Messiah recording. We can listen to these performances and recordings and enjoy them, if we like them, but NOT because they are authentic, or even historical. What would happen if the HIP approach gave up the idea that they are and must be "historically informed"? Go ahead and use period instruments, reduce vibrato, etc., but do so to make music, not to recreate some fantasy of historical accuracy.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Excellently put. Thank you.

[@georgejohnson1498]

Dear Dave, I agree one hundred per cent. But there is evidence from 1927 from the 78 era - all bets are of as to wether you can hear the difference that Sir Edward Elgar made the LSO do in the accepted retake in the Scherzo from his second symphony, but he was asking for warmth {that is cold forte, I want warmth} in tone [vibrato] and the orchestra gives him it in spades according to my ears. If you want evidence from Bach's time, that is easy. The tremolo on the organ, which when Bach specified organs, had up to four options of tremullando on the chest to give the line a vibrato. The use of a straight tone is an expressive effect. Klemperer launches his performances of the Missa Solemnis without vibrato so that subsequent entries gain expressive power by the selective intensity of vibrato . A man of genius simply employs an expressive musical device that existed centuries before the idea of a HIP musicologist even occurred to musicians or educated listeners .. Please forgive a humbly posted reply. Best wishes from George

[@bbailey7818]

Outstanding! This got me to thinking about Leopold Auer, born 1845, performing very much in the 19th century. He concentrated largely on interpretation and not technic, but his pupils' playing was full of vibrato. Famous for it, Elman, Zimbalist, Heifetz, Milstein and so on. Re Beethoven, Weingartner's emendations of the scores of the symphonies taking into account modern intrumental developments and improvements were almost universally adopted by all conductors except when they made their own. Common sense is an authentic performance practice too.

[@ppfuchs]

Great video with a simple, coherent point that is so powerful in its implications! I wish every Conservatory student were required to watch this video and unpack further its relevance to what they are doing. It would attenuate many of the pretensions about authentic practice, so called; and also, in the opposite direction, steer them away from from the sort of "meta- performances, " which seems to try be above merely making exciting music. It shows that the real tradition was always to try to make the most impactful music possible when performing a work, with the best resources available, not the worst, and without pulling back from the obvious, as if that could not have been what the composer wished for.

[@DavidJohnson-of3vh]

Good stuff, Dave. I do not mind hearing historical instruments playing at all. I do mind folks hitting the 'HIP drum' real hard. Fennell and others have put out some great Civil War music using the old instruments, but they did not dabble in the other stuff you mention, that I have ever heard.

[@richardwilliams473]

You mentioned Paul Paray. I got a recording of him conducting the Detroit Symphony of Saint Sean's Organ Symphony that is unsurpassed . On Mercury Living Presence LP. Thanks, David for your insightful reviews. .

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Nothing is unsurpassed.

[@Bezart34]

@@DavesClassicalGuide Very profound, very true.

[@1984robert]

I've just read something which is interesting about "performance practice". I am started to collect Sándor Végh's recordings mainly because of Mr. Hurwitz recommendations. These are very special but I wanted to write about what I've read. There was an article in a Hungarian music magazine about Végh. That magazine asked András Keller who is a Hungarian violinist, chamber musician and conductor. He considers himself Végh's student and he said that his encounter with Végh changed his artistic carreer. He said that at first time he played sonatas of Brahms for Végh. Végh stopped him and showed him something about the style of performing of the piece. He said to Keller that he can play the piece in that way if he wants to. Végh said that this performing style was teached by Hubay to him. Hubay said that this performing style teached by Joseph Joachim. Joachim played this piece with Brahms himself.

[@vladroman3802]

When I heard about ‘Stravinsky on period instruments’ I thought they’d gone nuts. Does anyone actually buy that? In any case, your explanation makes so much sense and I don’t see how anyone serious could be fooled by these ‘authentic’ clowns. I think it’s also worth mentioning Richard Strauss and the recordings he made of his own music and of others, such as Mozart.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes. He died just a bit too early for purposes of my discussion.

[@doctorzingo]

The first two sides of one of Strauss' Don Juan recordings was actually conducted by his assistant George Szell. Strauss was late to the sessions and saw no reason to do another take. So if you want authentic Strauss, it doesn't get more authentic than Szell.

[@richtomasek9308]

@@doctorzingo Reiner wasn't too shabby either.

[@doctorzingo]

No, you are right. Reiner worked a lot with Strauss during his Dresden tenure.

[@donaldallen1771]

@@richtomasek9308 I read somewhere that in Reiner's first rehearsal with the CSO upon taking command he worked them half to death on Ein Heldenleben, a piece they could play in their sleep. After the rehearsal finally ended, two of the violinists were walking out together and one said to the other (who kept a detailed journal of such things) "Not much of a conductor, but a hell of a nice guy".

[@Vikingvideos50]

One of your very best!

[@coolj3510]

An exception that proves the rule that I've seen is how some of these guys, I've particularly noticed Klemperer, Boult and Monteux always do this, seat the violins antiphonally with the first and second violins separated, which was something that was always done until the 20th century where people started to seat them all together. If people were willing to take a stand on something like this, why would they not take a stand on something much more important such as vibrato?

[@robertdandre94101]

if beethoven is there today and is listen his piano sonatas op 106 ''hammerklavier'' on a modern piano steinway....,i'm sure is so happy ( ''-finally ,he have a good instrument''...) and he pay a good german beer to the pianist ( or white wine to a lady ) ...!,with mutch recognition.

[@ericleiter6179]

Great talk! The comments you made concerning composers looking and striving for a more progressive future for their works, says it all in my opinion. Based on everything I've read, composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven always LOVED to hear their works performed by ever bigger and more polished ensembles...this push for 'authenticity' is ridiculous. I mean, in 50 or a 100 years from now, are people going to insist on hearing an authentic rendering of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time? Complete with an out of tune piano, decrepit strings on the violin and cello and a clarinet with a failing key system? NO!!! Any audience that craves that should spend a year in a concentration camp to get that full 'authentic' effect!

[@swimmad456]

I would be interested to know your views on the application of portamento in string playing. How common was it in the early 20th century? There's pronounced sliding in Oskar Fried's 1922 Mahler (acoustic 78s!) and Elgar's electric recordings but were these recordings representative of violin playing of that era?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Probably.

[@snipercomunity2414]

Thx for an interesting talk, your Jochum 10 best on CT the other day was wonderful.. off topic: any plans for a talk on Dvorak operas? Love his instrumental music but can’t get my head around the operas despite several attempts. A common ailment I believe. Why? I’m sure a good DH pep talk/tounge lashing could put this to rights.😀

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I'll think about it.

[@carteri6296]

Start with the Jacobin (on Orfeo) and go from there. It another new world to explore and it’s beautiful.

[@snipercomunity2414]

@@carteri6296 thx😀

[@bloodgrss]

Fascinating talk; I have pondered this without having your breadth of knowledge or acumen about it. The question of what a composer actually heard, vs their mind's ear over what they wanted to hear, is a fascinating one. We know Handel took advantage of the largest forces he could when he could, and adapted the work accordingly. The progress was the thing, not the 'tradition' in sound. And, many composers have changed or adapted their works when finally hearing them on the orchestra; they looked on them as living projects, not set in stone. Silly to try to fossilize them in the first place, let alone be rather bogus about it. I would say it was a marketing ploy, if it were not for the fact I knew many long-winded professors who spent their lives promoting such stuff. Professors of Music, I might add, who produced little worth listening to themselves...

[@1984robert]

I've just discovered that Paris Conservatorie Orchestra made recording about 1st and 2nd piano concerto by Lisztin 1938. It is conducted by Weingartner and played by Emil von Sauer. I assume Mr. Hurwitz also know this, I think it is worth at least one listening. It is interesting from historical standpoint.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes, but never say "historically interesting." Either it's just plain "interesting," or it isn't.

[@henrygingercat]

Apropos Roth using period instruments in his Rite of Spring recording it’s interesting, and supportive of your argument, that Stravinsky never did.

[@AALavdas]

100% spot-on!

[@pauljesson1]

I know Dave doesn't claim this to be a complete list but I would include Fritz Busch (1890-1951). Marvellous conductor of Mozart and Wagner he also presented premieres of operas by Strauss, Busoni, Hindemith and Weill at Dresden. He was anti-Nazi and got out of Germany in 1933 having been ousted from Dresden and eventually became the first musical director at Glyndebourne, where he standards of performance that were practically unknown in Britain.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

And still are...

[@joshuaweiner6378]

Thank you, Dave! This is indeed a very well reasoned and convincing argument. Imagine someone suggesting a person like Szell gave in to some mid century fad to adopt performance practices that did not fit the composer’s intentions and the long history of practice! No way. HIP has had a salutary effect on some baroque and classical music, in my opinion, though it often goes too far into joylessness. But for 19th and 20th century music? Gimme a break.

[@richardwills5780]

Fascinating!!

[@josephromance3908]

I am not an expert on this question. But I am sure that if Szell thought the sound was wrong he would sure as heck have said so.

[@mancal5829]

This makes perfect sense to me. HIT is, at best, speculation and, perhaps, just a fad.

[@AlexMadorsky]

To have a truly authentic, vibrato-free experience, it is essential that all Mahler symphonies be performed with musicians sitting as still and affectless as possible at all times. That’d be a very silly thing to write if there wasn’t some unfortunate soul out there who probably believes such claptrap.

[@jdistler2]

Thanks for this excellent talk. However, I think that there are certain acoustic orchestral recordings that convey enough detail to judge quality of vibrato and sonority: the Bruno Walter Berlin State Opera Orchestra Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony, for example. And to your list I'd add F. Charles Adler....not that he was a great conductor, but he's there.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Perhaps, but the only conclusion to be drawn from them is that there is no significant variance from modern practice in most respects (if you're honest about it).

[@jdistler2]

@@DavesClassicalGuide That's absolutely true. It's more about evidence gathering than musical enjoyment.

[@murraylow4523]

I find this argument very persuasive, Dave. A related question seems to me to be that there are far too many recordings coming out of « standard repertoire « and the authenticity stuff was presumably, particularly in the 1990s after the Cold War, a way of doing more and more of this but supposedly better and differently. I like this in Mozart and others, but when we get to Pelleas et Melisande being done on « period instruments » I think it’s getting silly. I mean almost every recording of that is great so right now no more are needed! This is what connects your talk today with the great living composers talk. We need more good composers of now and great performances of them. I mean who needs yet another Sibelius cycle when we could have a tubin one or another Holmboe one, or another Rautavaara one? I know they’re not living but I think it’s a fair point. Who knows if it isn’t more recent musics that are really changing performance practices as opposed to various dubious constructions of performance in the past?

[@JG_1998]

Will you ever talk about the absurd whole beat metronome "theory" being touted by Wim Winters? It's the musical equivalent of flat earth, and sadly, quite popular on KZbin. He says that all music from Beethoven to Chopin should be played at half the tempo it is normally played. He gets quite a lot of views on his "authentic tempo reconstructions". It's truly disgusting.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I have mentioned it in connection with Maximiano Cobra's grotesque performances.

[@JG_1998]

​@@DavesClassicalGuide That's good to hear. Will dig through your catalogue to find it. I knew it's something that would irritate you!

[@robertgruver9613]

Dave, As a musician who cut his teeth on historically informed performance in the 1980's, I have to say I agree with you. I think much of it has gone off the rails. They've interpreted a bunch of Baroque (and earlier) sources, and have been "Baroqe-izing" everything. That's a huge mistake. I do agree with those who say there is a difference between those more aesthetically influenced by the effects of WWI, and those who were not influenced as much. One conductor who I think served as an example not included, who we have examples of performances that we can hear some detail, is Max Fiedler. He was also not some second rate conductor. He was music director of the Boston Symphony for several years before WWI, and spent the latter days of his career guest conducting in Berlin. There is a huge amount of variability in tempo, shocking amounts of portamento, and vibrato (both variable and expressive). It also shows that there was a huge amount of variability in acceptable interpretation when you compare him to Toscanini, for example.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

No, actually, that is not what it shows. It shows only that Fiedler was himself highly variable in certain performance parameters. That is all. You cannot generalize from that one example. Toscanini was himself extremely variable in some aspects of his interpretation. There is nothing unusual or remarkable about it. I heard Simon Rattle conduct Sibelius' 7th live and on disc on multiple occasions in performances ranging from 24+ minutes to 17+ minutes. No one talks about "authenticity" or characterizes an entire era because of that.

[@willduffay2207]

One other quick point: even the Nikisch recording can arguably say something about performance practices of the early 20th century and those inherited by Nikisch (born 1855). Yes, the sound is a mess so you will get nowhere with learning about vibrato but the tempi and in particular the changes in tempi are revealing. There's the even earlier Kark recording which (at least, from what I've heard on KZbin) is much faster, and has similar fun with tempi.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

But they tell you nothing about "performance practices of the early 20th century." They only tell you what one conductor did with one work on that one occasion (to the extent we can hear it). Any further generalization is impossible, and erroneous on its face.

[@willduffay2207]

@@DavesClassicalGuide True, true, sample's too small. Still, it would be interesting to know if anybody at the time thought that either conductor performed Beethoven idiosyncratically, or whether large tempo fluctuation was not worthy of comment because it was the norm.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@willduffay2207 For that, you can read reviews in newspapers (as I have done). The recordings themselves are worthless for that purpose.

[@anthonycook6213]

Doesn't Charles Ives give a direction in one of his string quartets to exaggerate vibrato to mock an over-sentimental sound? That wouldn't make sense if there was not an expectation of "normal" vibrato.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Not exactly, but the tempo designation is something like "Andante emasculata," which is much the same thing I guess.

[@willduffay2207]

I think there is a difference between wanting to get close to the sort of sound that composers would have known and expected by using instruments of the time in orchestras of the size they had at the time, and inferring performance practices from unreliable evidence and also saying that only performances like this shall be accepted from now on. There can be little doubt, I'd hope, that the different sonorities and textures from old instruments provide a different, valid, interesting listening experience, which if played well can also be very enjoyable in a different way. So the whole concept of period performance isn't junk, as some below are trying to claim, not does it require that we do stupid things like pretend the 20th century never existed, or create toothache specially, or wear a frock coat and top hat, or whatever other idiocy that people want to invent to discredit the whole movement. It's just how far you take it, what evidence you use to support it, and how much licence you still permit performers to do things differently.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes, but you skate over the most important issue of all, which is how much it matters and the degree to which it "makes" a performance.

[@willduffay2207]

@@DavesClassicalGuide I deliberately skate over it. I wouldn't want to be extremist either way about it, and be one of those who would say either than 'period' performance was the only way or that it's junk because of modern dentistry. I would say that a conductor has a right to explore sonority and texture and timbre, and one way to do that is to use instruments a composer knew. And that those explorations can significantly affect how a piece is performed and heard (otherwise let's just play everything on school instruments in an aircraft hanger).

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@willduffay2207 But this is just a generic comment. Conductors have always done that. Performers have always done that. It didn't take a dogmatic "movement" to make that point. In fact, much of the HIP movement actively prevents the kind of freedom you describe by ruling whole classes of interpretive options as automatically out of bounds.

[@doctorzingo]

I think the whole notion of "authenticity" is dubious. Even if through some miracle we were to hear the very first performance of, say, Bach's B minor Mass, we are so different from those who performed and attended that original performance that we just wouldn't hear the same music anyway. Our musical minds are both enriched and polluted by all developments since. The only modern development I'd like to see reversed is the seating of the first and second violin sections together on the left. I believe this originated with Stokowski in the 1920s, but a lot of interplay between the two sections go for nought without proper left-right separation.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

You raise an interesting case, as the B minor Mass was never performed in its entirety in Bach's lifetime and his intentions in creating it remain a mystery. This is turn casts doubt on the very notion of "authenticity." If indeed Bach intended it as a sort of compendium of the most advanced vocal writing of the time, then the very idea of recreating local circumstances of performance is ridiculous.

[@leestamm3187]

Very well elucidated. Your best talk on this topic to date.

[@xavierotazu5805]

Yes and No. Did players use vibrato in Mozart and Beethoven's time? Yes! Did they use it as today's standard? NO! During 18tth-19th century vibrato was used as an ornament. It was used sparsely.. It was not used sistematically (as today) in notes longer than a crochet. Vibrato was increasingly used during 19th and 20th century. Some HIP players never play a vibrato note, hence these HIP players are wrong. It implies all HIP players are wrong? No! Some of them play vibrato sparingly. For example, last week I attended a Mozart Requiem by Savall (a HIP guy). Did they use vibrato? YES! When did they use it? Very sparsely! Are are all present non-HIP players right?, No! Playing vibrato on almost every long note is not what players did on 19th century. Hence, present orchestras do not play Mozart or Beethoven music as in the 19th century, and HIP player that never play vibrato are also wrong. As usual, truth is in the middle :-)

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

You are very, very wrong, and you have no idea what you are talking about. I do wish people would do their homework and look at the evidence before making categorical statements like this. It's depressing.

[@anthonycook6213]

The two schools of conducting are Talented or Not Talented, period.

[@klerkj]

This is very informative! But where is Willem Mengelberg? Born in 1871 Mengelberg certainly represents a period performing practice. I recently bought the Mengelberg scribendum box (31 cd's) with lots of performances which are perfectly listenable. The live radio recordings give you a good impression of the excellent quality of the concertgebouw orchestra before the war and Mengelberg as a real distinctive conductor.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

He didn't make it into the 1950s and the LP, obviously. For purposes of this talk, he was irrelevant.