The Radio 3 Boards Forum from myforum365.com
04:37:06, 01-12-2008 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Whilst we happily welcome all genuine applications to our forum, there may be times when we need to suspend registration temporarily, for example when suffering attacks of spam.
 If you want to join us but find that the temporary suspension has been activated, please try again later.
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  

The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > At Least Ninety-Six Crackpot Interpretations
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 46
« previous next »
  Print  
Author Topic: At Least Ninety-Six Crackpot Interpretations  (Read 11251 times)
Baz
Guest
« Reply #30 on: 08:42:30, 19-04-2008 »
Another crackpotted piece of double-Dutch is provided by our Dutch friend in the F Minor Prelude (WTC Book 1). How many could fail to understand a simple opening phrase designed to articulate the key of F Minor, thereby ending its course with a simple cadence?

Our friend, however, has other ideas! Listen to what happens to Bach's E-natural in the RH on beat 6!

Crackpot F Minor Prelude

I have deliberately cut the extract on beat 7 so as to prevent further embarrassment and outrage to members.

Baz
Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #31 on: 12:58:43, 19-04-2008 »
So much for Rapidshare! I cannot bother to work out which characters have bloody cats (they all look the same to me - and I just can't get it right!). From now, I shall be reverting to Sendspace. SO...

...you will find my last crackpot file here:

Crackpot_F_Minor
Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #32 on: 13:08:20, 19-04-2008 »
Quote from: Baz on 08:42:30, 19-04-2008
I have deliberately cut the extract on beat 7 so as to prevent further embarrassment and outrage to members.

That is truly awful and unforgiveable Mr. Baziron. Perhaps at that point finding it wearisome he had given up the sightreading and was playing from memory - evidently even more defective. One would expect him to have heard that error though and re-recorded it!

For an example of crackpotism among the modern Russians we invite Members to consider these final three pages of the great Scryabine's Eighth Sonata:




Let us listen first to Igor Shukoff attempting them: here.

It is plain that for him "Presto" means much the same as "Andante" and "Prestissimo" means "even slower." His performance of the entire sonata takes eighteen minutes, as compared to Ashkenazy's thirteen minutes twenty-six seconds and Berman's thirteen minutes twenty seconds. We would definitely file this Shukoff performance under "crackpot."

Here for comparison are two more versions of these three pages; firstly that of Boris Berman: here. His Presto is faster, but he has a) a lamentable tendency to slow down after a few fast bars, and b) makes very little distinction between f and pp.

Finally the version of Vladimir Ashkenazy: here, which is probably the best, but again there is insufficient distinction between the f and the subsequent pp.

None of the three men makes the prestissimo any faster than the presto!

And none of the three seems quite to realize how the music should fly by, but sweetly, clearly, and without a hint of scramble.
Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #33 on: 13:11:46, 19-04-2008 »
Here (Rapidshare) or here (Sendspace) is to-day's electronic Bach than which nothing we suppose could be more crack-brained; it is the C minor Fugue from the first Book.
Logged
autoharp
*****
Posts: 2778
« Reply #34 on: 13:21:37, 19-04-2008 »
Excellent Scriabin post, Sydney! And a singular lack of layering from all 3 pianists.
You are over-polite about Mr. Shukov who is indeed dire.
Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #35 on: 11:13:48, 20-04-2008 »
The next crackpot episode from our Dutchman is a short extract from the B Major Fugue (WTC Book 1).

You will notice on the score below that a short portion of bar 7 is highlighted. How do members think the recording was allowed to be released with what is played here?



Click here to listen


Baz  Shocked
Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #36 on: 12:30:02, 20-04-2008 »
Is that 7/8 to the bar? Extraordinary! How did he gain and does he maintain a reputation? At least Mr. B. is doing a good job of exposing him and demolishing it.

Here is more crackpotted Bach; but this one is in fact rather nice because all its beautiful sustained harmonies may now for what is possibly the first time actually be heard! It is the C major Prelude from Book 2: rapidshare or sendspace.
Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #37 on: 14:05:27, 20-04-2008 »
I sometimes wonder why some players find it so difficult to maintain a simple flow when a piece of music - in this case the Bb Minor Prelude (WTC Book1) - requires a straightforward mixture of dactylic and spondaic rhythms.

This is what our Dutch friend makes of the challenge:

Click here

Baz
« Last Edit: 14:17:15, 20-04-2008 by Baz » Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #38 on: 09:42:49, 21-04-2008 »
To-day's piece of crackpottery is Bach's C major fugue from Book 2: rapidshare or sendspace. In the treble part on the second beat of bar 67 there is a worrying thing - the G-C-B, a sort of Scotch snap business, is we suspect inauthentic, simply because it is ugly - something we meet almost nowhere else in Bach. It is much too hurried and does not really fit the rhythm of the rest!
« Last Edit: 09:52:14, 21-04-2008 by Sydney Grew » Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #39 on: 10:59:00, 21-04-2008 »
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 09:42:49, 21-04-2008
To-day's piece of crackpottery is Bach's C major fugue from Book 2: rapidshare or sendspace. In the treble part on the second beat of bar 67 there is a worrying thing - the G-C-B, a sort of Scotch snap business, is we suspect inauthentic, simply because it is ugly - something we meet almost nowhere else in Bach. It is much too hurried and does not really fit the rhythm of the rest!


While bar 67 is correct, its nature is such that when the piece is performed at so quick a pace it sounds utterly ridiculous. Also, while computers have little problem in 'playing' exactly what they are told to play, such a silly speed would present absurd LH problems at bars 76-8.

But perhaps the silliest thing of all - and what makes this a monumentally crackpot interpretation - is the pitching of the middle and lowest voices. These are both an octave lower than they should be in relation to the top voice. Not only does this make the patch used in the bottom voice sound only like a Jews Harp, but it destroys the entire harmonic and contrapuntal structure of the whole piece.

I can never understand why so many performers, when presented with a piece consisting entirely of three independent and perfectly constructed melodies, end up rattling away as if the last thing that interests them is MELODY. It is from this essence, surely, that the music speaks through its phrasing and pacing.

Baz
Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #40 on: 08:44:22, 22-04-2008 »
To-day we present the short but stimulating C minor Prelude from Bach's Book 2 (rapidshare or sendspace).

Free at last of the tyrannies and whims of all crackpot "performers" - of such that is as Mr. Leonhardt and Mr. Berben both whose dubious services are now no longer needed thank you very much! - Members are here able to tap their feet to the pure and thrilling beats of John Bach's own intention.
Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #41 on: 13:49:31, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 08:44:22, 22-04-2008
To-day we present the short but stimulating C minor Prelude from Bach's Book 2 (rapidshare or sendspace).

Free at last of the tyrannies and whims of all crackpot "performers" - of such that is as Mr. Leonhardt and Mr. Berben both whose dubious services are now no longer needed thank you very much! - Members are here able to tap their feet to the pure and thrilling beats of John Bach's own intention.


Something funny happened to your file Mr Grew! It seems to have been recorded backwards! I think you will agree that the following is a much better and more musical version of the same file:

ronim_C_topkcarC

The melodies seem much clearer when played the right way round - I'm sure you will agree.

Baz
Logged
Notoriously Bombastic
***
Posts: 181


Never smile at the brass
« Reply #42 on: 00:10:16, 23-04-2008 »
Most members have concentrate on Bach, instead I offer Rachmaninoff's C# minor prelude

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKKlhYF53w

NB
Logged
Sydney Grew
Guest
« Reply #43 on: 07:55:01, 23-04-2008 »
What an amusing act that was! Skilful too, if it is a genuine recording; we suppose the sticks must have been precisely measured so as to fit against the left-hand end of the keyboard. Even the throwing and catching of all the used sticks was no mean feat.

To show that the great Bach himself could when he chose be a "wacko" (to use Mr. Sudden's colourful terminology) we present to-day the C minor Fugue from Book 2 of his 48 (rapidshare or sendspace). For two-thirds of its length it proceeds in three parts; then all of a sudden a fourth voice enters, very low, repeating the principal subject at half speed, while the soprano plays an inversion of part of that same subject! The remaining third of the fugue then proceeds in four parts up to the end. This music calls for a three-handed clavichordist - either that or a harpsichord fitted with pedal-board; but it is thought that Bach's own solution was to enlist the assistance of one of his many progeny to play this fourth peculiar voice.

Tovey too has something interesting to say; "Bach," he tells us "in bar 18 [one before the above-mentioned pedal entry] crowds the modulations with a difficult abruptness." But it too is all certainly skilful clever and musical enough. We admit to being curious about what Mr. Berben made of it. Did Mr. Baziron actually pay for Mr. Berben's odd recordings we wonder?
Logged
Baz
Guest
« Reply #44 on: 09:33:09, 23-04-2008 »
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 07:55:01, 23-04-2008
What an amusing act that was! Skilful too, if it is a genuine recording; we suppose the sticks must have been precisely measured so as to fit against the left-hand end of the keyboard. Even the throwing and catching of all the used sticks was no mean feat.

To show that the great Bach himself could when he chose be a "wacko" (to use Mr. Sudden's colourful terminology) we present to-day the C minor Fugue from Book 2 of his 48 (rapidshare or sendspace). For two-thirds of its length it proceeds in three parts; then all of a sudden a fourth voice enters, very low, repeating the principal subject at half speed, while the soprano plays an inversion of part of that same subject! The remaining third of the fugue then proceeds in four parts up to the end. This music calls for a three-handed clavichordist - either that or a harpsichord fitted with pedal-board; but it is thought that Bach's own solution was to enlist the assistance of one of his many progeny to play this fourth peculiar voice.

Tovey too has something interesting to say; "Bach," he tells us "in bar 18 [one before the above-mentioned pedal entry] crowds the modulations with a difficult abruptness." But it too is all certainly skilful clever and musical enough. We admit to being curious about what Mr. Berben made of it. Did Mr. Baziron actually pay for Mr. Berben's odd recordings we wonder?


In a way I suppose I did pay for them - but in reality they were part of a "job lot". It so happens that his playing of this fugue is not too bad: I suppose on the Richter Scale of Crackpottedness it might only just manage a 3.

As you will hear HERE, it is really quite an accurate performance. His only noted errors were:

a) the addition of an extra fallacious note in the RH on the last quaver of bar 8
b) a failure to provide the second tie in the RH at bar 12, and
c) an unrhythmic and sloppy way to approach the final cadence.

Apart from these, all else seems reasonably fine.

Don't take Tovey's advice too seriously! I know of no reason at all "to think that Bach used a 16-foot tone here" (i.e. at bar 19) "either on his harpsichord with a pedal-board, or by registration, or (on the clavichord) with a third hand". The 4 parts are too carefully written in order to be manageable in the perfectly normal manner. No 16' pitch is ever needed, and certainly no "third hand". Indeed the player of any "third hand" would notice by the second note of bar 22 that there are not enough notes on the clavichord to play it (since the lowest note is CC)!

Baz
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 ... 46
  Print  
« previous next »
 
Jump to: