Dundonnell
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« Reply #60 on: September 19, 2017, 04:11:52 pm » |
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cilgwyn, there is a very lengthy discussion of the timings of Arnold's Seventh Symphony on this forum......somewhere ::) The search engine is no help in finding it but it is somewhere-I should know since I wrote the initial and very, very lengthy post ;D ;D I think that I also posted about it on Musicweb but we are going back a few years!!
Arnold's timing for that first broadcast performance was quite extraordinary. In fact he effectively turned the symphony into a different work! Every conductor since seems to have ignored the composer's own performance and since he was present (I think) at the recording of the Naxos version one can only presume that he disavowed that earlier reading.
....and the recording on here to which you refer was one of those made by me ::) It was one of hundreds I made directly from the radio to tape using an open microphone and in those days if the radio was not tuned absolutely exactly then there could be interference (as in picking up police radio). This is an unfortunate feature of a number of recordings I made in those distant years.......40 years ago in fact ::) So.....mea culpa ;D
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cilgwyn
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« Reply #61 on: September 19, 2017, 06:26:14 pm » |
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cilgwyn, there is a very lengthy discussion of the timings of Arnold's Seventh Symphony on this forum......somewhere ::) The search engine is no help in finding it but it is somewhere-I should know since I wrote the initial and very, very lengthy post ;D ;D I think that I also posted about it on Musicweb but we are going back a few years!!
Arnold's timing for that first broadcast performance was quite extraordinary. In fact he effectively turned the symphony into a different work! Every conductor since seems to have ignored the composer's own performance and since he was present (I think) at the recording of the Naxos version one can only presume that he disavowed that earlier reading.
....and the recording on here to which you refer was one of those made by me ::) It was one of hundreds I made directly from the radio to tape using an open microphone and in those days if the radio was not tuned absolutely exactly then there could be interference (as in picking up police radio). This is an unfortunate feature of a number of recordings I made in those distant years.......40 years ago in fact ::) So.....mea culpa ;D
Thank you for your reply. I will look for those posts,and the one's on Musicweb. I actually found the interpolations from the police rather amusing! ;D As I said,I used to love twiddling around with my radios as a youngster. The police actually shared the vhf band with the BBC radio stations back then!! Yes,an absolutely snail paced performance. Unlike his recording of the Fourth,I'm not sure there is any real merit to this approach. Astonishing to compare the timings of all the commercial recordings with Arnold's. I think his 1960 performance of the Fourth and 1968 Sixth are well worth listening to,though.
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Gauk
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« Reply #62 on: September 20, 2017, 11:35:29 am » |
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I have often wondered if it is actually undesirable to have a composer conducting his own work. There is a tendency to look towards the composer's own performance as somehow definitive, but there are two things against it. Firstly, he may have such a vivid idea of what the work should sound like, that he is not fully aware of what it does sound like in the orchestra's realisation. Secondly, a gifted composer may not also be a gifted conductor. It is a remarkable thing to have great talent in one field; to have it in two is asking a lot of fortune. Which is why I despair of people like Tippett who thought he was a great poet as well as a great composer.
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relm1
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« Reply #63 on: September 20, 2017, 03:21:47 pm » |
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I have often wondered if it is actually undesirable to have a composer conducting his own work. There is a tendency to look towards the composer's own performance as somehow definitive, but there are two things against it. Firstly, he may have such a vivid idea of what the work should sound like, that he is not fully aware of what it does sound like in the orchestra's realisation. Secondly, a gifted composer may not also be a gifted conductor. It is a remarkable thing to have great talent in one field; to have it in two is asking a lot of fortune. Which is why I despair of people like Tippett who thought he was a great poet as well as a great composer.
Composing and conducting are two completely different specialties. No one understands a composers work like the composer but that does not mean they are able to lead an orchestra effectively. In music school you do take conducting courses so you have a basis to conduct. That is not the same as being able to cajole a brilliant performance out of a world class ensemble. There is usually never enough time to rehearse a work so having great "rehearsal technique" is important as well along with some psychology instinct. For example one conductor told the horn sections "Let's hear that one more time, horn players have lived to play this opening..." and the horn opening in Don Juan immediately sounded much better. I have also heard conductors condescend and intimidate players and not get good results.
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Grandenorm
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« Reply #64 on: September 20, 2017, 06:55:50 pm » |
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Composing and conducting are two completely different specialties. I agree. Creation and performance are two distinct talents which don't always co-exist in the same person (though often they do, of course, depending on the discipline - e.g. composer pianists). In a literary context this is illustrated all too often when poets read their own work: most of them do it very badly, I am sorry to say. I have heard far too many dreadful readings on BBC Radio by living poets who either chant their poems in a dreary voice in which every word seems so weighed down with melancholy "import" that all vitality is lost and the listener quickly gets irritated or adopt an equally alienating monotone (T.S. Eliot is an example of the latter) which is very boring, whereas if the poem is given to a trained actor to read it suddenly comes alive and engages the listener.
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #65 on: September 21, 2017, 04:35:35 am » |
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I started a thread once on the Composer as Conductor. It may have been on this forum but it may have been elsewhere ???
Elgar, Vaughan William, Bliss, Rubbra, Walton, Lennox Berkeley, Alwyn, Tippett, Daniel Jones, George Lloyd, Britten, Arnold, Maxwell Davies, Macmillan.........all spring to mind as British composers whom conducted their own music (and certainly in Britten's case other composers' music) with varying degrees of success. Britten was obviously an example of a composer whose readings of his own music are quite superb.
....and Sir Arnold Bax springs to mind as one who, having been forced by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford to conduct an early piece of his own, vowed never to conduct again ;D
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cilgwyn
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« Reply #66 on: September 26, 2017, 10:47:55 am » |
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A cd of the symphonies of Derek Bourgeois would be very useful. None of his orchestral music is available on cd,as far as I know. His music seems to be highly regarded by some members here,and the 'Wine' symphony is such a great idea. It's like the score is just sitting there,waiting to be recorded! Did Richard Itter record any of his music,I wonder? Or perhaps he's a composer he didn't like? A bit like the mysterious reluctance of bis to record a Rosenberg cycle,when he is so obviously highly regarded by some music lovers on these forums (the GMG and here). I wouldn't know,as I haven't heard a note of his music. I'm just using him as an obvious example.
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #67 on: September 26, 2017, 01:04:09 pm » |
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Two points:
a) Richard Itter seems to have had an eclectic taste in British music but also one that was rather eccentric: after making his recordings he seldom or, more usually, never listened to them again
b) You have never heard a note of Rosenberg!!! Sort that out, please! You will find him in the Swedish Downloads thread.
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cilgwyn
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« Reply #68 on: September 26, 2017, 04:27:28 pm » |
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Two points:
a) Richard Itter seems to have had an eclectic taste in British music but also one that was rather eccentric: after making his recordings he seldom or, more usually, never listened to them again
b) You have never heard a note of Rosenberg!!! Sort that out, please! You will find him in the Swedish Downloads thread.
I'm downloading the Rosenberg,now. I think I did try these before. Obviously I didn't try hard enough,or I was in the wrong mood?!! (And the Atterberg Piano Concerto. Might as well,while I'm there!) Downloaded! I think I may have downloaded from the Unsung Composers when it was,for a brief period,open to a wider range of music? With due respect to the providers,the poor sound didn't help. These are in excellent sound. I think I am going to enjoy these. Time to broaden my mind!! ;D :)
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Gauk
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« Reply #69 on: September 28, 2017, 10:22:32 am » |
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Indeed! Rosenberg is great.
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