just a neophyte rube

Found it on Apple Music, posted on November 3, 2023 at 15:57:00
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 25928 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012	At first, I thought she was playing Bach and Mussorgsky. But now I see that HER last name is Bach and she's only playing Mussorgsky! I haven't listened yet, but I wonder what JS would think if he heard Mussorgsky's music!

Intriguing...., posted on November 4, 2023 at 13:36:24

sser2
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I must hear her.

Do you know about Nobuyuki Tsujii? Before I've heard Tsujii, my favorite was Richter. Enough said.

BTW, Richter was a champion of the piano version of the Pictures, and didn't like Ravel's orchestration.

Tsujii Mussorgsky Pictures

Would sure smile and give a thumb up. (nt), posted on November 4, 2023 at 14:09:21
sser2 Audiophile Posts: 2562 Location: Pittsburgh USA Joined: July 30, 2003	nt

Have you heard the Stokowski "Pictures" orchestration???, posted on November 4, 2023 at 15:01:41
John Marks Manufacturer Posts: 7657 Location: Peoples' Democratic Republic of R.I. Joined: April 23, 2000	I love it. IIRC, that was a London Phase 4 LP. ciao, john

Haven't heard The Stokowski's arrangement before, , posted on November 4, 2023 at 19:46:17
sser2 Audiophile Posts: 2562 Location: Pittsburgh USA Joined: July 30, 2003	but listened on your suggestion. It's definitely more dramatic than Ravel's and worth giving it a listen. Still like original piano thing the most.

RE: Have you heard the Stokowski "Pictures" orchestration???, posted on November 5, 2023 at 04:15:22
Analog Scott Audiophile Posts: 9752 Joined: January 8, 2002	I have it. I don't like it. Feels like he just took the Ravel and jazzed it up for a cruise line Broadway review. In my opinion....

Have you heard the Knussen/Cleveland Orchestra version?, posted on November 5, 2023 at 10:52:39

Chris from Lafayette
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He also uses the Stokowski Orchestration on his DG recording. I haven't heard it myself, but I read that Knussen had written into his contract that he had something like veto power over how the engineering was set up, and he got rid of a lot of the multi-microphoning which DG was doing at the time.

I think the problem with Stokowski's own orchestration is that most people will hear it on the Phase-4 recording he made, which is hardly ever a good way to hear orchestral music! Of course, there are still other recordings of the Stokowski orchestration by Serebrier, Bamert and others.

BTW, Peter Breiner also made an orchestration of Pictures, and it goes way beyond whatever limits Stokowski placed on himself! IOW, it out-Stokowskies Stokowski! ;-) Believe me, it's lots of fun!

RE: Have you heard the Knussen/Cleveland Orchestra version?, posted on November 5, 2023 at 16:31:46
Analog Scott Audiophile Posts: 9752 Joined: January 8, 2002	Maybe it's just not fair. Ravel is arguably the greatest orchestrator in the history of classical music. DG asked Yuja to record Pictures at an Exhibition and she said no. She saw no point to the piano version since the Ravel orchestration was so much better and adds all the right colors to the composition.

Actually, I'm not really a fan of the Ravel orchestration myself, posted on November 6, 2023 at 01:00:06

Chris from Lafayette
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Ravel's orchestration seems out of character from the intrinsic character of Mussorgsky's music. (I know this is a very subjective judgment.) Of course, you could say the same thing about the Stokowski orchestration too. The orchestration which stays within the character of the music IMHO is the one by Tushmalov (a student of Rimsky-Korsakov), but Tushmalov jettisoned even more of the score than Ravel did!

And, as I suggested, the Breiner orchestration is SO far removed from the character of the original that it actually becomes interesting in its own right. I need to listen to it again - and soon! It will bring a smile to my face! ;-)

Thanks for all the suggestions!, posted on November 6, 2023 at 11:22:28
ltman Audiophile Posts: 273 Joined: June 23, 2023	I am tracking them all down and listening, and learning a lot!

RE: Thanks for all the suggestions!, posted on November 6, 2023 at 11:48:56
pbarach Audiophile Posts: 3232 Location: Ohio Joined: June 22, 2008	There's also a Slatkin recording in which he uses a different orchestration for each Picture.

Piano vs Orchestra, posted on November 6, 2023 at 12:25:51

Zarlino
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The original piano version trumps any orchestration, because it is so easy to bring out the colors and extreme contrasts of the piece using an orchestra. To do that on a piano, as Richter does, even on that lousy sounding recording, is where the art comes in.

Tsujii can play and produce colors, but he is not true to the score. There are no staccato notes in the opening Promenade, but he adds them where the composer has indicated slurs, i.e. smooth.
Doing so ruins the intrinsic charm of that promenade, as it makes some notes more important than others.

Never mind the time signatures, which in this case are arbitrary; the first beat of each bar does not receive an accent. This promenade really has no time signature: the only way to count it out without looking at the score is, "one, one, one, one, one, one, etc." Try it!

Hmmm... Wasn't London Phase 4 just an earlier version of DG multi-miking?, posted on November 6, 2023 at 15:36:29

John Marks
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"London Phase 4" used 20 microphones mixed down and recorded on four tape channels. Then the four tape channels were mixed and balanced to make the stereo LP cutting tape.

DG was using lots of microphones in the analog era, so, I assume that they did something similar.

So, I assume that you were in some sense lumping London Phase 4 and DG together?

I was told that in the Levine era, the Boston Symphony recorded with 48 tracks. When Andris Nelsons came on board, they cleaned up their engineering act, and began winning Grammys.

Ciao,

john

RE: Hmmm... Wasn't London Phase 4 just an earlier version of DG multi-miking?, posted on November 6, 2023 at 15:59:49
pbarach Audiophile Posts: 3232 Location: Ohio Joined: June 22, 2008	With Phase 4, you got oddities such as a clarinet solo sounding louder than the entire orchestra. Gimmicky in the extreme; did DG ever get that strange?

I suppose you could say that, posted on November 6, 2023 at 16:02:01
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 25928 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012	But Phase-4 always seemed even worse to me. And now the DG team has redeemed itself with its Dolby Atmos remasters on some of those overmiked titles! ;-)

RE: Have you heard the Knussen/Cleveland Orchestra version?, posted on November 6, 2023 at 16:03:56

pbarach
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I don't know the Knussen/CLE recording of Pictures, but your comment about his veto power concerning engineering is telling. The Knussen/Cleveland recording of Stravinsky's Baiser de la Fee (also on DG, labeled as 4D) has some of the most natural sound of any Cleveland Orchestra recording. The booklet indicates it was recorded in Severance Hall (most major label CLE recordings were in Masonic Auditorium), with Knussen listed as "Producer (Post-production)."

Exactly - not to mention all the changes in perspective. . . , posted on November 6, 2023 at 16:05:29
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 25928 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012	. . . depending on which instrument had the solo.

What you say sounds right to me, but. . . , posted on November 6, 2023 at 16:09:25
Chris from Lafayette Audiophile Posts: 25928 Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012	. . . I still haven't heard either the Mussorgsky or the Stravinsky album with Knussen.

A difference of perception?, posted on November 7, 2023 at 11:48:14
sser2 Audiophile Posts: 2562 Location: Pittsburgh USA Joined: July 30, 2003	Doesn't sound to me like staccato. When I compare the opening Promenade played by Richter and Tsujii, I don't hear any principal difference in articulation. I guess only a music professional could tell whether each of them play legato or staccato - I am not the one. Chris, what do you think?

Well, here's Mussorgsky's manuscript of the piano version, posted on November 7, 2023 at 17:09:04

Chris from Lafayette
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OK - no staccato marks. But notice those little horizontal lines under (or over) individual notes. Those are called tenuto marks, and if you look up "tenuto", you'll see that, in the traditional definition, the word indicates that the note should be held for its full value. But, IN PRACTICE, that's not always what results. If you held the tenuto notes for their full value, then it would sound legato (one note would run into the following note) - but it shouldn't. What happens is that there is a slight discontinuation of the sound before the next note, resulting in an articulation which is neither staccato nor legato, but somewhere in between, i.e., detached, non-legato. Sometimes, you'll see a tenuto mark with a dot under or over it (depending on how the note stems go), and that's even more of an indication to play the note detached. But, plenty of times, I've heard just the tenuto mark itself interpreted as a sufficient indication to play the note detached too.

If you think of the Ravel orchestration, where the trumpet plays the opening notes, the articulation is non-legato for sure - a clue that Ravel has picked up on the nature of how Mussorgsky marked the piano articulation in this spot.

RE: Well, here's Mussorgsky's manuscript of the piano version, posted on November 18, 2023 at 00:55:37

DrChaos
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I would think that a tenuto note has a slight attack on its beat to distinguish it from legato, but otherwise is sustained in its full time like legato.

Makes sense on a brass/wind instrument where the embouchure contributes to the attack but the lungs provide the sustain.

That may be true - especially for brass, posted on November 19, 2023 at 14:19:10

Chris from Lafayette
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Since my previous post, I've checked a few YouTube videos, and they all do sound pretty legato in that opening Promenade. OTOH, Mussorgsky could have written long legato phrases, but he chose to specify tenuto marks instead. Why would he do that if he wanted purely legato articulation?

Also since my previous post, I asked one of the local cello teachers how cellists interpret tenuto marks - she agreed with me that there should be a tiny separation between successive notes in a passage written with all tenuto marks. I have to admit that I'm mystified as to why so many performances of that opening Promenade (on YouTube at least!) sound legato - except that, sometimes, the articulation symbols are put in as technical suggestions, rather than to produce actual changes in the sound (although I don't think that really applies here).

Classical Court

just a neophyte rube

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