Why not assume that we play slower than Brahms intended, rather than faster? Recordings since the late 1880's often show pianists (including Brahms himself) playing the same or faster than nowadays, certainly not half the speed.
This is because the recordings were limited in length at the time. Brahms' recording was extremely fast for the time and he still had to omit the first 25% of the piece (Hungarian dance no. 1).
@@rafexrafexowski4754 It still shows that pianists and other instrumentalists were able to play at the speed we do today (and practiced to play it as such). Even when recording length improved, no one played twice as slow.
@@M.Arsenault Brahms' way of playing was practically extinct at that point due to the rise of the single beat, virtuosic way of playing. By the time recording lengths improved, the whole beat counting was abandoned.
Another brilliant video! Thank you for digging in on this! Love your views on Gould too. He is my all time favorite pianist and his deep connection to each and every note is always so soulful.
The fact that Bernstein felt compelled to make the speech is an indication of how entrenched opinions were and he was creating both headlines and anticipating brutal reviews and getting ahead of them. Smart guy. I once saw the worst battle of tempi between Van Cliburn and Dutoit conducting Philadelphia. They were literally altering the tempo (Cliburn much slower) when either the Orchestra or the Piano was soloing. Whoever started the section got to determine the tempo. It was an almost unlistenable version of the Rachmaninoff 2nd. I thought it very rude and disrespectful of Dutoit towards both Van Cliburn and the audience.
What a wonderful, open, and perceptive discussion. I really enjoyed this and quite agree with you. The composers "deserve for us, time and time again, to take a fresh look at their scores." I compose music and I often ponder how it will be interpreted, with some moments of trepidation. I've had the experience that of the very few performances with which I've been graced, and for which I'm profoundly thankful, they definitely did not express what I intended. Although I can certainly see the value in the interpretation offered, usually I'd prefer to hear it performed as I originally heard it when the music was given to me from within. My wife says it all when she says to me, "I like it so much better when you play it!" But I'm no performance artist, so... At any rate, I agree with you whole heartedly. It's so important to take a look again and again at what the composer was actually hearing and feeling when he/she wrote that composition. Especially when you're dealing with a genius like Brahms! I think Beethoven may have some of this kind of constructive review coming. Thank you very much for this presentation!
Interestingly--and I wish I could remember where I found this article--but I was trying to find some indication of Brahms' use of metronome markings (bc I could not find an edition with reliable ones and I'm planning on recording some Brahms--amongst other works--in whole beat). But the article in question quoted Brahms offering advice to a musician interested in performing his German Requiem and he commented that he believed that most people of his day took Andantes too slowly and Allegros MUCH too fast, and that he prefers taking the three fugues in the German Requiem MUCH slower than people might think as it allows for the counterpoint to be rendered more intelligibly and emotionally.
Thank you Wim. Sending this video to a friend who I shared yours and Alberto’s Beethoven V cd… she was interested and I think this video a great follow up. Health and blessings to you and yours 🙂🙏🏼❤
I would so love to have seen a conversation with Glenn Gould and you on this channel! I am sure that it would have been incredible. I am so glad that you are including your thoughts about Gould’s unique vision on your channel!
Do you have any videos discussing your critics' positions (re: 19th cent metronome)? I mean those who have directly criticized your analysis/position. I've seen several in online forums, but no rebuttal. It's possible I've just missed them though. It's an interesting debate and I want to make sure I am hearing all the arguments. If there's a good summary of the entire debate somewhere, I would really appreciate it if you would point me to it. I usually hate to ask people to spoon-feed me information, but I have searched and haven't find what I'm looking for. Thank you.
I knew that recording before. And listening to it sometimes actually it sounds quite good. Sometimes, maybe you just have to get used to something new. Now the question is, did the composers read "correctly" or like we did?
I recently purchased a CD containing a selection of Beethoven Sonatas played by Gould. Gould is one of my, if not my favourite Pianist but many of the tempi in these recordings are so extraordinary fast, frankly, the end result can sound perverse and I wont listen to them. However his performance of the Appassionata Sonata is, I think, superb and totally convincing. I don't know what Gould would have made of WB as a basic theory but I think he would have been open minded enough to say, "why not" and if it draws us away from the, so often, very fasts performances of Beethoven, Mozart etc that we hear now, that surely must be a good thing.
In some examples of Bach, Gould plays the slow parts far slower and far more beautifully than anyone, but then races through the parts with fast tempo markings as though to get through it ASAP in order to get back to the next, slow part where his heart and emotions were at peace..
i don't know so I'm asking - I hear some great praise for GG from many concert pianists in interviews, but has this admiration actually manifested itself in a similar 'slow' concert performance of Brahm's 1st piano concerto since 1962 ? or have we gone without a single one all these many decades since then?
This didn't happen on a Friday--rather, it was a Thursday. Why is that important? Because Thursday night performances were informal. That's why Bernstein made the speech that night. There was no animosity between the two. Gould said he was backstage "giggling" during it.
I can't believe it! Only a week ago, we were talking about this famous recording with the introductory speech Bernstein made while we were recording Bach's 6 sonatas for violin and harpsichord. The two CDs will be released in January 2024, I was artistic supervisor (I gave clear instructions for the tempi of each movement). We were talking about this recording of Brahms' Concerto in D minor with the violinist, Valerio Losito, the harpsichordist, Elisabetta Guglielmin and the guy who materially recorded and will produce the CD (and previously the singles on Spotify), Mario Sollazzo, for NovAntiqua. The two musicians came up with this project after many and long conversations with me. There is, however, one thing to be added about the performance history of this concerto: Brahms conducted it by beating time in 4. This gesture in 4 would not make much sense if we considered every tick of the metronome at 58 for the dotted half note, but it becomes an absolutely clear movement if two ticks of the metronome at 58 fit into a dotted half note, and not just one. Dear Wim for now a strong thought for E., we will have a chance to talk at the next hangout.
@Chlorinda “His conducting of the D minor Concerto threw an entirely new light on the whole composition, especially as regards the rhythmical swing of the first movement. Written in the troublesome tempo of 6/4, most conductors take it too quickly by beating two in a bar or too slowly by beating six. Brahms beat it in an uneven four (-u-u), which entirely did away with undue dragging or hurrying, and kept the line of movement insistent up to the last note”. Charles Villiers Stanford, who heard Brahms conducting this D minor Concerto (in: Tempo and its modifications in the music of Brahms from primary sources and evidence of early performers. Paper presented at the Symposium 'Über das Forteilen und Zurückhalten. Zur Tempogestaltung in der Musik des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts', Berlin, 2012)
Entschuldigung, wenn ich wieder an Rachmaninoff's Aufnahmen seiner eigenen Kompositionen erinnere. Denn natürlich können wir heute auch diese Werke langsamer spielen als der Komponist selbst. Die offene Frage bleibt bei der Grundannahme hier, dass Tempo der wichtigste Faktor für das Erscheinungsbild einer Komposition ist : Warum spielt Rachmaninoff selbst so schnell ? Denn seine Interpretation zum Beispiel von Chopins " Trauermarsch " zeigt doch, dass Rachmaninoff durchaus auch langsam spielen konnte ...
Of course Bernstein had the right to address the audience. Firstly, Bernstein was the maestro on this occasion, not Gould. Secondly, in fairness to the crowd, it was dutiful for Bernstein's prologue to inform them so they weren't overly caught off guard, taken aback, or outraged. It is well known that Gould was an attention-seeking eccentric person and some of his performances reveal this fact. Watch the video of him trying to sing opera to elephants and you'll know exactly what he was trying to accomplish.
I love your channel. You can argue many things, but clarity, refernces and deep understanding is not an ability that you don't have experience on! I'm waiting to the release you your WTC CD, as someone who supported it in the pre release. Keep the good work!
I am trying to write a comment with an article and I see that my comment is being delete over time. This is not wanting to search the truth. I am genuinely trying to understand the whole point of single beat and the double beat. I want to know the truth, Why If I post a comment with an article my comment is not showing? I do not know if it because there is a link or something but the article is by Mälzel "Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, September n.VIII 1821"
Why not assume that we play slower than Brahms intended, rather than faster? Recordings since the late 1880's often show pianists (including Brahms himself) playing the same or faster than nowadays, certainly not half the speed.
This is because the recordings were limited in length at the time. Brahms' recording was extremely fast for the time and he still had to omit the first 25% of the piece (Hungarian dance no. 1).
@@rafexrafexowski4754 It still shows that pianists and other instrumentalists were able to play at the speed we do today (and practiced to play it as such). Even when recording length improved, no one played twice as slow.
@@M.Arsenault Brahms' way of playing was practically extinct at that point due to the rise of the single beat, virtuosic way of playing. By the time recording lengths improved, the whole beat counting was abandoned.
Another brilliant video! Thank you for digging in on this! Love your views on Gould too. He is my all time favorite pianist and his deep connection to each and every note is always so soulful.
Interestingly Bernstein recorded the same concerto 20 odd years later with Kristian Zimmerman and it was about a minute longer.
The fact that Bernstein felt compelled to make the speech is an indication of how entrenched opinions were and he was creating both headlines and anticipating brutal reviews and getting ahead of them. Smart guy. I once saw the worst battle of tempi between Van Cliburn and Dutoit conducting Philadelphia. They were literally altering the tempo (Cliburn much slower) when either the Orchestra or the Piano was soloing. Whoever started the section got to determine the tempo. It was an almost unlistenable version of the Rachmaninoff 2nd. I thought it very rude and disrespectful of Dutoit towards both Van Cliburn and the audience.
What a wonderful, open, and perceptive discussion. I really enjoyed this and quite agree with you. The composers "deserve for us, time and time again, to take a fresh look at their scores." I compose music and I often ponder how it will be interpreted, with some moments of trepidation. I've had the experience that of the very few performances with which I've been graced, and for which I'm profoundly thankful, they definitely did not express what I intended. Although I can certainly see the value in the interpretation offered, usually I'd prefer to hear it performed as I originally heard it when the music was given to me from within. My wife says it all when she says to me, "I like it so much better when you play it!" But I'm no performance artist, so...
At any rate, I agree with you whole heartedly. It's so important to take a look again and again at what the composer was actually hearing and feeling when he/she wrote that composition. Especially when you're dealing with a genius like Brahms! I think Beethoven may have some of this kind of constructive review coming.
Thank you very much for this presentation!
Interestingly--and I wish I could remember where I found this article--but I was trying to find some indication of Brahms' use of metronome markings (bc I could not find an edition with reliable ones and I'm planning on recording some Brahms--amongst other works--in whole beat). But the article in question quoted Brahms offering advice to a musician interested in performing his German Requiem and he commented that he believed that most people of his day took Andantes too slowly and Allegros MUCH too fast, and that he prefers taking the three fugues in the German Requiem MUCH slower than people might think as it allows for the counterpoint to be rendered more intelligibly and emotionally.
Love your channel.
Thank you Wim. Sending this video to a friend who I shared yours and Alberto’s Beethoven V cd… she was interested and I think this video a great follow up. Health and blessings to you and yours 🙂🙏🏼❤
I would so love to have seen a conversation with Glenn Gould and you on this channel! I am sure that it would have been incredible. I am so glad that you are including your thoughts about Gould’s unique vision on your channel!
Very informative. Reminds me of Beethoven’s symphony No. 9 reading on period instruments with unusually fast tempo
Do you have any videos discussing your critics' positions (re: 19th cent metronome)? I mean those who have directly criticized your analysis/position. I've seen several in online forums, but no rebuttal. It's possible I've just missed them though. It's an interesting debate and I want to make sure I am hearing all the arguments. If there's a good summary of the entire debate somewhere, I would really appreciate it if you would point me to it. I usually hate to ask people to spoon-feed me information, but I have searched and haven't find what I'm looking for. Thank you.
I knew that recording before. And listening to it sometimes actually it sounds quite good. Sometimes, maybe you just have to get used to something new. Now the question is, did the composers read "correctly" or like we did?
Complimenti per aver messo in risalto ,Brahms ,Gould e gli esempi.
I recently purchased a CD containing a selection of Beethoven Sonatas played by Gould. Gould is one of my, if not my favourite Pianist but many of the tempi in these recordings are so extraordinary fast, frankly, the end result can sound perverse and I wont listen to them. However his performance of the Appassionata Sonata is, I think, superb and totally convincing. I don't know what Gould would have made of WB as a basic theory but I think he would have been open minded enough to say, "why not" and if it draws us away from the, so often, very fasts performances of Beethoven, Mozart etc that we hear now, that surely must be a good thing.
In some examples of Bach, Gould plays the slow parts far slower and far more beautifully than anyone, but then races through the parts with fast tempo markings as though to get through it ASAP in order to get back to the next, slow part where his heart and emotions were at peace..
i don't know so I'm asking - I hear some great praise for GG from many concert pianists in interviews, but has this admiration actually manifested itself in a similar 'slow' concert performance of Brahm's 1st piano concerto since 1962 ? or have we gone without a single one all these many decades since then?
Maybe I like Brahms after all.
Thanks for another great and convincing video. Groeten uit zonnige Wenen, Scott
This didn't happen on a Friday--rather, it was a Thursday. Why is that important? Because Thursday night performances were informal. That's why Bernstein made the speech that night. There was no animosity between the two. Gould said he was backstage "giggling" during it.
I can't believe it! Only a week ago, we were talking about this famous recording with the introductory speech Bernstein made while we were recording Bach's 6 sonatas for violin and harpsichord. The two CDs will be released in January 2024, I was artistic supervisor (I gave clear instructions for the tempi of each movement). We were talking about this recording of Brahms' Concerto in D minor with the violinist, Valerio Losito, the harpsichordist, Elisabetta Guglielmin and the guy who materially recorded and will produce the CD (and previously the singles on Spotify), Mario Sollazzo, for NovAntiqua. The two musicians came up with this project after many and long conversations with me. There is, however, one thing to be added about the performance history of this concerto: Brahms conducted it by beating time in 4. This gesture in 4 would not make much sense if we considered every tick of the metronome at 58 for the dotted half note, but it becomes an absolutely clear movement if two ticks of the metronome at 58 fit into a dotted half note, and not just one. Dear Wim for now a strong thought for E., we will have a chance to talk at the next hangout.
@Chlorinda “His conducting of the D minor Concerto threw an entirely new light on the whole composition, especially as regards the rhythmical swing of the first movement. Written in the troublesome tempo of 6/4, most conductors take it too quickly by beating two in a bar or too slowly by beating six. Brahms beat it in an uneven four (-u-u), which entirely did away with undue dragging or hurrying, and kept the line of movement insistent up to the last note”. Charles Villiers Stanford, who heard Brahms conducting this D minor Concerto (in: Tempo and its modifications in the music of Brahms from primary sources and evidence of early performers. Paper presented at the Symposium 'Über das Forteilen und Zurückhalten. Zur Tempogestaltung in der Musik des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts', Berlin, 2012)
@Chlorinda It is actually the Sonatas for violin and harpsichord, and I'm just the inspiration for the tempos and other little things. Thanks anyway!
Arrau's tempo of the first movement is actually slower than Gould's
Entschuldigung, wenn ich wieder an Rachmaninoff's Aufnahmen seiner eigenen Kompositionen erinnere.
Denn natürlich können wir heute auch diese Werke langsamer spielen als der Komponist selbst.
Die offene Frage bleibt bei der Grundannahme hier,
dass Tempo der wichtigste Faktor für das Erscheinungsbild einer Komposition ist :
Warum spielt Rachmaninoff selbst so schnell ?
Denn seine Interpretation zum Beispiel von Chopins " Trauermarsch " zeigt doch,
dass Rachmaninoff durchaus auch langsam spielen konnte ...
Of course Bernstein had the right to address the audience. Firstly, Bernstein was the maestro on this occasion, not Gould. Secondly, in fairness to the crowd, it was dutiful for Bernstein's prologue to inform them so they weren't overly caught off guard, taken aback, or outraged. It is well known that Gould was an attention-seeking eccentric person and some of his performances reveal this fact. Watch the video of him trying to sing opera to elephants and you'll know exactly what he was trying to accomplish.
I love your channel. You can argue many things, but clarity, refernces and deep understanding is not an ability that you don't have experience on!
I'm waiting to the release you your WTC CD, as someone who supported it in the pre release.
Keep the good work!
Very interesting! Thanks Wim
Great view
I am trying to write a comment with an article and I see that my comment is being delete over time. This is not wanting to search the truth. I am genuinely trying to understand the whole point of single beat and the double beat. I want to know the truth, Why If I post a comment with an article my comment is not showing? I do not know if it because there is a link or something but the article is by Mälzel "Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, September n.VIII 1821"
How did the crowd react to the Gould performance?
Would you be so kind to upload more music videos, please!
Brilliant as ever, Mr. Winters.
Great story!
Glen knew 🧐🧠
Imagine if he'd actually PLAYED part of the recording....
Lol
Have you heard of Post Modernism?
Wow. Just wow.