Thoughts about performing unsung music...

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Colin. Very insightful.

[Paul Barasi]

I miss being able to buy CDs by browsing through in shops, looking at the choice of recording. The high street market is now so reduced, HMV is a shambles, but a surprise may yet be found in say a charity shop. Yet most of that stock isn't even your Beethoven 5 or Schubert 8-9: it's compilation snippets from the most well-known works, outdoing even Classic FM. This is what music in our society has become.

The top works have been recorded over and over again, and whilst there's sometimes agreement on what's best, there's still considerable room for people liking rather different takes and disliking other people's preferences. Even so, within the array of top conductor/orchestra recordings, more often than not, any will be good. But an unsung work usually suffers a double marginalisation: lacking top performers and choice. I am well aware of my vulnerability to getting something which I turn out to really like ... and then getting something else by the same composer which I don't - without giving enough attention to whether I would have liked it had other musicians played it.

Have any unsung CDs been issued with two orchestras (or whatever) doing the same work with different interpretations, or is the idea too way out?

[regriba]

The complete symphonies by Niels W. Gade have been recorded three times, by Järvi, Schønwandt and Hogwood. The interpretations are quite different, so here comparisons are possible. I think the Hogwood set is another example of an unsung benefiting from very good music-making.

But it sometimes really is difficult to agree on what exactly is good music-making. I remember back in the 1980's, when only a couple of the Gade symphonies had been recorded. Danish radio then made a programme where different experts were asked to suggest what a complete recorded cycle would best be like. The general consensus was that it should use a full-size orchestra and, most importantly, a non-Danish conductor who could look at the works with fresh eyes and free them of the "tepid", undramatic, "Danish beech-wood" reputation they had got as a result of the few existing recordings.

Using chamber orchestras (and one of the a Danish conductor), the Järvi and Schønwandt sets don't live up to these demands, but the Hogwood set does. But what happened when it came out, about 25 years after the radio programme? Leading Danish critics berated Hogwood for overdoing the dramatic effects and making drama out of what is essentially lyrical works. Sometimes it is really impossible to please people.

[Alan Howe]

That's a very insightful and interesting post - thanks. I agree, by the way: I bought Hogwood after Järvi and foud the former's greater sense of scale much more convincing.

[Richard Moss]

I freely admit I know I am not a 'skilled' listener, unlike many UC members, but I've noticed that on those (infrequent) occasions when I have the chance to compare two different recordings of the same work,  it tends to be the first one I heard that I 'like' best.  Is this some form of imprinting (like young ducklings) that other members have also experienced or does it just go back to my first few words - i.e. it's me!

Cheers

Richard

[TerraEpon]

Yes, musical imprinting is very much a thing.

[semloh]

Yes, indeed, Richard; that's exactly my point about the impact of familiarity. It is difficult to shake off one's attachment to a familiar recording and recognize the merits of another.

Just to illustrate that it can be done, however, I recently heard the VPO playing Poet and Peasant - stunning brass, absolute clarity and wonderful dynamics - and I instantly realized that I had been missing so much because of my 50 year old attachment to the versions I grew up with, and which I regarded as ideal. Such realizations are not possible, of course, when only one version is available, which is the case with so many unsung works, and judgements of quality must therefore be reserved.

[mbhaub]

A long, long time ago I first came across Tchaikovsky's Manfred in the Toscanini recording and loved the work and record so much that I had to buy a second copy to replace the badly worn first. Then around 1970 the Maazel recording came out - I could hear the beloved masterwork in stereo. But what's this? Maazel, the fraud re-arranged the score and added other music. Surely Toscanini played it correctly and young Maazel brazenly ruined Manfred. So strong was the imprinting that I couldn't shake the Toscanini for a long time, even though shortly after acquiring the Maazel I also picked up the Eulenberg edition of the score and lo and behold, it was Toscanini who corrupted the work. Same thing happened with the violin concerto finale, where I still have trouble with the uncut version compared to the Auer edition I think we all grew up listening to.

[eternalorphea]

respect unsung composer's dignity, not prey on his defenselessness

[DennisS]

Alan, you are a mine of information! I took note of your post in this thread (the very first post in fact) referring to the stupendous version of Dvořák's Symphony no 8/Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck, so much so that I took the plunge and ordered it. I have been listening to the CD both yesterday and earlier today. I was hugely impressed by Honeck's new version of  this well-known work - so refreshing and exciting, full of vitalty and such a contrast to the more conservative/traditional takes on this symphony. It makes my versions of this work by Von Karajan/ VPO and Rowicki/LSO "almost" seem bland and insipid (even though the playing on both these versions is very fine it must be said!). The Honeck take is now my clear favourite! I was also very impressed by the liner notes written by Honeck himself, in which he points out where, exactly in the score, he applied his own thinking as to how the scoring/tempi should be interpreted! Many thanks Alan for alerting me to this recording.

[Paul Barasi]

Oh dear, my Gades are Järvi's but crucially, I did manage to find where they are.

[Alan Howe]

I'm glad you liked the Dvorak/Honeck CD, Dennis. The conductor takes some risks - which is rather refreshing these days.

[Alan Howe]

Oh dear, my Gades are Järvi's

They're fine! But try to hear Hogwood, if you can...

[eschiss1]

Langgaard's symphonies are mostly, except for his first few, arguably too recent for us (though there's a reasonable amount of Romanticism in much of his music), but there've been at least two complete cycles and several other recordings of his 1st & 4th symphonies (e.g.) besides, allowing a fair amount of comparison/contrast of e.g. the 3 recordings of his ambitious first symphony. Haven't done that myself- yet- but if someone here has and thinks it worth commenting? Likewise perhaps the two or three recordings of Respighi's Drammatica (symphony) come to mind ... recordings rather than performances (though some performances of some works along these lines - e.g. Franz Schmidt's first string quartet, first movement only, can be heard on YouTube; or, hrm... Medtner's piano quintet can be compared in, I think, somewhere between 2 and 4? more than that?... different performances there also, not even counting uploads of commercial recordings (catching on!?!) --- anyhow,

some unsung music is fortunately (or unfortunately, depending) sufficiently un-unsung (ow ow ow) that one can hear some different performances somewhere with relative ease. (Different in principle, anyway. They may -sound- the same, interpretatively...)

(Though the two recordings I've heard of Langgaard's "Ixion" (a Swedish radio broadcast, vs the Dausgaard DaCapo recording in the complete cycle) did -not-...)

[Paul Barasi]

Even though there's an obvious lack of choice with unsung recordings, let me declare my buying preference where there is one and other considerations don't prevail:

                                              it's for (genuinely) live recordings.

This is true for both sung & unsung. Why? Because I think, however misguided I may be, that studio renditions are more likely to be ubiquitous, synthetic, safe, unexciting. Live has a good chance of more risk in interpretation and tempo handling, and of commitment, spontaneity, creativity - of the performers being swept up and letting rip in the sheer thrill and delight of realising the music on the page within the authentic forum it was intended to be heard: communicating with a real live appreciative audience. Similarly, for me, there is nothing like personally hearing a live performance.

So I was wondering: is this is your experience too, for sung, unsung, or for both?