Have just received the latest brochure from the Wigmore Hall - bearing in mind that this would be a 3 hour trip for me I go there for things that really grab my attention. My interest is piano recitals so let's look at that...
1 all Bach, 1 all Chopin, 4 all Schubert, 2 all Liszt (ok, ok Liszt year..), 2 all Mozart, 1 all Debussy, 2 all Ravel and 1 all Brahms. Of course there is more from those august presences along with Rakhmaninov, Haydn, Schumann, Prokofjev, Skriabin and Stravinski (Rite of Spring 4 hands). Rarities? precious few - single items by Field, CPE Bach, Villa-Lobos, Roussel and Dukas, a Handel suite, some Rameau and Couperin (Angela Hewitt not surprisingly) and a sprinkling of moderns - Stockhausen, Rochberg, Knussen, Webern and Schoenberg (ok I'm a confirmed romantic so the last two are still modern to me).
Now fine - I have a wall covered with CDs (and LPs upstairs) full of Chopin, Liszt etc etc that I love listening to but --aarrrgh!!! where is the adventure, where is the "ok this guy/gal didn't forge a burning path through the history of music but wrote some great stuff"??
I travelled 3 hours the other day to hear a German pianist (Henriette Gartner) play Mozart, Wagner/Moszkowski and Leschetizky. She played it all with elegance, style and real virtuoso flair and once again you think why does this stuff get stuffed away in some library? Her CDS and DVDs (which I can well recommend) include some stunning performances of regular repertoire and "hardly-heards" - Tausig and Herz transcriptions, Galuppi and Clara Schumann, Grunfeld, Arenski, Moszkowski etc.
A concert like this appears to be a once-in-a-blue-moon thing unfortunately.
Sorry to rant, preaching to the converted but after three Wigmore brochures with almost identical results I just get so annoyed and depressed that so much music could just disappear unsung.
Rob
I have not been to the Wigmore since my teacher brought the roof down with a couple of Horowitz transcriptions and have no great desire to go back to be bored to death with Brahms.
I join you in being depressed, but I wonder if the lack of adventurous programming could be down to the will it put "bums on seats" question.
The recitals at Schotts in Marlborough Street appear to be more daring, but usually contain plinky plonky 20th century works that would not interest the average romatic.
All rather sad really, but I will be playing De Meyer this evening if anyone wants to come round. Entry fee is 4 cans of Guiness and a packet of Monster Munch.
Thal
As the person responsible for the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts of chamber music in London, I have every sympathy with both Wigmore Hall and Rob. Whenever we put on something less well known our takings drop. If we are even a little adventurous we get one or two 'well done's but these are usually outweighed by a drop in audience figures.
I have to point out that the chief funding body for the arts in England, The Arts Council, do not give grants for excellence of performance or for subsidising the cost of seats which would make live performance accessable. Their main criteria are educational and political.
I gave a speech at a recent fundraising Gala and said this and received a thunderous round of applause before I could even finish.
Yes, and the depressing thing I realise is that my logical brain knows full well that if you advertise a piano recital (which I'm told are never huge drawers, other than the stellar crowd of pianists) with a programme of Leschetizky, Bowen, Zarebski and Liapunov a tiny few of us would go "yeah!!" and the majority would go "?...?."
Looking at the Henriette Gartner DVDs I mentioned I notice that the audiences at these live recitals are not huge, unless they are all huddled off-camera - enthusiastic certainly but not hall-filling.
Maybe a bunch of us will have to club together and start our own "rarities of piano music at (insert historic venue of your choice) festival".
Rob
maybe at this place called Husum? oh... (nothing wrong with a second one, though given the currently low audience ...)
Quote from: thalbergmad on Friday 20 May 2011, 12:16
The recitals at Schotts in Marlborough Street appear to be more daring, but usually contain plinky plonky 20th century works that would not interest the average romatic.
It's Great Marlborough Street and it's Romantic, not romatic, but I mention these things only
en passant since the principal purpose of my response is to disagree with you about the content of the programmes there; some (though not all) of the recitals are put on by pianist Jonathan Powell (who also performs in them occasionally) and there have been plenty of works in the programmes that by no means fit the description that you mention - a description that would surely be glaringly inappropriate for Medtner, Sorabji, Skryabin or me 'umble self, for starters...
Glaringly inappropriate for Medtner & Scriabin, but not for Sorabji or yourself, unless you have suddenly embraced romanticism.
Anyway, Medner & Scriabin are well known composers to a lot of pianists and listeners and would not exactly constitute the hardly heards to which this wonderful place is dedicated to.
Thal
Quote from: thalbergmad on Friday 20 May 2011, 19:05
Glaringly inappropriate for Medtner & Scriabin, but not for Sorabji or yourself, unless you have suddenly embraced romanticism.
I haven't "suddenly" done anything of the kind! What on earth are you on about? Where's the "linky-plonk" in my work, or in Sorabji's for that matter?...
Quote from: thalbergmad on Friday 20 May 2011, 19:05
Anyway, Medner & Scriabin are well known composers to a lot of pianists and listeners and would not exactly constitute the hardly heards to which this wonderful place is dedicated to.
No, indeed (although it's "Medtner", not "Medner") - so why, in the light of such (by no means exclusive or exceptional) examples, would you choose to write about what you nonetheless (for reasons presumably best known only to yourself) deem to be the frequent "plinky-plonk" content of recitals given at Schott's?
Best,
Alistair
Quote from: ahinton on Friday 20 May 2011, 21:18
Where's the "linky-plonk" in my work, or in Sorabji's for that matter?...
You are far better qualified than I to comment on such things.
... all relative I suppose, never really thought of Medtner (whose name is a transliteration and sometimes has been spelled Metner, after all, perfectly legitimately, if memory serves) as well-known- though more than he was at a certain time maybe? and of course more than eg Srebdolskii, Rebikov, and some others.
I wonder if this concert by 'my' string quartet might lift spirits a little? It features the fine Sibelius string quartet - a work which is puzzlingly neglected most of the time. Wigmore Hall, 17 June: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/dante-string-quartet-27483 (http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/dante-string-quartet-27483)
They have also done sterling service to this piece on their just-released CD: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalcdreviews/8495724/Smetana-String-Quartets-Nos1-and-2.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalcdreviews/8495724/Smetana-String-Quartets-Nos1-and-2.html).
I wonder if we should start calling it Sibelius string quartet no.4 (or no.3 or something- to exclude juvenilia but include earlier ones that were indeed published :) ) ("Tchaikovsky wrote 3 symphonies. Nos. 4, 5 and 6. :D " )
Eric
maybe sum folkses needses to gets over themseves, or is it selfs, or selves
Quote from: thalbergmad on Friday 20 May 2011, 22:00
Quote from: ahinton on Friday 20 May 2011, 21:18
Where's the "plinky-plonk" in my work, or in Sorabji's for that matter?...
You are far better qualified than I to comment on such things.
If so, then please don't comment as you did "on such things". Thanks.
Thanks, delicious manager - it seems that chamber and vocal music at Wigmore is a little more adventurous.
Re Sorabji - not all "plinky-plonky" in the Noncarrow sense, as what I've heard seems to me just an extension of the kind of complexity that Godowsky was occasionally wont to write (a huge generality, I know before I get any comments) - but still way to modern for my tastes. There is a market for it though and I applaud performers who bring unsung composers of any style to the fore.
Rob
jimmattt - no doubt. of the 5 billion odd people on the planet (perhaps even restricted to people in your home country even, though I don't know...), there are probably some such people. I wouldn't bet against it, anyways.
and this thread is beginning to heat its emotional temperature considerably, I think. I'm no one's idea of a moderator, but if I may make a teensy suggestion?
Stop all and consider.
Sorry, just that of the pedantry and superciliosity that occasionally rears its head here, the unnecessary attention to the rare typographical errors found on here seems the least sufferable. And I am gone.
I don't recall seeing any attention paid to typographical errors recently. And they're not all that infrequent, either.
O.K. gentlemen, enough!
Quote from: ahinton on Saturday 21 May 2011, 22:18
Quote from: thalbergmad on Friday 20 May 2011, 22:00
Quote from: ahinton on Friday 20 May 2011, 21:18
Where's the "plinky-plonk" in my work, or in Sorabji's for that matter?...
You are far better qualified than I to comment on such things.
If so, then please don't comment as you did "on such things". Thanks.
I have continued my comments on another forum.
Thanks
...which we don't need to know about here. Enough means enough.
Please do me a favour and delete my account immediately and you will have no more from me.
I have no great desire to be on the same forum with someone who googles Sorabji 5,000 times a day in order to find forum posts with spelling errors.
Goodbye.
Thal
Oh. Found the spelling error bit. Not worth the tiff. A little too late now, but I'm surprised that some individuals have skins that thin. Oh, well, win a few lose a few.
Quote from: thalbergmad on Sunday 22 May 2011, 13:26
Please do me a favour and delete my account immediately and you will have no more from me.
I have no great desire to be on the same forum with someone who googles Sorabji 5,000 times a day in order to find forum posts with spelling errors.
Goodbye.
Thal
Now THERE's someone with issues!
Or rather, there WENT someone with issues!
Look, enough really does mean enough! From everybody. There are plenty of place online to fall out but this isn't one of them. We've locked this thread now.
And carrying on the discussion in another topic (which I have deleted) might be thought of as rather disrespectful by more sensitive moderators than we two!
Let's all move on.