There is something faintly sad about music lovers who know the relative merits of countless recordings of a Beethoven symphony, from multiple remasterings of some dimly recorded wartime concert by the Berlin Philharmonic to the last week's BBC broadcast from Manchester or Glasgow. It is not comparative listening per se that is sad, of course, but that it usually limits one's musical explorations to well-established (and much recorded) "masterpieces" of the standard repertoire. Life, after all, is short, and most of it is eaten up by activities incompatible with serious music listening: sleeping, working, drag racing, or teaching your kid how to shoot that new 9-mm Glock of yours. So if you've spent enough time on getting intimately acquainted with all those recordings of the Eroica symphony and the Brahms D-minor concerto, chances are you missed out on a great deal of contemporary music.
Or perhaps it works the other way around. When repeated exposure to established masterpieces eventually strips away their novelty, folks with firmly conservative tastes in music try to fight off boredom by immersing themselves in the potentially endless supply of different "interpretations" of these masterpieces (with progressively less significant differences among such interpretations being the principal object of interest).
Either way it seems that, in the end, a hyper-concentrated exploration of the standard repertoire is like a life dedicated exclusively to fucking every cousin in one's large extended family. The reward amounts to little more than a long list of predictably similar experiences.
On the other hand, exploring multiple interpretations of a recent, challenging, and still infrequently performed composition is simply a way of getting an aesthetic grasp on the work that has not yet been taught in music appreciation courses, plagiarized by film composers, quoted in TV commercials, arranged to a disco beat, or sampled by hip-hop bands. And I cannot think of a better way to get acquainted with Carter's exquisitely tart Asko Concerto than through several live recordings I have been playing almost non-stop for days. In each of these live performances the music always sounds subtly but interestingly different because the choices of instrumental balances, dynamics, and phrasing are as different from one another as those found in performances of a Brahms symphony by Furtwangler, Mengelberg, and Szell.
8 comments:
Ha ha you speak true..I own up to mutiple performances/recordings of both Beethoven symphonies and Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral pieces etc..What does it all mean? That no one performance ever really seems to get it all..Or a restless curiosity to listen to different interpretations afflicts most of us..On the other hand Shakespeare (like so much music) can be endlessly re-staged whilst drawing attention to one aspect or another of the work..So all this just to thankyou for the oppurtunity to listen to three performances of an Elliot Carter work I know but little..I don't think its weird in the least!! I look foward to it..Many thanks
Ah terrific performance from Holliger and his players..Fine recording as well..Wonderful low strings (really can hear the double bass in great clarity)..Look forward to seeing how the others strike me..By the by Elliot Carter really does come through strongly to me now (wasn't always the case)..Many thanks for this post.
The nice thing about Carter's music is that there are multiple recordings of so many of his major works. For real funsies, try tracking and listening to all 10 commercial recordings of his Night Fantasies. That has to be some kind of record of a postwar, atonal piece.
Joe Barron wrote:
>> For real funsies, try tracking and listening to all 10 commercial recordings of his Night Fantasies. That has to be some kind of record of a postwar, atonal piece.<<
Joe,
My public library system (not in a major city) has four recordings of Night Fantasies - Aimard, Jacobs, Oppens, and Rosen. And only three of Barber's Piano Sonata!
Others are by Oppens (she's done it twice), Aleck Karis, Stephen Drury (a really good one), Winston Choi, Florence Millet and Louise Bessette. Let's see, I think that makes ten.
Ah Boulez not doing it for me here, I'm afraid..I've actually come rather to distrust the more recent recordings I've come across of Le Grand Monsieur (I'm thinking Webern, Ligeti etc on DG) when compared to his earlier releases..Somewhere down the line he seems to have traded cutting, incisive lean renditions for the sort of up-holstered luxuriant wallowing I always thought the province of jet-setting conductors with a finger in various orchestral pies (but then again that's his main gig now isn't it?!?)..Holliger much more to my taste here..Great work by the by.
Sasha,
You're right to dislike Boulez' DG recordings - they are hideously synthetic, and the playing is lethargic. But his live stuff - even in his old years - is still often strikingly played. But this recording of the ASKO Concerto is somehow "beefy" and "heavy" sounding. Perhaps the recording balance has something to do with it... I can't be sure. But there will be more live Boulez conducting Carter on this blog to compare with this recording.
Glad you liked Holliger's ASKO. I have more Carter by him and Ens. Modern from that same concert, and eventually will upload it too.
Yes yes Boom, You're right to make that distinction..I've seen and heard Boulez conduct live enough times to know he can still generate electricity in the concert hall..Never forget the broadcast I heard of the Berg 3 orchestral pieces from Paris a few years back..Applause broke out after the first two movements..Wonderful performance..Look forward to hearing those recordings you mention.
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