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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes. |
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In Reply to: Re: You're making these judgements based on... posted by Thornhill on April 11, 2007 at 07:10:40:
It needs to be said that a lot of what's being presented here as black and white is really pretty gray, both in terms of what Ives wanted and what constitutes a good or accurate performance of his work.It's always difficult to say with certainty what any composer really wanted and with Ives, the problem is compounded by the fact that there are several different versions of almost every piece, often with none of them designated as the final or official version. In fact, often as not, Ives described the differences as "options." Just to take one example, you can perform the Concord sonata with piano only, with piano and flute, or piano and viola, and Ives often instructed pianists who came to him with questions about a given section to essentially "do whatever feels most natural to you." It's hard, in that context, to talk about strict adherence to the score as a primary virtue, I think.
To take the specific example you've brought up, the final chord in #2 can be interpreted a number of ways. It was actually one of those notorious "additions" Ives made to the score many years after he'd more or less finished the piece, so one can begin by wondering how central it is to symphony's conception. Beyond that, we should consider Ives statements that he wanted this to sound like the discordant bow scrape that country string bands used to do at the end of an evening of playing to signify that the dance was over. The question arises: how long would such a bow scrape be? I personally imagine the players would likely have held it for a beat and a half, but it's certainly not easy to say with certainty. For it to be played as short as the Schermerhorn seems to me unlikely, and to me, just isn't a satisfying end to the performance.
And then there's the matter of performance style. Whatever his strengths in sticking to letter of the score (and I'll have to take your word for it there), Schermerhorn doesn't seem to have much idea that the various nostalgic melodies quoted in the central movements have any emotional context, and he doesn't swing in the beginning of the final movement. I'm glad to have his recording, but I personally don't find it very convincing.
But to each his own. I'd take Bernstein (or Litton) over Schermerhorn, but I'm glad for the Naxos, too.
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Follow Ups
- Some thoughts on all this (long long looooong) - M. Lucky 09:27:55 04/11/07 (0)
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