In this thread Members are invited to discuss all the misguided odd wrong bad peculiar or crazy performances they have experienced. Musical examples in the form of .MP3 files and the like will be welcome, as will scans of the corresponding pages of scores. We have Mr. Baziron to thank for - unknowingly - suggesting the title when in one of his messages he used the phrase!

Here as a first example is a crackpot interpretation of Prelude I from Book I of Bach's Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues in all Keys for the Well-Tempered Clavier: Rapidshare link or Sendspace link. [It is a small .MP3 file: 1) download or save it to somewhere on your own computer; and 2) once downloaded, "play" or "open" it.]

There's a misread note (or it may have been a correctly read misprinted note due to a clef being wrong - I can't now remember) in the second of Godowsky's Studies on the Études of Chopin on Carlo Grante's otherwise excellent complete recording of this mammoth cycle that for a time became infamous because it was noticed as being replicated in the complete recording "by" Joyce Hatto in the early days of the scandal breaking just over a year ago; now that's hardly a candidate for a crackpot interpretation but it might be seen as an example of where such things might originate...

I wish I could produce recordings to prove it, but I remember somebody had found proof that part of Gershwin's celebrated Rhapsody in Blue had been miscopied, and the rapid piano line was originally something quite different.
And Allegri's famous miserere, cobbled together from various aural transcriptions- when a score of the original was finally unearthed in the Vatican library, it didn't include that soaring soprano leap at all!
More (Allegri) info here

Glenn Gould please!

This is supposed to be the Eb Minor Prelude from Bach's WTC (Book 1). The performer does not understand that in Baroque times the signature 3/2 indicated a basically 'fast' or 'flowing' tempo. However, I have a theory: since this player is notorious for his large number of wrong notes (absent in this case), I think that this performance was played by his young son who was sight-reading the piece as it was recorded...

Crackpot Eb Minor Prelude

Members are advised to make their cup of coffee before playing the file (though there is probably still time to do so between the first and second chords for those who forget).

When you have had enough, just click the STOP button.

Sorry, couldn't resist it. Here's a semi-crackpot rendition of that performance.

Going back into the mists of memory, wasn't the Bernstein abnormally long a performance, rather in the nature of his Nimrod? I don't have any copies of the Gershwin to hand, but I have a notion that average playing time should be more like fourteen minutes than seventeen.

(I don't have that LB Enigma either, but that severely extended, perhaps even etiolated, reading of its emotional core should surely count amongst the more eccentric of interpretations: anyone willing to admit to possessing it?)

It is indeed the same Dutchman - though not exactly a 'flying' one on this occasion.

Your amusing synthesized versions (I think you have given us at least three) are not in my view quite as 'crackpot' as some of the supposedly 'normal' ones. Possibly Bach might have identified more with that sound (bearing in mind its similarity with an organ) than he might have done with a modern Steinway? Also, the arrangements themselves - while bearing little affinity with anything remotely 'authentic' - do seem to take some trouble to evince the internal melodic design of the models. They are, of course, computerized versions that lack the human touch, but they should not necessarily be dismissed as total 'rubbish'.

[Blimey - is this ME talking?]

Baz