Turning to Radio 3 at about 1:10, I found I was listening to a clarinet sonata by Poulenc. They were in the slow movement and I noticed immediately that they were playing so that not only the pianist was playing right hand slightly after left, but also the clarinettist seemed to be coming in a close third! They were absolutely together in the third movement. (By the way, is there a special name for this 'style' of playing?)

when I learnt the piano for ten years (1940s-50s)the teacher constantly stressed that this was not correct. So I wonder what members on this board think?

It is now 1:50 and I am still enjoying the concert.
If TP reads this - I note that you say on the thread that was just now at the top of the list 'Afternoon on Three' is discussed on the other board, by which I assume you mean the RAdio 3 one, but could you please tell me which heading it comes under? Thanks.

Susan

This is interesting topic for me since I was also told specifically that this way of playing was out of date or old fashion when I was studying.
However, there were times I was told in some music and at times that the left hand would come before the right just a fraction early.
I think many great pianists of the past did it. I know Rachmaninoff did it (very little though), I think Horowitz did it (but very sparingly and not noticable) among others.

Also on a violin they glide (or is it slide) differently now, than in for example Milstein time.
I heard something about the violinists recently. The person said that this is why the playing of old violinists sound so differently.

May be there is a little revival of this method of playing. However, it can sound likje bad taste if over done.

increpatio,
This is a very interesting point about the style actually predated Chopin. I thought that it started with Romantics and classic era composers played straight (in a way a metronome is straight).
However Mozart did say the same thing as Chopin with regard to his left hand. He said that the left hand should be played in strict tempo (or something like that).

I did listen to Shiff lectures on Beethoven, but unfortunately I did not have time to listen to all lectures. I wonder in what sonata did he parodied the style. It is very funny.

This is true. You'll never hear Gustav Leonhardt, for example, playing a chord "together" in either. I think this practice has its origins in the fact that different kinds of chordal attack on the harpsichord generate a degree of variety of "colour" which makes up for the instrument's lack of dynamic control, and also (for the French repertoire) in the "style brisé" of lute-playing as found in the work of composers like Denis Gaultier (mid-17th century).

The lute influence makes a lot of sense, as does the talk of mechanical noise.  But, off hand I can't think about whether organists would be for that in some styles.  Maybe yes, but it would probably have to be much more exaggerated (all I can think of is the start of *that* bach toccata and fugue ).

Very quickly (I'm in Germany at the moment, not having as much time to post as usual): a mode of playing by which hands are desynchronised at the piano, different voices desynchronised within a hand, or where attacks are slightly staggered between a group of players, was extremely common practice for the first three decades at least of the 20th century (as countless recordings demonstrate), and almost certainly was also the case through much of the 19th century (and before), according to various documentary accounts. It is often thought of as simply a sloppy mode of playing, but actually serves a different function, that of enabling heightened contrapuntal clarity between parts (the staggering of the attacks makes each of them clearer). When playing the Franck violin sonata last year with a violinist interested in earlier practices, we found that in the rather grandiose moments (for example the F# minor episode in the third movement, and the equivalent passages in the finale), her playing the violin notes a split second after my beefy piano octaves and chords made that part much clearer. Listen to Rachmaninoff's recordings for some of the best examples of this on a solo piano. Robert Philip's Early Recordings and Musical Style has a great deal of detail about the practice; another interesting source is the chapter by Ron Woodley on performance practice in The Cambridge Companion to Ravel, looking at how Marguerite Long desynched the hands in the slow movement of the G-major concerto for expressive effect (more selectively than would later be done by Michelangeli, who simply uses the device practically identically for each attack).

Numerous accounts of Chopin's playing and teaching all concur on his insistence that rubato should apply only to the melody, the accompaniment staying steady - which inevitably implies a desynchronisation of hands. Mozart said something similar, though probably what he meant implied more specific patterns.

The move away from this practice on the piano was pioneered in particular by Josef Hoffmann and later Vladimir Horowitz (who idolised Hoffmann). But it never totally went away, and in recent times there has been a revival of interest. Personally, it's something I employ quite widely in 19th and early-20th century repertoire.

When attacks are always synchronised, it becomes more necessary to create a clear hierarchy between parts (otherwise everything gets lost); this was, I believe, a major factor in bringing about the 'play out the melody, play everything else pianissimo' approach to the instrument. Allowing some desynching between parts enables alternatives. Of course a lot depends on how it is done - sometimes it can be done almost imperceptibly purely for the contrapuntal clarity I mentioned, at other times the speed can be varied for different expressive effect. The same is true of spreading of chords - Brahms in particular is reported in many sources for having spread a large number of chords when none are marked as such (though he told Florence May not to do so - there are various theories on why, I'm saving mine for print!). A mid- to late-20th century approach tended to favour starting an upward spread more quickly then slowing down towards the uppermost pitches, but many earlier players did precisely the opposite (or sometimes even with varing speeds throughout relating to the harmonic function of the different pitches).

One of the important points Philip makes in his book, with respect to what I might call 'differently synchronised' performances is that what for a long time was considered issues of competence were really issues of style. The same goes for various flexible, but highly stylised, approaches to pulse and rhythm. When attempting to revive such archaic practices, however, the danger is that they can seem calculated, unspontaneous and didactic; for that reason I think the important question is not necessarily 'what' so much as 'why'. If one can attempt to find some answer to the latter question, then it becomes easier to come up with practices for today that both serve the appropriate purposes and can be absorbed to such a degree that they can be employed in a individual manner.

The book Early Recordings and Musical Style which you can find here. This book is also very worth getting. One of Philip's theories is that the advent of recording, and the demands it made in terms of perceived precision of execution, was a major factor in bringing about the decline of this style.