About Music Lecture - Neal Peres Da Costa

What did musical performances sound like in Beethoven's era and before? Captured on early twentieth-century sound recordings, the playing styles and artistry of the oldest nineteenth-century trained musicians (some born as early as the 1820s and 30s) are vastly different to what has come to be accepted today. By studying closely their performances, which undoubtedly preserve performing practices handed down from previous generations, we can gain a clearer understanding of the sound world of 100-150 years ago and begin to speculate about even earlier eras. This presentation looks at practice-led research as a fresh means of approaching historical performance.
Neal Peres Da Costa is a world-renowned performing scholar and educator. He is Associate Professor and Chair of Historical Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His monograph 'Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing' (OUP: 2012) has received critical acclaim and is widely recognised as an indispensable scholarly text for serious pianists.
12 October, 2015
Recital Hall West

[@vayasaberlo8]

Thank you for this wonderful lecture!

[@fredhoupt4078]

So fascinating and enlightening. Bravo to this new pathway in pedagogy. Brilliant insights. Personally, I dislike the heav portamento and glissando violin styles from the early 20'th century. Some of Menuhin's recordings suffer from this. I much prefer the cleaner and tighter violin sounds starting in the middle of the 20'th century, post WW2, I suppose. I think it is Rachel Podger who is recording Baroque violin music without any vibrato and I just love it. On a final note, after having heard Nigel Kennedy's explosive and super charged recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, I just can't listen to anyone else's recording of it, most but not all now sound flat and boring to me. Piano techniques is quite another subject.

[@TheLifeisgood72]

Listen to Joachim's hungarian dance recording

[@ragadolls]

I knew it!

[@eky]

Classical music ("historically informed") still lives on, they just call it jazz now
Mainstream classical music is mechanical sight reading

[@fuminakayama3738]

Modern Vibrato and sliding…. Too much suger coating to me….