I'm wishing you a flourishing and safe 2022! It's great to be back after almost two months! Health allowing, we have regular content resumed now! My video on Mozart's piano sonata K533/494 - ruclips.net/video/29R-x0X0gEc/видео.html My video on how Alfred Brendel's style when he was young and old - ruclips.net/video/aGx_tPDOkLw/видео.html Both videos contain important ideas, but they are older and badly produced.
Oh that is absolutely great. I was already very impressed after i found you quite recently (two or three months ago). Now i am digging deeper into your content and now that. I am a big fan of Brendel, mainly because of Schuberts Winterreise with Fischer-Dieskau. Now hearing you talking about another topic i am really interested in is absolutely mindblowing. Thanks a lot!
Starting in 1995, I've been traveling for business from Moscow to the US. In my free time, I went to Best Buy near my hotel to browse classical CDs. Those days there was quite good choice of them. I bought a few CDs of Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven, that's how I become familiar with maestro Brendel's art. My first impression was that these performances sounded absolutely convincing, that's how Beethoven should sound. Those were mostly recordings from 1960s and 1970s. Over a few such trips, I gathered more of Brendel's recordings. In 2006 (I think?) I had a pleasure of listening to Maestro Brendel playing Diabelli Variations in Los Angeles (still old concert hall?).
This is a fascinating commentary on Brendel. Even though Brendel has coached Kit Armstrong, he is still evolving. To me there is absolutely no pianist that can touch the soul as he does and it has to do with him personally and how he approaches his own talent.
I think Alfred himself joked once about an edition of the Grove music dictionary that began an entry on piano playing: ‘from a practical point of view’! As though there are impractical aspects of piano playing. There is a video in this. I have a very strong view on this. Which is to almost never practice technique outside an expressive context. I was drilled as a child in the Soviet Union to separate technique from expression at first, and then attach them together. This is what you were taught at the leading music institutions. And, I believe you hear this when you listen to Russian pianists. I’m completely against it. I’m against piano practice basically. I do accept there are exceptions. More to come on this!
@@VladVexler indeed! There is a very interesting answer Brendel himself gives to David Dubal in one of his conversations series which is in line with what you say.
@@FABrendel episode coming up on this! Edwin Fischer was utterly remarkable in what he asked of students - he made extremely psychological requests for contact with the keys. About opus 111 Arietta he’d say - apply ‘a touch so dematerialised as to not be of the world’. For him technique ultimately was produced by an unconscious psychological state.
I enjoyed this very much. I would be interested in your thoughts on Lydia Goehr's viewpoint as expressed in "The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works". I know that this has helped me to re-evaluate a bit my view on what exactly "the work" is and the relationship between performance and notated score. I absolutely concur with view, but I am aware that my view seems to many in the academic world a bit old-fashioned.
p.s. I last met Brendel in the Grand Hotel in St. Petersburg in the late 1990s. He was somewhat irritable after a rehearsal of the Emperor Concerto with Gergiev for the White Nights Festival.....
I admire it. I also particularly admire period readings by Andreas Staier. What's good about our time is that period performance and modern piano performance have become BOTH AND rather than EITHER OR. The latter was a bit toxic, and the modern piano would inevitably win the context because it can sing like the composers asked.
I was at Brendel's last performance in the US, during which he played it too. Brendel is very nearly my favorite pianist and it was a truly wonderful performance from which I remember so many details, but op. 533/494 can be approached from a number of different rubrics. For me, Aldo Ciccolini was the truest master of it. K. 533/494 has quicksilver, almost barbed wit Brendel's more gemutlich approach is not quite interested in capturing. The approach is well-nigh perfect for Schubert, and Schubert's final three sonatas have never been done better. I disagree that one has to form an approach that gains through emphasis while consciously deciding to lose other elements. If a piece is truly internalized, then there is, first of all, an unconscious spontaneous process in each performance by which a performer decides what to emphasize at that moment without even thinking of what is lost. Secondly, a great performance has multiplicity of perspective, and there is always a tension between the piece's various elements. Mozart is, to me, above all an ironist, a Rousseau in music. Not only an 18th century composer but from the very end of the century. We think of Mozart as all powdered wigs, and in many ways, but to me, the sheer number of dynamic contrasts scores clearly indicate that he hated that world, and however often he is the sweet, Dresden doll, he always upsets expectations. The greatest Mozart performances have a hint of the guillotine.
Bravo!-and welcome back. You are a Platonist, I’m happy to observe. Of my own efforts at composition, I sometimes play back what I have written, and think, “How the HELL did I do that? There have been times when I have felt like a musical transmitter, as much as like a creator. I do believe that, for practical purposes at least, there IS a God, in which an infinity of musical expression resides. There can be no all-encompassing performance; nor can the composer necessarily say that a piece is finished. And, given the godhood of Man, imprisoned in his mortal animal body, I say that the lifespan of the individual ought to be not 110 years, but lazy 8.
Thank you Dan. I am sympathetic to all you say and still look forward to taking time with your work. The philosopher Bernard Williams, who was very involved with opera in the UK, penned a compelling essay about immortality when he was young. Don't take time to read! Just sharing so you can have a look. Wishing you health. www3.nd.edu/~pweithma/Readings/Williams/Williams%20on%20Immortality.pdf
It’s a lovely comment from you, Daniel. As a historian, I have the same experience of getting job done extra-ordinarily while feeling it’s beyond my intelligence. There is a God.
Definitely one of your better vids. Just some knee-jerk reactions here. Speaking as a composer (and pianist) yes the performer spends more time with the pieces than does the composer in most cases, but this is because it takes the performer longer to understand what the composer meant. Especially if the composer himself didn't fully realize what his music meant. Humanity spends centuries (sometimes) in the process of understanding. Add to this the inexactitude of composition. We think we're improving it if we give more direction to the performer but Bach wrote virtually nothing, except of course the music. I find it more enjoyable to break my own "rules" but other performers don a straightjacket and play the directions instead of the music. The best performers (in the entertainment sense) break some rules, the audience claps loudly, and maybe later the performer atones for his sins. Forgive my nonsense. 🙂
David thank you. I think I agree with it all. Even with performers atoning for sins - I often insist on being agnostic about younger performers who take many liberties. Let's see how they develop and judge them when they are 60 not 30. Hope 2022 is going well for you.
I challenge the statement (unsubstantiated by evidence other than the performer spends more time with a piece) that anybody would be in the position ever to find out the subtle dispositions of people like Schubert or Brahms. Remember the story of CPE Bach about his father casting a fleeting glance on a sheet of contrapuntal derivations the former had prepared and seeing with one glance all options that CPE had brooded over for hours on end. Art is like that, if you learned music as thoroughly as Couperin, Haydn or Mendelssohn outsiders (modern people banging away on modern grand pianos for ages) will never, with no amount of scrutiny fathom the bottom of imagination involved in the composition. With that I do in fact entirely agree with you that great compositions are "overdetermining" interpretation. If Moses would come back and claim a certain interpretation of a mizwa as the only proper one he would rightly be refuted by many great Rabbis---but that is in the nature of the text, not that of the author.
Thanks so much for your words. I see what you are saying and I don't. It's not quite clear which of many possible points you are making. Here is an elementary sketch of the assumption underneath what I say in this presentation about Alfred- 1.The artist has a psychological state 2. That's expressed via a certain mode, whether marks on a canvass or notes on a page 3. 2 causes the initiated spectator/listener to have a certain experience; the experience the artist intended them to have And another qualification. I am not talking about understanding Schubert or Brahms, I am talking about understanding a piece, that has a degree of independence from the author. The independence is partly guaranteed by 1 necessarily being unconscious when it comes to great art. This basic sketch I think would be approved by Richard Wollheim. Pretty much anything I say about art on this channel takes the above to be not just true, but necessarily true if art traditions are to persist at all.
@@VladVexler I agree that the composer is not automatically the one who knows best. But he is in a favourable position. Take Brendel, however long he has pondered over Mozart, he will never know how Mozart's instrument sounded at the time. Our historical experience is very limited. Unlike the late Badura-Skoda, Brendel has chosen a position or utter ignorance regarding historical performance practice. That is a severe draw back to his interpretation. If you don't learn Hebrew, how do you even start trying to understand Moshe, let alone leave him behind? I am not saying its impossible to understand the Mizwot better then Moshe, but you have to start by reconstructing the historical horizon he articulated the Law in, study Hammurabi 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉 etc....
alfred brendel does not play what Schubert wrote in eg his d960 and klavierstucke 1 and 2. Therefore he is the WORST Schubert interpreter in my opinion - and that of many others.
I'm wishing you a flourishing and safe 2022! It's great to be back after almost two months! Health allowing, we have regular content resumed now!
My video on Mozart's piano sonata K533/494 -
ruclips.net/video/29R-x0X0gEc/видео.html
My video on how Alfred Brendel's style when he was young and old -
ruclips.net/video/aGx_tPDOkLw/видео.html
Both videos contain important ideas, but they are older and badly produced.
You're utterly brilliant. As a classical musician myself, I've never heard nobody talking at this depth. Best regards.
Best regards from Vienna my friend. Thank you for another gem of your illustrations.
How rare to have a synoptic sense of one's artistic evolution! Brendel is a miracle.
This is a very wise, very thoughtful, and very well informed discussion. Thank you so much !
Great video and topic Vlad, thank you. I adore much of Brendel's playing, technique and interpretation. Wonderful.
My pleasure, much more on Alfred to come!!
That's exciting, can't wait..
Oh that is absolutely great. I was already very impressed after i found you quite recently (two or three months ago). Now i am digging deeper into your content and now that. I am a big fan of Brendel, mainly because of Schuberts Winterreise with Fischer-Dieskau. Now hearing you talking about another topic i am really interested in is absolutely mindblowing. Thanks a lot!
Starting in 1995, I've been traveling for business from Moscow to the US. In my free time, I went to Best Buy near my hotel to browse classical CDs. Those days there was quite good choice of them. I bought a few CDs of Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven, that's how I become familiar with maestro Brendel's art. My first impression was that these performances sounded absolutely convincing, that's how Beethoven should sound. Those were mostly recordings from 1960s and 1970s. Over a few such trips, I gathered more of Brendel's recordings.
In 2006 (I think?) I had a pleasure of listening to Maestro Brendel playing Diabelli Variations in Los Angeles (still old concert hall?).
Dear Vlad , I hope you have caught young Alexandra Dovgan's recent recital from Verbier ,as I know you are an admirer .
Thank you haven’t listened to all of it yet. She’s in a very delicate developmental stage which rather asks the impossible from the folks guiding her.
This is a fascinating commentary on Brendel. Even though Brendel has coached Kit Armstrong, he is still evolving. To me there is absolutely no pianist that can touch the soul as he does and it has to do with him personally and how he approaches his own talent.
I enjoy all of your commentaries regardless of music or politics etc.😁
That’s quite something!! Going forward I will be putting the more in depth music videos on the separate music channel.
"We have to believe in some very fundamental features of human nature." - Foucault disapproves 😁
Nice to see you back and feeling better 🍻
Not as much as Derrida disapproves! 🍷
Interesting topics here, Vlad. Wondering what's your take on piano technique?
I think Alfred himself joked once about an edition of the Grove music dictionary that began an entry on piano playing: ‘from a practical point of view’! As though there are impractical aspects of piano playing.
There is a video in this. I have a very strong view on this. Which is to almost never practice technique outside an expressive context. I was drilled as a child in the Soviet Union to separate technique from expression at first, and then attach them together. This is what you were taught at the leading music institutions.
And, I believe you hear this when you listen to Russian pianists.
I’m completely against it. I’m against piano practice basically.
I do accept there are exceptions. More to come on this!
@@VladVexler indeed! There is a very interesting answer Brendel himself gives to David Dubal in one of his conversations series which is in line with what you say.
@@FABrendel episode coming up on this! Edwin Fischer was utterly remarkable in what he asked of students - he made extremely psychological requests for contact with the keys. About opus 111 Arietta he’d say - apply ‘a touch so dematerialised as to not be of the world’. For him technique ultimately was produced by an unconscious psychological state.
I enjoyed this very much. I would be interested in your thoughts on Lydia Goehr's viewpoint as expressed in "The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works". I know that this has helped me to re-evaluate a bit my view on what exactly "the work" is and the relationship between performance and notated score. I absolutely concur with view, but I am aware that my view seems to many in the academic world a bit old-fashioned.
p.s. I last met Brendel in the Grand Hotel in St. Petersburg in the late 1990s. He was somewhat irritable after a rehearsal of the Emperor Concerto with Gergiev for the White Nights Festival.....
What do you think of Ronald Brautigam's recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas for BIS?
I admire it. I also particularly admire period readings by Andreas Staier. What's good about our time is that period performance and modern piano performance have become BOTH AND rather than EITHER OR. The latter was a bit toxic, and the modern piano would inevitably win the context because it can sing like the composers asked.
Great points. Thanks for the reply, Vlad. I always enjoy and appreciate your insights.
I was at Brendel's last performance in the US, during which he played it too. Brendel is very nearly my favorite pianist and it was a truly wonderful performance from which I remember so many details, but op. 533/494 can be approached from a number of different rubrics. For me, Aldo Ciccolini was the truest master of it. K. 533/494 has quicksilver, almost barbed wit Brendel's more gemutlich approach is not quite interested in capturing. The approach is well-nigh perfect for Schubert, and Schubert's final three sonatas have never been done better.
I disagree that one has to form an approach that gains through emphasis while consciously deciding to lose other elements. If a piece is truly internalized, then there is, first of all, an unconscious spontaneous process in each performance by which a performer decides what to emphasize at that moment without even thinking of what is lost. Secondly, a great performance has multiplicity of perspective, and there is always a tension between the piece's various elements. Mozart is, to me, above all an ironist, a Rousseau in music. Not only an 18th century composer but from the very end of the century. We think of Mozart as all powdered wigs, and in many ways, but to me, the sheer number of dynamic contrasts scores clearly indicate that he hated that world, and however often he is the sweet, Dresden doll, he always upsets expectations. The greatest Mozart performances have a hint of the guillotine.
Excellent. As are your videos on the Kremlin zero
Bravo!-and welcome back. You are a Platonist, I’m happy to observe. Of my own efforts at composition, I sometimes play back what I have written, and think, “How the HELL did I do that? There have been times when I have felt like a musical transmitter, as much as like a creator. I do believe that, for practical purposes at least, there IS a God, in which an infinity of musical expression resides. There can be no all-encompassing performance; nor can the composer necessarily say that a piece is finished. And, given the godhood of Man, imprisoned in his mortal animal body, I say that the lifespan of the individual ought to be not 110 years, but lazy 8.
Thank you Dan. I am sympathetic to all you say and still look forward to taking time with your work. The philosopher Bernard Williams, who was very involved with opera in the UK, penned a compelling essay about immortality when he was young. Don't take time to read! Just sharing so you can have a look. Wishing you health.
www3.nd.edu/~pweithma/Readings/Williams/Williams%20on%20Immortality.pdf
It’s a lovely comment from you, Daniel. As a historian, I have the same experience of getting job done extra-ordinarily while feeling it’s beyond my intelligence. There is a God.
Definitely one of your better vids. Just some knee-jerk reactions here. Speaking as a composer (and pianist) yes the performer spends more time with the pieces than does the composer in most cases, but this is because it takes the performer longer to understand what the composer meant. Especially if the composer himself didn't fully realize what his music meant. Humanity spends centuries (sometimes) in the process of understanding. Add to this the inexactitude of composition. We think we're improving it if we give more direction to the performer but Bach wrote virtually nothing, except of course the music. I find it more enjoyable to break my own "rules" but other performers don a straightjacket and play the directions instead of the music.
The best performers (in the entertainment sense) break some rules, the audience claps loudly, and maybe later the performer atones for his sins. Forgive my nonsense. 🙂
David thank you. I think I agree with it all. Even with performers atoning for sins - I often insist on being agnostic about younger performers who take many liberties. Let's see how they develop and judge them when they are 60 not 30. Hope 2022 is going well for you.
I challenge the statement (unsubstantiated by evidence other than the performer spends more time with a piece) that anybody would be in the position ever to find out the subtle dispositions of people like Schubert or Brahms. Remember the story of CPE Bach about his father casting a fleeting glance on a sheet of contrapuntal derivations the former had prepared and seeing with one glance all options that CPE had brooded over for hours on end. Art is like that, if you learned music as thoroughly as Couperin, Haydn or Mendelssohn outsiders (modern people banging away on modern grand pianos for ages) will never, with no amount of scrutiny fathom the bottom of imagination involved in the composition. With that I do in fact entirely agree with you that great compositions are "overdetermining" interpretation. If Moses would come back and claim a certain interpretation of a mizwa as the only proper one he would rightly be refuted by many great Rabbis---but that is in the nature of the text, not that of the author.
Thanks so much for your words. I see what you are saying and I don't. It's not quite clear which of many possible points you are making. Here is an elementary sketch of the assumption underneath what I say in this presentation about Alfred-
1.The artist has a psychological state
2. That's expressed via a certain mode, whether marks on a canvass or notes on a page
3. 2 causes the initiated spectator/listener to have a certain experience; the experience the artist intended them to have
And another qualification. I am not talking about understanding Schubert or Brahms, I am talking about understanding a piece, that has a degree of independence from the author.
The independence is partly guaranteed by 1 necessarily being unconscious when it comes to great art.
This basic sketch I think would be approved by Richard Wollheim. Pretty much anything I say about art on this channel takes the above to be not just true, but necessarily true if art traditions are to persist at all.
@@VladVexler I agree that the composer is not automatically the one who knows best. But he is in a favourable position. Take Brendel, however long he has pondered over Mozart, he will never know how Mozart's instrument sounded at the time. Our historical experience is very limited. Unlike the late Badura-Skoda, Brendel has chosen a position or utter ignorance regarding historical performance practice. That is a severe draw back to his interpretation. If you don't learn Hebrew, how do you even start trying to understand Moshe, let alone leave him behind? I am not saying its impossible to understand the Mizwot better then Moshe, but you have to start by reconstructing the historical horizon he articulated the Law in, study Hammurabi 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉 etc....
alfred brendel does not play what Schubert wrote in eg his d960 and klavierstucke 1 and 2. Therefore he is the WORST Schubert interpreter in my opinion - and that of many others.