Re: The Listener as Artist

[mibrenner@vassar.edu]

I saw Kissin's concert at the Salzburg Festival this summer, at which he
played the four Chopin Ballades and the Liszt Sonata.  He played four
encores, including some waltzes by Brahms and a Liszt etude.  I can tell
you right off the bat that few people were there to see only his
pyrotechnics.  I spoke to some people at intermission, and one guy who had
been going to Salzburg for decades who said that he had never heard such
playing before. Indeed, this was the best Chopin playing I have ever
heard.  Hopefully he will record those Ballades in the not too distant
future and you'll see what I'm talking about.  

His Moonlight is different from the norm, and to be perfectly honest,
there were plenty of things that I didn't like about it either, but it was
quite individualistic, which I think is admirable.  

As far as clapping in instances of soft endings, I would only say that the
way an audience claps reflects what they have heard.  People will not
immediate start hanging from the rafters at the end of Mahler's ninth.
Rather it is a subdued applause.  Listen, for instance, to Bruno Walter's
Vienna Philharmonic live account of Mahler's ninth from 1938, surely one
of the greatest Mahler recordings ever made.  The audience takes a few
seconds before they begin to clap, and then, an somewhat subdued applause
begins.  

By the same token, that are certainly some great performers around today
who would agree with you; I know that Feltman does not allow audience
applause when he plays Art of the Fugue, ending in the middle of the last
Contrapunctus, where Bach left off.  

But we are definitely on two different sides here; I'm someone who
believes they should bring back clapping in between movements.

							Michael Brenner  

On Sun, 7 Feb 1999, Neil wrote:

> On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 10:44:46 GMT, you wrote:
> 
> >The thing I hate even more is audiences cheering and clapping either a bad
> >performance or MUCH worse after say a great performance of Metamorphosen . The
> >end of a performance of the  latter needs about 30 minutes of quiet
> >contemplation not applause. "Let's ban applause".
> 
> Caveat: for works which end quietly or need space;
> 
> - most DSCH
> - much mahler
> - some Bruckner
> - metamorphosen
> - Bach (who can clap after the Art of Fugue ???????)
> - Tchaikovsky 6
> - Beethoven op 101,109,110,111,31/2, diabellis
> - others
> 
> Sorry if that came out a bit wrong. Someone rightly picked me up on my remarks.
> 
> The kissin business is precisely the sort of nonsense which finally pushed Gould
> off the concert platform. I deeply resent Schoenberg's article and all it stood
> for.  it chastised our hero for being a non-showman and an individual.
> 
> The whole showman as pianist annoys me intensely. my comments about Kissin were
> drawn from experience of 3 of his recitals in london which the press were
> lukewarm about, I disliked and many of my musical freinds though were not too
> hot. Ok that's subjective but his Beethoven moonlight is not good - he played
> that at the last recital. His tone is harsh and his youthful freshness has been
> usuperped by aggressive pounding, steely tone and decidedly dark and wierd
> interpretations (and clinical too).
> 
> Ditto a decidedly off form pollini was cheered to the rafters recently in
> London. His concert was very dull. 
> 
> Ditto a lazar Berman who could not manage the moonlight sonata got standing
> ovations.
> 
> Contrast Sokolov who played Beethoven and Byrd and has us all totally spellbound
> at the Wigmore. We cheered him because he was bloody brilliant and had us all so
> keyed up with excitment even with early Beethoven.
> 
> Neil 
> 
> --------------------------------
> _?_ (at home)    ICQ# - 11875525  
> 
>