Re: composers playing their own concertos (was GG hagiography)

[Aymeric PEYRET <peyret.aymeric@EC-LILLE.FR>]

Leah Stanwyck wrote:

Yep, Eric!  As if saying every screenplay writer makes a good actor.  Their vision may need an alternate, more adept in _expression_ of it, voice to give it life, etc., etc.  Yet even every performer, as with Gould, might not be completely satisfied with Take 1 (or 2, or 20, for that matter!).   The 'old time' recording methods definitely had to use what modern technology would call 'creative means' to get a desired quality.  The technology available to Rachmaninov would be an equivalent today of trying to record an album using a hand-held Sony and a 4-track!  Yet I'm sure Sergei didn't have too many comparisons at the time to use as a quality yardstick!

Cheers!


Cline, Eric wrote:

I am not sure I agree that a composer's own performance / interpretation is always a perfect one. I think this is especially true for works recorded in the early part of the century. The earliest recordings often required that the piece be adjusted to the recording technology. Instrumentation frequently had to be adjusted so it could be heard on the recording. I read in Arthur Nikisch's recording of Beethoven's 5th symphony in 1914 that tubas or some other instrument had to double the cellos so they would register on the record.   Sometimes whole sections had to be removed in a movement so that it would fit in the time allotted for a recording. Tempi also sometimes had to be adjusted. Listen to Rachmaninov's recording of his own third piano concerto and you will find in each of the movements noticeable cuts in the measures.  So a recorded performance may not be ideal from the composer's standpoint rather a pragmatic one to enable their work access to a wider audience.

 

 

Eric Cline

Sr. R & D Chemist

Graphic Arts Synthesis Group

REICHHOLD, Inc.

Global Coating and Performance Resins

Phone Toll Free: 1-800-448-3482 ext.8116

e-mail: eric.cline@reichhold.com

http://www.reichhold.com

(Click here to go to the Reichhold home page)

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Juozas Rimas [mailto:JuozasRimas@TAKAS.LT]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 20024:19 PM
To: F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: Re: composers playing their own concertos (was GG hagiography)

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Bradley P Lehman" <bpl@UMICH.EDU>

To: <F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU>

Sent: Thursday, November 07, 20028:11 PM

Subject: composers playing their own concertos (was GG hagiography)

 

 

> Yeah, somewhere I have the LP of Prokofiev playing his own 3rd.   Well

> done.  Also, even better, Shostakovich playing both his concertos.

>

> Please tell us you HAVE heard Rachmaninoff's recordings of all his own

> concertos and the Rhapsody! If not, run get them...either the RCA or the

> newer Naxos.   And the way he conducted his 3rd symphony, wow!

>

> Ravel's own recording of "Bolero" is excellent, as well.

 

Are there examples when composers' own performances are worse than those by

other performers?

 

I thought the composer's own interpretation (provided he is competent enough

with an instrument!) is always perfect, even if he changes it drastically in

every performance. He is the only one who knows exactly how the music should

sound at that particular moment. Can anyone else know it better?

 

 

 

Juozas Rimas Jr (not the one playing)

http://www.mp3.com/juozasrimas (oboe, piano, strings)

Hello everyone :)

Of course a composer playing his own compositions is not always the
best. But as it is the topic, did someone listen to the "Aubade" by
Poulenc, played by himself with Georges Prêtre directing the orchestra
? It is a 1960 recording, but it clearly outpasses the newer version by
Duchable (and even the extracts by GG...), and has been recently
rereleased by Universal ("Accord", collection Musique Française, 3CDs
with one of the first recordings of Poulenc's Stabat Mater, mélodies
with Pierre Bernac, etc...).
I think Poulenc is a good example for the question : in this work he is
very good, but in his 2 pianos concerto (with Jacques Février - the one
for whom he wrote the concerto- and Georges Prêtre also, on EMI) , I
think the very old recording by Whittemore & Lowe, Mitropoulos (on
LYS) is better...
Does someone know all these recordings and perhaps have another idea
about the subject ?
BTW, is the "Aubade" the only work by Poulenc that GG recorded ? (as
you see, I like Poulenc's piano music very much...)

Aymeric Peyret