Jean Sibelius's "Romance" /\ performed by Shura Cherkassky

Thanks to ‪@y-sko4427‬ for the source audio, and to ‪@Vincent_Xia‬ for introducing me to this piece.
An exquisite piano piece, the Romance in D-flat, composed by the great Finnish symphonist, Jean Sibelius.
Quote from: www.sibelius.i...
Discord Server: / discord
#shura_cherkassky #jean_sibelius #sibelius #romance #piano

[@ValkyRiver]

Some parts of this are giving me Lyapunov vibes

[@martinwest2538]

I have not much good to say about this uneven and disrespectful (regarding the intentions of the composer) performance. I didn't like the chosen tempo, not the fickle rubato or the inconsistent dynamics. If you want to know who plays it better, I'd say just anyone following the road signs.

[@farazhaiderpiano]

@@martinwest2538 "Better" or "worse" I find are words that don't match up with the spirit of romanticism.
Illustrious performers of the romantic era, including those who also composed-such as Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninov and others did not seem to mind if one would "disrespect" their scores as long as the sound coming out of the performers was genuine and sincere means of expression.
There is value of course in "urtext" expressions of a piece but if I wanted to hear a piece completely "perfect" to the printed page, I wouldn't have uploaded Cherkassky's interpretation. My impressions of romantic era composers as I've understood them is that emotions dictate the score, not the other way round.
Jean Sibelius was of course writing this piano piece in his own musical rhetoric, but he also uses a fair deal of Liszt's language, and those who subscribed to his theory on music, such as Alexander Siloti, would have heard Liszt constantly deviate from his own scores, and he would have encouraged his own pupils to do the same! So I really don't see the problem, frankly.

[@martinwest2538]

​@@farazhaiderpiano Thanks for the thorough answer! The "problem" (which may be solely my personal one) is, as I see it, that - in lack of better words - expression contradicts the character of the musical content. As if you suddenly would play the storm part of Beethoven's sixth very meekly, as an extreme example - but you surely got the idea. I don't really endorse sorting in "better - worse", either, as it's all about personal preferences in the end.
In my opinion the written directions of the composers usually are reflecting the substance of the music itself, and if not, they can be altered to suite the true emotion. Of course one can say "I love you" in dozens of different ways, but frankly they are not all especially suitable to bring out the true meaning of the words. I find Chercassky here has used some of the less appropriate ways to mediate the musical intentions of Sibelius - or perhaps rather of the "romance".
But still, as a former amateur composer myself, I would be rather annoyed, if someone would treat my "urtext" expressions like he does here.

[@farazhaiderpiano]

@@martinwest2538 That is understandable, and I don't object to your viewpoint that a composer could possibly be annoyed, and in some cases, would actually be annoyed, by even the slightest of deviation in the music, even in the context of the pursuit of expression.
I also don't endorse sorting in "better - worse" because it IS about personal preferences, and I'm glad we can agree on that! Too many people don't seem to understand that music isn't like a math problem, where 2+2 will always equal 4. It is more subjective.
I of course value expression immensely; sometimes expression can be achieved easier by deviating from the score even in just the slightest of ways, like what Cherkassky does here, or what Horowitz does more elaborately in Tchaikovsky's "Dumka".
But on the contrary, I find some cases in which expression will come across easier when it is in tandem with the character of the musical content, like in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, where the tempo of the first movement is in "cut time", not "common time". This is demonstrated excellently, most recently to my knowledge, in Andras Schiff's lecture.
Sometimes I also find examples where traditional performances of a piece tend to overpower what a composer wrote-lots of people dislike Glenn Gould's Mozart, but I find he is the only one who actually takes Mozart's tempo markings in the famous "Rondo alla turca" literally! Everyone plays the "Allegretto" as a "Vivace", but Gould takes it as an "Allegretto". That interpretation is much more expressive to my taste.
So my general rule of thumb is: whenever I hear an interpretation, I think of expression in addition to what a composer wrote. Anton Rubinstein's philosophy proves to be useful here: Don't change the composer's text UNTIL you've read everything the composer wrote, THEN IF you still believe you can express something a composer wrote in a way that is different but still worthwhile, do it THAT way.
Cheers!

[@martinwest2538]

@@farazhaiderpiano I guess my first commentary was quite grumpy and provocative, too, but I'm glad it evoked this little conversation! I do like the Rubinstein philosophy and hope interpreters always would keep this valuable lesson in mind - or at least as a starting point. I also want to thank You for bringing forth this wonderful Romance (even if I personally find this interpretation not so presentable) and hope you'll discover (or perhaps you already do know) still more of the lovely gems in Sibelius' piano repertoire!

[@evankajikawa1277]

add some crazt lh aroeggios and this is liszt 😂

[@farazhaiderpiano]

@@evankajikawa1277 Sibelius did admire Liszt's tone poems.

[@ΓιάννηςΚωνσταντινίδης-γ9φ]

@@farazhaiderpiano This piece definitely has a ton of Lisztian textures in it. Especially the tiny cadenza alternating octaves are straight out of the transcedental etudes.