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stuart macrae
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« on: 17:08:47, 25-06-2007 » |
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I finally got round to buying the Eotvos recording of Gruppen the other day - and at first listen I was rather disappointed by the lack of drive in the performance. For all I know it may well be more accurate than other readings (is it?) but I didn't get the thrill that I get from the Abbado (although someone told me that was a bit of a mess) or (of course, because you can hear the players' terror!) the old Stockhausen/Boulez/Maderna recording. Perhaps it's the tempo: it (the Eotvos) takes 2 minutes longer than the Abbado. What do other members think is the best recording of Gruppen? And... Why are Stockhausen's self-released CDs so expensive?!  |
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TimR-J
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« Reply #1 on: 17:17:01, 25-06-2007 » |
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In my experience everything from the Stockhausen estate is incredibly expensive - draw your own conclusions.
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Evan Johnson
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« Reply #2 on: 17:38:23, 25-06-2007 » |
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I finally got round to buying the Eotvos recording of Gruppen the other day - and at first listen I was rather disappointed by the lack of drive in the performance. For all I know it may well be more accurate than other readings (is it?) but I didn't get the thrill that I get from the Abbado (although someone told me that was a bit of a mess) or (of course, because you can hear the players' terror!) the old Stockhausen/Boulez/Maderna recording. Perhaps it's the tempo: it (the Eotvos) takes 2 minutes longer than the Abbado.
What do other members think is the best recording of Gruppen?
That's interesting - I've not heard the Eötvös, but the word on the street has always been (in my experience) that the Abbado was unacceptably haphazard, and that the Eötvös was thus a necessary corrective (as far as non-SV CD releases are concerned). Obviously that only counts for so much if the performance is dead. I too wish the Stockhausen-Verlag prices were a bit more reasonable, but I guess that's what it costs in order to put huge glossy color photos of what Stockhausen ate for breakfast on the day of the premiere in the CD booklet... |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #3 on: 17:39:21, 25-06-2007 » |
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it may well be more accurate than other readings (is it?) So I'm told. It's certainly more accurate than Abbado's. I also like the Punkte very much on that Eötvös disc, though I seem to remember Richard voicing reservations in a previous discussion of this CD. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #4 on: 17:44:28, 25-06-2007 » |
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In my experience everything from the Stockhausen estate is incredibly expensive - draw your own conclusions.
Has anyone tried ordering things indirectly through the Stockhausen Society here? Might at least alleviate the cost of having to purchase international money orders and the like. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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richard barrett
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« Reply #5 on: 19:39:31, 25-06-2007 » |
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I don't find the Eötvös recording at all dead - to my ears it brings out the identity of the piece far better than either of the others. The original recording is pretty remarkable in that the players get through the piece at all, since nothing could have prepared them for the experience, but it's let down by the brutally three-channel mixing, where each orchestra appears to occupy a single point in space, making it much harder to hear whatever details there are. Abbado is very sloppy indeed, though colourful, while Eötvös has both the sense of colour and the experienced players who project Stockhausen's rhythmical and textural intricacies about as well as I can imagine them being done at this point in history.
But this does bring up what I think is an interesting point. It may be that the "lack of drive" Stuart perceives in the Eötvös recording is actually the sound of a clear and well-prepared performance. I recall finding the original (Howarth) recording of Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony very exciting indeed, while the more recent BPO/Nott version revealed itself (through a much more accurate performance) to be a less interesting piece (to me) than I had thought it was. Perhaps we have dodgy old performances too much in mind when thinking about how a piece like Gruppen "sounds" or "should sound", bearing in mind that most of the extant Stockhausen recordings were made at or very soon after (or in some cases even before) the public premiere, and I'm sure all of us here who've written orchestral music will agree that the first performance is inevitably far from definitive, however exciting in a skin-of-the-teeth way it might have been.
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Bryn
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« Reply #6 on: 19:47:39, 25-06-2007 » |
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O.K., Richard, so what about the de Leeuw/Knussen/Spano, or the Carewe/Rattle/Harding?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #7 on: 19:56:46, 25-06-2007 » |
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I haven't heard those, Bryn, but I'm inclined to be suspicious of anything with the name Reinbert de Leeuw attached to it.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #8 on: 19:57:51, 25-06-2007 » |
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But this does bring up what I think is an interesting point. It may be that the "lack of drive" Stuart perceives in the Eötvös recording is actually the sound of a clear and well-prepared performance. I recall finding the original (Howarth) recording of Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony very exciting indeed, while the more recent BPO/Nott version revealed itself (through a much more accurate performance) to be a less interesting piece (to me) than I had thought it was. Perhaps we have dodgy old performances too much in mind when thinking about how a piece like Gruppen "sounds" or "should sound", bearing in mind that most of the extant Stockhausen recordings were made at or very soon after (or in some cases even before) the public premiere, and I'm sure all of us here who've written orchestral music will agree that the first performance is inevitably far from definitive, however exciting in a skin-of-the-teeth way it might have been.
That is an interesting thought, which accords with some of my own experience of comparing performances/recordings of works when they are new on one hand, and when they have become more well-known, when there is more time to work on them, more of a performance tradition established, etc. on the other I wonder if there might be another angle to this: when works are new and certain standards have not yet become established or familiar for their performance, perhaps there can be an inclination to actually 'aim higher' in terms of attempting to realise something of the totality of the conception, even if there is a likelihood that the performers may fall short of this? When a performing tradition has become established, perhaps there are clearer boundaries perceived as to what might be permissible or not, and less of a sense of ambition, also the danger of too-great familiarity? Just a thought.... |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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SusanDoris
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« Reply #9 on: 20:11:12, 25-06-2007 » |
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I would quite like to try something of stockhausen, so where shall I start I wonder? I would welcome a suggestion or two.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #10 on: 20:18:49, 25-06-2007 » |
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I would quite like to try something of stockhausen, so where shall I start I wonder? I would welcome a suggestion or two.
A lot of Stockhausen is not so easy to get hold of unless one wants to order the expensive CDs directly from the Verlag. You could start with this disc of Kontakte, which might provide a good entry route, maybe even more so than the recordings of Gruppen already mentioned. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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time_is_now
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« Reply #11 on: 20:27:15, 25-06-2007 » |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Bryn
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« Reply #12 on: 20:33:16, 25-06-2007 » |
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While we are at it, what about this . Not only the good old recordings of Piano Piece I to XI, but the two Mikrophonien, with the second giving some good glimpses of other examples of his work, including Carré. |
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Bryn
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« Reply #13 on: 20:48:11, 25-06-2007 » |
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I haven't heard those, Bryn, but I'm inclined to be suspicious of anything with the name Reinbert de Leeuw attached to it.
Well I certainly like what I've heard of his direction of works by Messiaen. You are probably safe from 'his' SACD of Gruppen though. It was only available as part of last year's Schönberg Ensemble Edition, which is now no longer to be found in the shops. It has one major advantage in that it offers surround, in addition to 2 channel stereo. I like it, but don't know the work well enough to comment on how faithful to the score it is. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #14 on: 21:04:01, 25-06-2007 » |
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The piece that started me off was Mantra for two pianos and what would now be called "live electronics", whose original (and still my favourite) recording, by Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky is available from the Stockhausen-Verlag. There are others, of which the Ellen Corver/Sepp Grotenhuis is the best I've heard.
I don't know the Kontakte by Fredrik Ullén and Jonny Axelsson, but they are both fantastic musicians and I'm sure it would be worth a try.
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