Tips On Critical Listening: Interpretation Is A Condiment, Like Sriracha

[@icebrow]

I hereby vote for David Hurwitz to make a food review channel as well

[@Gjoa1906]

Your enthusiasm is infectious - wonderful! Thanks.

[@Bezart34]

Dave - what a fabulous presentation. I have never seen such an original method of explaining anything - ever. Pure genius. Thank you for posting it. PS - I'd love to have dinner at your place! 🍜🍷😃

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@erikhagen1813]

Yessss. As a catering chef and music lover, I love the analogy. More food s'il vous plait!

[@AlexMadorsky]

It is a well-known fact Hermann Scherchen maintained a vast strategic umami reserve.

[@jesus-of-cheeses]

Cashier: Wow, you really like your hot sauce! Dave: It’s for a video about classical music.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

LOL! I actually had a similar experience when I bought every cowbell in the Neuschwanstein gift shop for a performance of Mahler's 6th. They did think I was crazy, never mind the people on the plane on the way home from Bavaria. But they sounded great.

[@colincomposer]

This is the first time that a discussion on musical interpretation has made me hungry.

[@mrhenu]

I used a food/music analogy recently. My friend only listens to one genre of music and my analogy was "burgers are great, but why only eat burgers when you could also eat sushi and sichuan food?" Then there is our friend Sibelius, who offered us a "glass of pure string water" instead of fancy cocktails.

[@edwinbaumgartner5045]

Well, thanks to this talk and my knowledge of Beethoven-interpretations, I got to know much of Sriracha. The pity is that in Vienna, there is no Sriracha. Because of that, I ponder which sort of mustard Karajan would be.

[@fulltongrace7899]

Seeded brown whole-grain mustard. Or Dijon. Definitely not the yellow kind popular in America.

[@waynesmith3767]

@@fulltongrace7899pommery

[@Sh.moon.]

As a Korean, I love that Klemperer is compared to Gochujang.

[@waynesmith3767]

Learned a lot of interesting stuff about Siracha!

[@benjamindemornay1444]

❤😂🎶🎻🎵🧂🍽what teacher of music! We understand better with analogies...thank you

[@musicianinseattle]

Antal Doráti once said something along the lines of, "We [conductors] aren't the interpreters...the audience members are the interpreters. It's our job to perform music honestly and directly, as close to the composer's wishes as we can, so that everyone in the audience can arrive at their own interpretation of the piece."

[@davidblackburn3396]

That's brilliant, thank you so much for posting it.

[@craggyisland8770]

So fun! Keep these creative video ideas coming!

[@jimmybyun]

Haha. That was really fun. And quite on the nose. How clever. Thanks for that!

[@Vandalarius]

Love your sriracha collection - truly a man of good taste (buds)!

[@LyleFrancisDelp]

This is quite a fun video.

[@MichaelGilman489]

Left unanswered is this burning question: which one is the Reference Sriracha?

[@mancal5829]

It has to be the modern interpretation of the ancient object (i.e. the "Szell" Sriracha).

[@kaswit007]

You collect so many Sriracha sause you should make your own brand by now!

[@smurashige]

Boy that was fun, and to the point! I enjoyed how your discussion also brought in the global cultural mix that has become part of the recipe that is interpretation. By the way, I once saw a wall in a restaurant lined with shelves of what seemed like hundreds of different hot sauces - someone had amassed quite a collection 😉

[@davidroyer5049]

That was fun and instructive at the same time. I sat through you reading through the ingredients in the various siriacha sauces and trying to taste what would happen if I swapped one for another. . .

[@trinkanchanavasita89]

I was waiting to see what hot sauce you would compare Roger Norrington’s London Beethoven cycle to…

[@T4Tea4two]

To continue the metaphor, perhaps the most perverse, "party record" interpretations could be likened to "da bomb" or any number of unenjoyably spicy hot sauces (also fun at parties or as pranks)

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I like Dave's Insanity Sauce.

[@davidroyer5049]

Ouch. . . The Ken doll's recording of NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF SPAIN sounded like the pianist and the orchestra had a bad case of Mexican heartburn. . . Just sayin'

[@LyleFrancisDelp]

When you produced the Truff, I had to do a double take. LOL

[@gregm5775]

Might we use the expression "variations upon a theme of Sriracca" as an analogy for Scherchen / Currenztis type performances :)?

[@sleepjar7013]

Dave, just curious, what do you personally think of the Gardiner? It was the first complete set I ever bought when it was released, and I had no concept of period instrument performances. I loved it for many years, but now not so much.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I feel exactly as you do.

[@dennislovinfosse6293]

Dear Dave, you're a genius!

[@leestamm3187]

The food analogy is a good one for the topic. Personally, I sometimes go to that of different actors performing the same role in a great theatrical play. They use the same words and stage direction, but the interpretation can make a huge difference.

[@chrismoule7242]

7:38 - as soon as I heard your description - "Karajan", I shouted...

[@stangibell4274]

Hi, Dave, while I watched you hold so many bottles, I yelled, "Get a shopping bag!" Seriously, though, I think there ought to be a Pulitzer for Outstanding Video series. Recently, you strongly suggested we read the comments. Based on what I've read, I know there are enough viewers here to nominate you for an applicable and appropriate award. Hoping it happens.

[@fulltongrace7899]

Just listened to Szell’s Beethoven 2nd symphony, one of my favourites and definitely a sauce I like.

[@Otorres1]

Cooking is an apt metaphor, since a written recipe is as unalive as a score. A person's take on a recipe would be similar to a conductor's interpretation of a score.

[@barryguerrero6480]

I couldn't agree more.

[@johanhendrix5907]

Hi Dave, do you, just like me, have examples where you seem to not like a sauce, but keep returning to it trying? One example for me is Abbado's 1988 BPO Brahms II. In fact, it seems that I have this especially with Brahms and Bruckner dishes, where the sauce seems really important to me. For Brahms, I most appreciate Walter's and Beinum's sauce. For Bruckner, it's different for every dish he cooks. Maybe not surprising for a cook that keeps tinkering with his recipes.

[@mercoid]

Now you have to go and return all those hot sauces to the store.

[@ahartify]

Is there a hot mustard interpretation anywhere?

[@federicorodriguez7222]

There are sauces that you try once and never again. Like Norrington's or the Currentzis that made your poor cat vomit.

[@chadweirick67]

As someone who finds ketchup too spicy ( really), what version would you suggest?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Water.

[@WesSmith-m6i]

Brilliant! Thank you so much.

[@stephenmarmer543]

The human element enhances human creativity. Heaven help us if AI ever invades classical music.

[@phamthanh4785]

Unrelated to the main topic, but it's always funny for me to see that most native Vietnamese, particularly those in the North, has no idea what the heck is Sriracha and why people keep claiming it to be Vietnamese cuisine lol

[@fulltongrace7899]

I live with a Vietnamese family here in Australia. They are from Hanoi and they use Sriracha.

[@phamthanh4785]

Well, they do use it when they go abroad and discover the thing. What I mean is that the people who live in Vietnam and has not gone abroad has no idea about Sriracha.

[@fulltongrace7899]

@@phamthanh4785 good point. Will find out in November when I am going back to Hanoi.

[@harrycornelius373]

If a computer synthesizer played the score, would that be equivalent to the dish without the spice? I assume it would be bland as sand. But it would still be an interpretation as this would be a choice reflecting intent. Plus the choice of the score would add another note of intervention. So, the is no such thing as the original or pure work for virtually all non-electronic music (Cage) excepted. If you heard the likely poor playing of the premier and early performances, I doubt anyone would want to copy that faithfully. When you started out with the food analogy I thought you were going to talk about the frosting on the cake, with the cake being the core structure and ingredients and the frosting being the presentation. Please don’t add hot sauce to my cake. 😊

[@lucbenac9756]

My wife still won't believe it 😁 it is a great idea to compare interpretations of the same piece - maybe a new series - without hijacking your site, there is a video from Pearls Audio where the owner compares with musical examples, the 1953, 1963, 1977 and 198x of Karajan Beethoven 3rd symphony.

[@lucbenac9756]

@@bigalfactotum9935 good point

[@hamidrezahabibi8111]

It’d be nice to have the list of albums together with their attributed hot 🥵 ness 🌶️

[@zdl1965]

Well said. Without interpretation, everything sounds like a midi file. Sterile and insipid.

[@goonbelly5841]

Which interpretation would be symbolized by Arby's sauce?

[@deadfdr]

Your enthusiasm for the finer joys in life is delicious!

[@respighi3]

Dave...Whose interpretations are symbolized by ketchup? (Rattle, perhaps?)

[@leestamm3187]

Heinz or Hunts?

[@respighi3]

@@leestamm3187 Depends on whether you want adagio or allegro...

[@alanmcginn4796]

That’s really funny! Ketchup should be banned IMHO :) what an awful destroyer of great food. I mean. Come on. Fries with ketchup v fries with a mayo or equivalent condiment. No comparison!

[@leestamm3187]

@@respighi3 With the occasional exception, I find Rattle more like thin, watery tomato soup.

[@respighi3]

@@leestamm3187 😀😀😀

[@vdtv]

You missed a sauce, probably because it is, erm, not so hot. It's loads of bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in custard. I give you: Marriner's Beethoven. Really, I love Marriner. But having heard three from is B cycle, I could stand no more of it. Wouter