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In Reply to: Grain of salt, textually posted by John Marks on December 26, 2004 at 15:00:51:
Reiner was friends with Bartok for decades, his student, and involved with this piece personally. If Bartok didn't like something about Reiner's conducting of the work, he'd have let him know.This is the definitive performance and recording as far as I'm concerned.
Follow Ups:
I really doubt your assertions.Here are the facts.
By 1944 Bartok was gravely ill with the cancer that would within the year kill him.
Reiner did have a large part in obtaining the commission for Bartok to write a new work for Koussevitsky's Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bartok rallied and completed the manuscript of the original version within two months.
During these times, Bartok's weight fell to under 90 pounds and he was close to being on life support, or the equivalent of the time. He was __very__ sick.
The Concerto for Orchestra was premiered in early December 1944. The work was repeated within 30 days. Bartok, however, correctly in my view, decided that the work ended too abruptly, and in early 1945 he wrote a coda--the energetic music that comes after the full stop.
Hopes for Bartok's health were dashed as he again got worse.
Bartok died in mid-1945--TEN YEARS before Reiner recorded the work.
Even if Reiner had conducted the work in 1945, I can't see how Bartok could have known whether the tempo markings in the score correctly followed those in the individual parts, or that the performance indications were as he intended. I can't see how Bartok could have heard the results of Reiner's conducting. Most of all, I can't imagine Bartok being able, in his condition, to hear--let's say over a radio broadcast networked by telephone lines, which was how they often did it--and be in good enough shape to make such judgments.
I am open to persuasion if you can prove Reiner conducted the Concerto for Orchestra before Bartok died, and that Bartok heard it, and that Bartok endorsed the results.
But even then, there are still the issues of the conflict in tempo markings between the parts and the score, and the performance directions, which Solti resolved by reference to the original manuscript of the revised version.
Reiner's remains a hearfelt and idiomatic version conducted from a score with errors in it.
Cordially,
Thanks for your info.I think you are overweighing the significance of a couple details and missing the big picture. A performance does not have to be perfect to the nth degree to be a great performance. The Reiner release is indeed a great performance. Why not relax, forget about whether the tempo is slightly different than called for in a corrected score, and enjoy it as is?
Hi-I have not ever said anything negative about the Reiner performance, except that it was conducted from a score with errors. I can enjoy it, but I can't disregard that it embodies mistakes, that is, things Bartok did not intend, and had he lived longer might have corrected.
I assume that most conductors would agree that there is a substantial difference between "allegretto" and "allegro," and between a metronome marking of 74 and 94! That is what we are talking about for Mvmt II. But one of course could see how a handwritten 9 might be mistaken for a European 7.
Furthermore, the printed score calls that movement "Game of the pairs" (Giuoco delle coppie) whereas the autograph manuscript says "Presentation of the pairs" (Presentando le coppie). "Game" does not really make sense in terms of what the pairs of instruments do, but "Presentation" nails it, and makes clear that there is to be a sort of promenade or wedding procession, which does end in a mock Lutheran chorale.
Indeed, as the couples recess in reverse order, they are accompanied by additional instruments scurrying around--perhaps "the pitter-patter of little feet," and that would be a very fine Bartokian joke indeed.
Solti said that these textual clarifications made the work "a quite different piece." He also said that he had no doubt that thousands of previous performances, including his own, had been given with Mvmt. II at a wrong, too-slow, speed.
That being said, you can't have everything, and the sound of Solti's 1981(?) digital effort with Chicago is a bit astringent or chilly. I would not call it "definitive," but I certainly would call it necessary to a complete understanding of the work.
Look at it this way: if a conductor had never been told and could not figure out for himself that Mvmt. IV contains a parody of Shostakovich's "Leningrad" Symphony, wouldn't that result in him conducting those notes in a manner Bartok did not intend? I think that it is fair to say that Bartok expected all conductors and most audience members to catch the joke. In the same way, if you conceptualize Mvmt. II as a procession of couples with some almost Disney-esque personification, it moves differently than if it is a "game" like chess.
Cordially,
Reminds me of something I just read last night. 'When Brahms was told that his First Symphony showed similarities to Beethoven's Ninth, he replied: "Any fool can see that"'
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
Interesting, thanks for the specifics.
I am not familiar enough with classical music to catch all your references ("a very fine Bartokian joke"?), but I surely enjoyed the story and admire your literary style. Thanks for taking the time.
Regards,
Geoff
Reiner's relationship with Bartok is certainly significant, as are his greatness as a conductor and the greatness of the Chicago Symphony. But as great as his recording of the Concerto for Orchestra is, I've never understood the concept of the "definitive" recording. I've always felt a truly great piece of music can be successfully interprested more than one way. If we only had Reiner's Bartok, Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven Fifth, Heifetz's Sibelius violin concerto, etc., we would be worse off.
I agree with you. When I say "definitive," that does not mean one has to throw away all other recordings of the work.
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