In November 1899 the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) told his friend, the violist Natalie Bauer-Lechner: “Beethoven’s First, Second, and Fourth Symphonies can still be performed by modern orchestras and conductors. All the rest, however, are quite beyond their powers. Only Richard Wagner and I myself have done these works justice. And even I can manage it only by terrorizing the players; by forcing each individual to transcend his little self and rise above his own powers.” Mahler goes on to say that: “Beethoven’s symphonies present a problem that is simply insoluble for the ordinary conductor. I see it more and more clearly. Unquestionably, they need re-interpretation and reworking. The very constitution and size of the orchestra necessitates it: in Beethoven’s time, the whole orchestra was not as large as the string section alone today. If, consequently, the other instruments are not brought into a balanced relationship with the strings, the effect is bound to be wrong. Wagner knew that very well; but he too had to suffer the bitterest attacks because of it.” Mahler (who, I will gladly confess, is one of my very favorite composers) did not just talk-the-talk but eventually put his pencil where his […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Dr. Bob Prescribes – Page 29
A couple of weeks ago, my Patreon patron Lorenze Fedel responded to my battlefield conversion in favor of the fortepiano (Dr. Bob Prescribes, October 23) with the following comment, slightly edited for content. “These [Brautigam recordings of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas] are now in my growing Amazon wish list. Next stop, Dr. Bob, a re-evaluation of the harpsichord? I freely admit that I cannot listen to the Goldberg variations on the piano. Harpsichord it should be!” Mr. Fedel is clearly familiar with my occasionally disdainful attitude towards the mechanical harp (i.e. the “harpsichord”) and my propensity to recite the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham’s already over-quoted description of the sound of the harpsichord as being akin to: “Two skeletons copulating on a tin room during a thunderstorm.” My response to Lorenzo Fedel was facile, as is usually the case when I am confronted by my own biases: “Lorenzo: Gad! A re-evaluation of the harpsichord? Yes, I suppose all things are possible, but as someone who grew up in a household in which there was a lot of whispering and yelling, I cannot yet fathom falling in love with an instrument that can neither whisper NOR YELL, if you know what I mean.” […]
Continue ReadingWhen the Hamburg born-and-raised Johannes (“Hannes”) Brahms was around four years old, his father Johann Jakob Brahms decided it was high time the kid learned to play the three instruments that he himself played. Papa Brahms wanted his eldest son to follow him into the family trade and be, bless him, employable. Those three instruments were violin, cello, and the valveless, “natural” horn. The young Brahms gained a degree of competence in all three instruments, in particular the cello. However, to his father’s apparently endless annoyance, what the little fella really wanted – what he demanded! – was to learn how to play the piano. We can well imagine the conversations between father and son, played out over several years: “Daaaaad! I wanna play the piano.” “Hannes, dude, how many pianos are there in the Hamburg Philharmonic?” “Uh . . . zero?” “How many pianos in a dance band?” “Maybe . . . um . . . one?” “You got it. Violinists? There’s always work. Cellists? Ditto. Horn players? There are never enough decent horn players: horn players gig. Piano players? A dime-a-dozen and there’s no work. Besides, we don’t even own a piano and we don’t have the ducats […]
Continue ReadingI’ve been working with The Phoenix Symphony (TPS) for two seasons. Last season, I wrote and recorded eight video program notes (which were made available on the symphony’s YouTube Channel as well as on my Facebook page) and presented three lectures in association with the TPS’s Chamber Concert Series. This season my role has expanded. I will deliver self-standing lectures on Mozart and Schubert; I will join TPS music director Maestro Tito Muñoz on stage for two subscription concerts, and two weeks ago I recorded 22 video program notes for the 2018-19 season. It took me all of August and a good bit of September to research and write those notes, which together run about 24,000 words. I can say with all due modestly that as of today, no one knows TPS’s 2018-19 concert season better than I do. Among the great pleasures of such an assignment is learning about and listening to works I did not know beforehand: music by such living composers as Timo Andres, Jessie Montgomery, Anna Clyne and Michael Hersch. Thanks to writing these previews, I got to know (and fall in love with) Florence B. Price’s Symphony No. 1 (which I wrote about a couple […]
Continue ReadingMy Parsifal Conductor opens October 11, 2018 for a limited engagement at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater at the West Side Y, 10 West 64th Street, New York, NY; presented by The Directors Company. Starring Eddie Korbich, Claire Brownwell, Geoffrey Cantor, Carlo Bosticco, Logan James Hall, Alison Cimmet, and Jazmin Gorsline, and directed by Robert Kalfin. About three weeks ago, I received an email from Matt Sicoli, a media marketer who is promoting a new, off-Broadway play entitled My Parsifal Conductor, written by the Emmy and Writer’s Guild Winner Allan Leicht. Mr. Sicoli generously offered tickets in exchange for advertising and promotion. I informed him that I am keeping both my Facebook and Patreon sites free of advertising (for now), but that I’d be happy to read the script and, pending an enthusiastic response, write about the play. I am most enthusiastic and thus this post. Here is a synopsis provided by Mr. Sicoli: “Musical genius Richard Wagner (Eddie Korbich) and his ever-faithful wife, Cosima (Claire Brownell), find themselves in a moral, political and musical dilemma when King Ludwig II of Bavaria (Carlo Bosticco) insists that Hermann Levi (Geoffrey Cantor), the son of a rabbi, conduct Wagner’s final masterpiece, […]
Continue Reading“Showing the Path”: Antonin Dvořák in America By 1891 – at the age of fifty – Antonin Dvořák was that rarest of living composers: successful, world famous, and not in financial need. Dvořák’s music has a distinctly Czech “flavor” to it, and it was Dvořák’s fame as a “nationalist” composer that made him an attractive catch for an American philanthropist named Jeanette Meyers Thurber, who had founded the National Conservatory of Music in New York City in 1885. On June 5, 1891, Thurber cabled Dvořák in Prague and offered him the Directorship her National Conservatory of Music. The moment was auspicious, as the following year – 1892 – marked the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ presumed “discovery of America.” At this signal moment in American history, Jeanette Thurber wanted Dvořák to help found – through his own example – an “American” school of composition at a time when almost every American composer wanted to sound like Brahms. Ms. Thurber made Mr. Dvořák an offer he could not refuse: come to New York, become the director of her conservatory, teach three hours a day, and put together some concerts. For this the National Conservatory was prepared to pay dearly: Dvořák was offered […]
Continue ReadingThis is a long piece. Its length is a function of intersecting thematic lines: a number of topics we’ve been discussing on the site – tempo and metronome markings in general; tempo and metronome markings in Beethoven’s symphonies; the piano, pianists, and the virtuosity of Franz Liszt (in particular) – all intersect in this post. Let’s start with my recommendation and move on from there. Cyprien Katsaris (born 1951) performing Beethoven’s Symphonies, transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt. While I write these words I’m listening to Katsaris’ performance of the breakneck fourth movement of Mr. B’s Symphony No. 4, and I’m doing everything I can to focus on typing and not jump out of my skin! In Katsaris’ hands, the symphony is easily as exciting, visceral, and slam-dunk powerful as it is when performed John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantic. Katsaris’ performances of these transcriptions have to be heard to be believed. I do not kid; I do not exaggerate; and I would never waste your time or money: you must have this recording. Stop reading, go on Amazon (or wherever), order it, and then come back. I’ll wait. I’m going to make a statement, for some […]
Continue ReadingMy recommendation last week of John Eliot Gardiner’s complete recording of Beethoven’s symphonies elicited a series of really wonderful comments. When, in the course of responding to those comments I rather offhandedly recommended that Otto Klemperer’s recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies (made circa 1961 for EMI) be allowed to fade into obscurity (or a shredding machine), I was soundly and eloquently thrashed. Underlying the conversations around my recommendation was the issue of tempo: that is, the speed at which Beethoven’s symphonies (or any music, for that matter) should be performed. For performers, tempo is not just one issue among many; it is THE ISSUE: that performance parameter that must be determined before any other. Thus, I’m dedicating this week’s post to this issue of tempo and metronome marks, which, since 1816 (or so) have been a way for composers to indicate – exactly – how fast (or slow) a piece of music should be performed. If this conversation strikes some of you as being totally geeky, you are totally correct. Patron Frederic Patenaude writes: “I have a question about the tempo used by Gardiner in Beethoven’s 5th. Are you aware of the debate stirred up by Wim Winters, pianist, regarding the […]
Continue ReadingIn the course of answering a question last week, I invoked my affection for certain period instrument recordings, particularly those of John Eliot Gardiner. I’d like to flesh that answer out and in doing so say why. The debate over “historically informed performances” (HIP) (or “authentic performances” or “period instrument performances”) is not a new one, but it’s worth revisiting, if only to allow me to add my point of view which, as you will soon enough realize, is not just the correct point but the one that matters most. (Yes, I have just spread my legs and said, “kick me”; keep reading, please.) The debate began during the second half of the twentieth century, when a movement emerged bent on performing music as it presumably had been performed at the time it was composed. To varying degrees, this meant using original instruments (or new instruments constructed on the lines of period instruments); proper numbers of instruments; using historically “correct” concert pitch (for example, A=415 for Baroque music rather than the modern A=440); and stripping away centuries of accumulated practice regarding everything from tempo and dynamics to bowings and phrasing. As recording technology didn’t exist until the very late nineteenth […]
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