Tempos in later 19th-century music

[chill319]

Rather than digress within the thread on the Järvi interpretation of Raff's Lenore symphony, I thought it better to offer my somewhat abstracted response in a separate thread.

Alan has mentioned that there is something about Järvi's performance that works, even if one is initially uncomfortable with his tempos. And john_christopher has documented the disparity between Raff's own metronome markings and those used in other recent recordings. We all know that nothing could be more Kapellmeisterisch than a dance-band approach to tempo, of course, yet I often find myself, in contrast to Alan, comparing performance tempos as if slow or fast in and of itself were a significant metric -- this despite the fact that Busoni's Sketch of a New Aesthetic in Music is one of the texts about music I value most.

Mahler had a lot to say about tempo, and I think it worth considering one of his remarks (from 1898), which supports the view that Järvi's fast tempo need not do violence to the music so long as it is embedded in a coherent overall presentation of the music. Mahler's point of view, which treats music as a form of human rather than mechanical expression, seems quite close to Busoni's, not to mention Furtwangler's:

All the most important things -- the tempo, the total conception and structuring of a work -- are almost impossible to pin down.  For here we are concerned with something living and flowing that can never be the same even twice in succession. That is why metronome markings are inadequate and almost worthless; for unless the work is vulgarly ground out in barrel-organ style, the tempo will already have changed by the end of the second bar. Therefore, the right inter-relationships of all the sections of the piece are much more important than the initial tempo.  Whether the overall tempo is a degree faster or slower often depends on the mood of the conductor; it may well vary slightly without detriment to the work. What matters is that the whole should be alive,  and, within the bounds of this freedom, be built up with irrevocable inevitability.

[Amphissa]

Arguments about tempo are among the most annoying to me. We encounter it in the HIP-inspired vs "romantic" approach to Beethoven, Brahms, et al. And within the romantic ranks, we hear it as a criticism of one conductor's interpretation vs another. We hear generalizations that conductors tend to slow down their interpretations as they age. We hear complaints that conductors (or recordings) don't adhere to the tempo markings in the score.

The fact is, great music can endure many different interpretations. And metronome markings are often just relative, not absolute. Fact is, composers are much less concerned about the religiosity with which conductors heel to their score and more concerned with the musicality of the interpretation.

While living in NY, San Francisco, and Houston, and close to Atlanta and Chicago, I had the opportunity to hear quite a few different performances of the same works. As a performance began, I might think to myself, "wow, that's really slow" or "good lord, it's a race," but as the performance continued I'd be much more caught up in the overall structural balance of the work.

Celibidache as MD of the Munich orchestra is perhaps one of the more controversial conductors in regard to tempo. Some of his interpretations were excruciatingly slow. (Sheherazade and Bruckner come to mind.) Still, as a listener, I discovered aspects of works under his baton that I was never aware of from other performances. Maazel has also been condemned for his slow tempi, but sitting in the audience at performances of the NYPO, I found his interpretations just as valid as Masur, Dutoit, Mehta, Haitink and others.

I guess this goes back to the old argument about the sanctity of the score. Should conductors adhere to the specifics detailed in the score, or interpret the music as a musician with a vision of the music? One encounters strong opinions on both sides of the issue. Was Furtwangler a charlatan or a genius? Was Celibidache a poet or a crank? Are Haitink and Maazel dottering old fools? Is Dudamel on acid?

Unfortunately, we don't get to have many of these arguments about unsung composers, because they are rarely performed in concert and there are few recordings. An exception is Gliere's 3rd, which has enjoyed a variety of interpretations (even just among the few complete recordings) and a few works by Chausson, Myaskovsky, Borodin and Taneyev, etc.

It's interesting to speculate what it might be like to have very different interpretations of works by the most accomplished unsungs.

[Alan Howe]

I agree - mostly. I have all sorts of interpretations of the standard repertoire in my collection and enjoy them all. All I would say is that, just occasionally, a valid new light is thrown on music when the score is more closely adhered to - e.g. Järvi's astonishing new Lenore recording. And I do believe that, in the second half of the 20th century tempi in some repertoire (e.g. Bruckner) did become a lot slower and that such tendencies need at least to be thought about.

BTW the greatest Bruckner 7 I've ever heard is with Celibidache and the Berlin Phil. And it's extreeeeemely slow. And he did conduct ever more slowly as he got older - as did Klemperer, Böhm, Walter et al. So there seems to have been something going on...

[Alan Howe]

We hear generalizations that conductors tend to slow down their interpretations as they age.

Well, there's something going on, especially among the senior generation of conductors. Example: Haitink in Bruckner 9:

Recording Amsterdam Dec. 1965:  59:24   (Age: 36)
Recording Amsterdam Nov. 1981:  62:30   (Age: 52)
Recording London Feb. 2013:        67:00   (Age: 83)

[Amphissa]

I think some conductors do rethink and renew their interpretations of music that they find compelling. Some of them do take a more measured approach to music that they feel passionate about. I've often wondered if it had something to do with recognizing ones mortality and finding more depth in the music they connect with most.

I don't consider this a bad thing. I am not as fanatical about fidelity to the markings of scores as a lot of critics. I can enjoy music without analyzing the performance.

The first time I heard the recording of the Bruckner 7 by Celibidache with the Munich orchestra, I was mesmerized by the revealed inner workings of Bruckner's composition and the beautiful playing of the orchestra. It was a wonderful learning experience. However, on subsequent listenings, I was less enthralled.

Celibidache was really opposed to recording his music in his later years. He felt that music was a living, organic experience that one needed to live through, not own as some superficial object. In a way, I could understand how that fit in with his approach to music making. Experiencing it once, live, as it grew in your presence would be exceptional. But I can also understand why it would not be something to listen to repeatedly. And there are limits to which some scores can (or should) be pulled and tugged and stretched and juiced. Celibidache's Sheherazade was painful, lacking all sense of energy and excitement.

Of course, Celibidache was not performing unsungs. But we can get a little of that same kind of thing with the Gliere 3rd. Farberman took a much more measured tempo with his recording of the work that others. He followed the tempo markings of Gliere more closely than others. But to my mind, that does not mean it is the only valid interpretation, and most people most of the time might prefer quicker tempi.

There have also been several recordings of Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony. Kondrashin's first recording (1954) has quicker tempi than his later re-take on the work, which is much slower and drags. His first recording is by far the better interpretation, so far as I'm concerned, and is the top of the heap of all recordings in my opinion. (Jarvi did a fine recording as well. Svetlanov, Liss and Dudarova each have a different take on the work. None as exciting as Kondrashin's original.)

I wish there were more recordings of the best works of unsungs, offering varied interpretations. Too often, the recordings are merely competent (if that) one-off performances by radio orchestras or local bands. I guess for someone who is following along, score in hand, they can make some judgment of the overall interpretation, but for the rest of us, we have no idea whether the result is anything like the score or not. And too often, the quality of playing makes it even more difficult.

Well, that was a bit of a ramble. Perhaps I should shut up and go listen to some music!

[Alan Howe]

Here's another extraordinary set of dates/timings...

Bruckner Symphony 4 (1881/Haas 1936) - conducted by Günter Wand:

CologneRSO (Dec.76):   64:22  (age 54)
NHKSO (April 82):          65:30  (age 70)
NDRSO (Oct 96):            68:05  (age 84)
BPO (Jan/Feb 98):         68:40  (age 86)
MunichPO (Sept 01):     71:00  (age 89)
NDRSO (Oct 01):           71:23  (age 89)

So, perhaps there's something going on after all...