Beecham was once asked what he did with an orchestra, what his secret was, to make his often brilliant, beautiful, dynamic performances. He answered "I let them play." And a brilliantly illuminating video, Dave. You wear your learning lightly.
As a complete novice I found this very helpful. Thanks Dave. I did have a basic understanding of dynamics in music. But what I found most interesting was your comment that at times, during the loudest sections, certain instruments would ‘get lost’ or be separately inaudible, but still add to the overall totality of the sound. I listen via headphones presently and do enjoy being able to hear the separation of instruments. So during louder passages where it’s difficult to achieve that, I was actually thinking that maybe my system is not resolving enough or that the recording is not clear enough. But your explanation does make sense. Thanks again
I would love to hear you talk about Wagner's orchestration, the dynamic problems of playing such (often) loud dynamics with singers. You are so smart. Loving these videos
A superb talk, with apt examples cited. I'm so glad you noted the relative dynamic ranges of different instruments and/or sections of the orchestra. This is something which, as you noted, seems to be a serious shortcoming in many performances, muddying details that should be heard clearly. It sometimes makes me wonder if they have actually studied the score. Also, any really good conductor gets acquainted with the acoustics of the venue, specifically when filled by an audience. I'm always reminded of Mahler bringing in local military units to populate the auditorium for rehearsal of the 8th in Munich.
One of my pet peeves is (non-) observance of accents. I was looking forward to your mentioning that but I suppose it would also fall under under articulation. So David, I look forward to your video about that as well!
As you mentioned the Mannheim 'rocket', I was wondering if you had any recommendations for pieces by composers of the Mannheim school, like Stamitz (father and/or son) and Cannabich, or any others. I know Cannabich and Mozart thought very highly of each other, and Mozart was probably influenced by some those composers, all of whom seem to have been very interested in dynamic expression and moving from the late Baroque into the Classical style.
Great talk! What I'd also like to hear you address in this series of critical listening is the matter of "shaping" the music. You have talked about conductors who are "sound guys" and those who are "form guys." What's meant by sound is obvious, but how exactly does a "form guy" do his thing, and how do we listeners come to perceive and appreciate that? I suppose our being aware of various classical forms is part of the equation, but that has nothing to do with the conductor.
Line guy...not "form" guy. I'd love to talk about it but I can't because I don't have permission to use the necessary sound samples from the labels with the most important artists.
One of my pet peeves when it comes to dynamics: The coda of Beethoven's 7th when (I believe for the first time in his symphonies) he puts an fff on a couple of measures after having it just ff. Nearly every recording I've heard makes little to no difference between those markings. I did hear a radio broadcast many years ago with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with, I think, Bernardi conducting. The announcer talked about how the performance DID make that fff more explosive than the ff - and it was great! I have heard other performances where the trumpets at least try to make it an fff. But what's always missing is the timpani player doing the same. And that makes a huge difference.
Steve, coincidentally I began my comment just like you did yours! Two adjacent comments with identical first five words. I didn't read yours until after I wrote mine! :--) Yes, those timpanists and trumpeters must form a pact!! If I were a conductor, I'd meddle into their business and ask for harder mallets (I like the sharpness of attack much of the time). I wonder how well that'd go over.
The same thing happens at the end of the development in the first movement of the Eighth, where Beethoven ratchets up the tension to an unbearable degree and then releases it in that great FFF passage. This is every conductor‘s nightmare, because while the lower strings are sawing away at the main theme, what does he or she do with the rest of the orchestra above them which is playing a chordal passage also marked FFF?
Did Haydn ever notate mp (mezzopiano)? It's mainly f and p, followed by ff and pp. I did find mf in a piano sonata but it seems to be quite rare. Of course, I haven't sampled everything he wrote. 😄
I think that conductors should also adapt the dynamics to the venue of the performance. I recall a performance of Mahler 6 at the Brucknerhaus Concert Hall in Linz under James Conlon some 30 years ago (gosh I'm old). Especially in the Finale it was waaay to loud, it sounded like fff all the time. You couldn't experience any buildup and it was just exhausting and for once I was happy when it was over.
It seems to me that any conductor who can effectively convey the proper dynamics of a particular piece may be hampered by the concert hall in which it is being played. Certain concert halls are notorious for their ability to successfully convey those dynamics or fail to overcome inherent issues of their original construction. Many halls have been modified by artificial means to produce the best sound. The issue of the role of the recording engineer (in broadcasts and physical recordings) is a whole other topic, since the limits of any recording venue can be compromised when manipulated, either for the good or bad. I realize I am speaking of reproduction of sound and not interpretation, but aren't they interdependent?
Dave, your comment about the music suddenly "disappearing" reminded me of the first time I heard the Roth "Le Sacre" where the Danse Sacrale suddenly disappeared into pizz pianissimos that were inaudible. I jumped to my volume control to see what happened and why the audio seemed to just drop out. It wasn't spectacular, it was jarring and totally ruined my concentration and continuity.
It would be interesting to hear the result, if a conductor decides to make audible the bassoons in the coda of Bruckner 5. It is ridiculous enough when Abbado for instance dims the dynamics to let the melody of flutes be more present near the very end. I don't think the flutes are supposed to draw there a special attention.
Yeah there is to me like zero chance singers, clavichord players, and violinists etc didn't have freely moving dynamics fitting to the phrases and lines they were playing. Step dynamics on a harpsichord when you change manuals sure, or indications to change organ stops. But there is no reason to believe that on the instruments capable of moving dynamics, they did not do that. Especially because composers specified very little in that time.
What about recordings? In Pop music remastered editions usually take out some of the dynamics from the original release (sometimes refered to as "loudness war"). Is classical music affected by this habbit?
To some degree. The volume level and compression on some remasterings of older classical recordings have been pushed so much as to introduce distortion, which is lethal for classical music. If you can find it, check out the Japanese reissue of Previn/LSO/Walton/Symphony no. 1 for a particularly bad example of this.
A lot of new classical recordings unfortunately suffer from limited dynamic range, but also e.g. the reissue of the famous Reiner Scheherazade suffers from it, so that the power of the climaxes in the finale is blunted. The weird thing now is that some people go back to vinyl because of ‘better dynamic range’, which is tragically ironic, because purely technically CD’s can reproduce a greater dynamic range than vinyl. It’s just that in the heyday of vinyl there were no loudness wars, so music was mastered with good dynamic range. But even more weirdly it translates to new masters, too, where dynamic masters are reserved for vinyl, and compressed ones *of the same recordings* land on CD. It’s the world turned on its head! The reason I think this is happening is that vinyl is seen to be for connoisseurs, while CD/digital music is for the masses, who do not appreciate dynamics, or rather have been dumbed down to not appreciate them anymore.
Dynamics is a bad thing in music. Nowadays producers use dynamic compression to get rid o the bad dynamics. One million producers can’t be wrong! Of course I’m joking. The loudness war is a terrible thing. It really makes the music sound bad. Luckily, this is not applied to classical music. I remember when BIS put a warning tag on their cd. That was quite the opposite to the dynamic war.
But BIS went too far in the opposite direction. The extreme dynamics that they pioneered on their recordings cannot be comfortably reproduced in an average living room, never mind a noisy environment like a car.
I agree. A mild compression of the dynamics is necessary because our hifi systems can’t handle the natural dynamic of a symphony orchestra. I believe that a mild compression is always applied.
I wonder if classical recording producers are following the pop lead of Max Martin & Lucasz Gottwald in heaping on the compression, thereby making so many things sound the same.
Beecham was once asked what he did with an orchestra, what his secret was, to make his often brilliant, beautiful, dynamic performances. He answered "I let them play."
And a brilliantly illuminating video, Dave. You wear your learning lightly.
What a wonderful talk! Just the selection of the topic was brilliant.
As a complete novice I found this very helpful. Thanks Dave. I did have a basic understanding of dynamics in music. But what I found most interesting was your comment that at times, during the loudest sections, certain instruments would ‘get lost’ or be separately inaudible, but still add to the overall totality of the sound. I listen via headphones presently and do enjoy being able to hear the separation of instruments. So during louder passages where it’s difficult to achieve that, I was actually thinking that maybe my system is not resolving enough or that the recording is not clear enough. But your explanation does make sense. Thanks again
Glad that it helped! Thanks for the feedback.
I would love to hear you talk about Wagner's orchestration, the dynamic problems of playing such (often) loud dynamics with singers. You are so smart. Loving these videos
A superb talk, with apt examples cited. I'm so glad you noted the relative dynamic ranges of different instruments and/or sections of the orchestra. This is something which, as you noted, seems to be a serious shortcoming in many performances, muddying details that should be heard clearly. It sometimes makes me wonder if they have actually studied the score. Also, any really good conductor gets acquainted with the acoustics of the venue, specifically when filled by an audience. I'm always reminded of Mahler bringing in local military units to populate the auditorium for rehearsal of the 8th in Munich.
So many great points
One of my pet peeves is (non-) observance of accents. I was looking forward to your mentioning that but I suppose it would also fall under under articulation. So David, I look forward to your video about that as well!
Great discussion! Without Dymamics Classical music becomes monotonous.
Dear Dave,
I so agree about really inaudible pianissimo. Pointless in the concert hall, and even worse on gramophone records.
Best wishes from George
As you mentioned the Mannheim 'rocket', I was wondering if you had any recommendations for pieces by composers of the Mannheim school, like Stamitz (father and/or son) and Cannabich, or any others. I know Cannabich and Mozart thought very highly of each other, and Mozart was probably influenced by some those composers, all of whom seem to have been very interested in dynamic expression and moving from the late Baroque into the Classical style.
Great talk! What I'd also like to hear you address in this series of critical listening is the matter of "shaping" the music. You have talked about conductors who are "sound guys" and those who are "form guys." What's meant by sound is obvious, but how exactly does a "form guy" do his thing, and how do we listeners come to perceive and appreciate that? I suppose our being aware of various classical forms is part of the equation, but that has nothing to do with the conductor.
Line guy...not "form" guy. I'd love to talk about it but I can't because I don't have permission to use the necessary sound samples from the labels with the most important artists.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Yes, line. Thanks for the correction. No wonder I became so puzzled as I thought about it. 😄
One of my pet peeves when it comes to dynamics: The coda of Beethoven's 7th when (I believe for the first time in his symphonies) he puts an fff on a couple of measures after having it just ff. Nearly every recording I've heard makes little to no difference between those markings. I did hear a radio broadcast many years ago with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra with, I think, Bernardi conducting. The announcer talked about how the performance DID make that fff more explosive than the ff - and it was great! I have heard other performances where the trumpets at least try to make it an fff. But what's always missing is the timpani player doing the same. And that makes a huge difference.
Steve, coincidentally I began my comment just like you did yours! Two adjacent comments with identical first five words. I didn't read yours until after I wrote mine! :--) Yes, those timpanists and trumpeters must form a pact!! If I were a conductor, I'd meddle into their business and ask for harder mallets (I like the sharpness of attack much of the time). I wonder how well that'd go over.
The same thing happens at the end of the development in the first movement of the Eighth, where Beethoven ratchets up the tension to an unbearable degree and then releases it in that great FFF passage. This is every conductor‘s nightmare, because while the lower strings are sawing away at the main theme, what does he or she do with the rest of the orchestra above them which is playing a chordal passage also marked FFF?
Did Haydn ever notate mp (mezzopiano)? It's mainly f and p, followed by ff and pp. I did find mf in a piano sonata but it seems to be quite rare. Of course, I haven't sampled everything he wrote. 😄
Neither have I!
I think that conductors should also adapt the dynamics to the venue of the performance. I recall a performance of Mahler 6 at the Brucknerhaus Concert Hall in Linz under James Conlon some 30 years ago (gosh I'm old). Especially in the Finale it was waaay to loud, it sounded like fff all the time. You couldn't experience any buildup and it was just exhausting and for once I was happy when it was over.
It seems to me that any conductor who can effectively convey the proper dynamics of a particular piece may be hampered by the concert hall in which it is being played. Certain concert halls are notorious for their ability to successfully convey those dynamics or fail to overcome inherent issues of their original construction. Many halls have been modified by artificial means to produce the best sound. The issue of the role of the recording engineer (in broadcasts and physical recordings) is a whole other topic, since the limits of any recording venue can be compromised when manipulated, either for the good or bad. I realize I am speaking of reproduction of sound and not interpretation, but aren't they interdependent?
Dave, your comment about the music suddenly "disappearing" reminded me of the first time I heard the Roth "Le Sacre" where the Danse Sacrale suddenly disappeared into pizz pianissimos that were inaudible. I jumped to my volume control to see what happened and why the audio seemed to just drop out. It wasn't spectacular, it was jarring and totally ruined my concentration and continuity.
It would be interesting to hear the result, if a conductor decides to make audible the bassoons in the coda of Bruckner 5. It is ridiculous enough when Abbado for instance dims the dynamics to let the melody of flutes be more present near the very end. I don't think the flutes are supposed to draw there a special attention.
Try Skrowczewski. He's ten time worse (or better, depending on your perspective) than Abbado.
Thanks, you're right. I find Haitink with Concertgebouw very satisfying, its perfectly balanced.
I don't mind if a conductor doesn't let me "see the back of the statue" as long as I'm allowed to see it by way of the score.
Yeah there is to me like zero chance singers, clavichord players, and violinists etc didn't have freely moving dynamics fitting to the phrases and lines they were playing. Step dynamics on a harpsichord when you change manuals sure, or indications to change organ stops. But there is no reason to believe that on the instruments capable of moving dynamics, they did not do that. Especially because composers specified very little in that time.
What about recordings? In Pop music remastered editions usually take out some of the dynamics from the original release (sometimes refered to as "loudness war"). Is classical music affected by this habbit?
To some degree. The volume level and compression on some remasterings of older classical recordings have been pushed so much as to introduce distortion, which is lethal for classical music. If you can find it, check out the Japanese reissue of Previn/LSO/Walton/Symphony no. 1 for a particularly bad example of this.
CM RUclips videos have a somewhat compressed dynamic range compared to CDs
A lot of new classical recordings unfortunately suffer from limited dynamic range, but also e.g. the reissue of the famous Reiner Scheherazade suffers from it, so that the power of the climaxes in the finale is blunted.
The weird thing now is that some people go back to vinyl because of ‘better dynamic range’, which is tragically ironic, because purely technically CD’s can reproduce a greater dynamic range than vinyl. It’s just that in the heyday of vinyl there were no loudness wars, so music was mastered with good dynamic range. But even more weirdly it translates to new masters, too, where dynamic masters are reserved for vinyl, and compressed ones *of the same recordings* land on CD. It’s the world turned on its head! The reason I think this is happening is that vinyl is seen to be for connoisseurs, while CD/digital music is for the masses, who do not appreciate dynamics, or rather have been dumbed down to not appreciate them anymore.
As to that weirdo wanting to hold back the orchestra, he needs to read the low brass player's credo.
Dynamics is a bad thing in music. Nowadays producers use dynamic compression to get rid o the bad dynamics. One million producers can’t be wrong!
Of course I’m joking. The loudness war is a terrible thing. It really makes the music sound bad. Luckily, this is not applied to classical music. I remember when BIS put a warning tag on their cd. That was quite the opposite to the dynamic war.
But BIS went too far in the opposite direction. The extreme dynamics that they pioneered on their recordings cannot be comfortably reproduced in an average living room, never mind a noisy environment like a car.
I agree. A mild compression of the dynamics is necessary because our hifi systems can’t handle the natural dynamic of a symphony orchestra. I believe that a mild compression is always applied.
I wonder if classical recording producers are following the pop lead of Max Martin & Lucasz Gottwald in heaping on the compression, thereby making so many things sound the same.
@@markfarrington5183 In general, not to my knowledge
@@patrickhackett7881 ...Give it time.