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Performers who make music sound better than it is

6K views 56 replies 25 participants last post by  Woodduck 
#1 ·
Mark Twain joked that Wagner's music is better than it sounds. Contrarily, I've occasionally observed that music can sometimes sound better than it is (or, at least, can be made more attractive to me) if the right artist is performing it. For example, I have little interest in Portuguese fado, but find the voice of Amalia Rodrigues so mesmerizing and moving that while she is singing there is no music I would rather hear. In a more classical vein, much of the music of Bellini and Donizetti doesn't normally hold my attention, but when Maria Callas sings their operas they take on an unaccustomed dramatic power. I could cite many other such examples, such as the virtual transformation of much 18th-century music by contemporary period-practice ensembles.

The question arises: can a performance in such cases make music sound better than it is, or is the music really as good as it can be made to sound, having qualities that most performers simply cannot reveal? What examples would you cite of artists or performances that have altered for the better your perception of music?
 
#3 · (Edited)
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First and foremost, I'd cite Maria Callas' 1953 Florence performance of Cherubini's (or whomever's; given all of the revisions and tamperings to the score) Medea. Case in point being the way she performs the ending cut of the opera, "E che, lo son Medea."

This is eighteenth-century style music-- but she makes it sound anything but. Her acting out every syllable of text like her life depended on it. The completely-original voice inflections she brings to the table to suit every emotional nuance of the drama-- and of course the unrivaled ferocity of the delivery. . . all done with perfectly-executed musical singing; but at the same time, so overpoweringly-dramatic, that I forget that its singing at all.

That's verisimilitude of a very high order indeed.

Only a genius like Callas can pull it off.

Dame Gwyneth Jones, for instance, an absolute Straussian powerhouse in her prime, didn't remotely approximate Callas' high-water mark when she did it in the late sixties.

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I can listen to Callas' Medea-- infinite and endlessly; whereas I've only listened to Jones' once.

Same score.

Different principals.

It's entirely possible to make something sound better than it is.

That's artistry.

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#5 · (Edited)
Same score.

Different principals.

It's entirely possible to make something sound better than it is.

That's artistry.
I know it will seem like quibbling, and your example was terrific, but isn't it still a case of:

is the music really as good as it can be made to sound, having qualities that most performers simply cannot reveal?

On the other hand, if you argue that the artist actually changes the music to make it sound better than it was originally written - then it is not the same music, is it?
 
#6 · (Edited)
Strange question. Without the performance there is no sound. So before it is performed, a composition is just symbols on paper. So how can you say something sounds better than symbols that have no sound? All that can be done is to compare various performances and interpretations.

For example, I'd rather listen to Coltrane performing the same piece as Julie Andrews.
 
#7 ·
My take on this is that nothing can be better than it is, as a simple logical statement.

However, if the question is meant to be something like: Can one dislike a piece of music in all but one variation/performance? Or can one read a piece of sheet music, find it poor, and then like a performance. Yes, I think both are entirely plausible, as illustrated by the examples above.
 
#8 · (Edited)
The question arises: can a performance in such cases make music sound better than it is, or is the music really as good as it can be made to sound, having qualities that most performers simply cannot reveal? What examples would you cite of artists or performances that have altered for the better your perception of music?
I think that a fresh interpretation can help to show people what is already in the music. Even cases such as Marschallin Blair cites above are more bringing out a certain latent side of the work rather than inventing aspects that simply did not exist.

I am frequently amused and frustrated when CD reviewers claim that this or that conductor was able to "make sense" of a poorly structured work simply by changing tempos or emphasis other such things. Without actual alterations to the score, a conductor can't change the structure. If it works, that's because it was always right and an interpretation simply had to be found that fit it. If it doesn't, you can try to smooth it over all you like, but the problems will always be there.
 
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#9 ·
I think that a fresh interpretation can help to show people what is already in the music.
This is my view. Rather than great performers making music sound "better than it is", I'd say the issue is more with lesser known composers, only available through performances that fail to capture the potential of the music.

I was listening to Rubinstein's 2nd symphony this morning (probably my favorite of his, in the 7-movement version). I love the ideas, but there are moments that seem sloppy, and given the current obscurity of Rubinstein, I'm not sure if this is the fault of his music or the obscure Marco Polo recordings. Interesting to contemplate what some things would sound like at the hands of the BPO or VPO and an acclaimed conductor.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I guess one way of thinking is, a good performer can make you think a piece is better than it is.

When I was really into Satie, I found a lovely piece titled "Prayer." The recording I have is very sensitively played, and it is very peaceful. It was found untitled in a stack of his manuscripts, and the person who discovered it thought it should have that name.

Then some musicologist found out Prayer was not a standalone composition but was actually just the piano accompaniment Satie wrote for some unknown song someone was singing in a cafe. It made me feel silly that I was able to be fooled. But apparently many were fooled with me.
 
#13 · (Edited)
It made me feel silly that I was able to be fooled. But apparently many were fooled with me.
But you weren't "fooled"! Who cares what it was for, how it was intended!

Music is not a machine. If you responded to it, then it was REAL -- which is precisely why Satie gave his compositions such meaningless, absurd names (about fetuses and pears and whatnot; I can't remember the particulars right now!). He was saying the meaning is experienced in the consciousness of the listener. Not on the page, as an abstraction.

...I guess I'm betraying my Aristotle/Many/Particulars bias. ;)
 
#15 ·
It's an interesting point, and sorry to come back to Callas, but she did have this ability to bring out something in a score nobody had previously thought was there. There is a passage in La Gioconda just after she has saved Laura by swapping the poison her husband has given her for a sleeping potion. I always loved this passage in Callas's version, but when I eventually heard it in other performances, it just sounded rather banal and trite. Return to Callas and I get the same thrill from it. Did Callas find something that wasn't there, or was she able to unlock something other singers could not see? It's an interesting conundrum.

Schwarzkopf did something similar in operetta, which she gave no more concession to than if she were singing Mozart. There is a passage, a few words only, in the second act finale of Die lustige Witwe, where Hanna realises her little trick has worked and Danilo does indeed love her. Allein lebt er mich, nur allein, she sings, and suddenly this short phrase lights up and it sounds for all the world like something written by Richard Strauss. It never sounds quite the same in any other performance.
 
#17 ·
Charlie Parker

This discussion reminds me of a story my clarinet teacher told me when I was in college.

I have no idea if it was true but my clarinet teacher was a freelance classical/jazz musician from Chicago so it may be accurate.

Parker was performing at a jazz club in Chicago. He was taking requests from the audience. One of the members requested "Chicago, Chicago, Its' My Kind of Town".

After the gig one of the more astute members of the audience approached Parker and asked him why he played such a trite tune.

Parker's response, "Yeah, I know the tune is a real loser. The challenge was to make it swing."
 
#20 ·
Well, Beecham was famous for taking admittedly second tier works and making them sound better than anyone else was able to. I have no ideas if that counts as making music sound better than it is or not. But making an otherwise pedestrian piece sound fesh and likable has to be some sort of talent.
 
#23 · (Edited)
So far there seems to be a preponderance of opinion in favor of music being as good as it's finest interpreters can make it sound. But let me propose an example from another performing art, acting. Is it conceivable that a trivial or poorly written play or film, with characters of no great depth, should seem better than it is, and move us more than its action or dialogue would seem to justify, or more than it would were we to read it off the page, when performed by great actors of tremendous intelligence and charisma? Have we not felt this actually occurring when watching stage or screen? And if we have, in what way would our experience of music be similar or different? Is it really inconceivable that an artist - whether actor, singer, or pianist - could bring some dimension to a performance, some dimension of subtlety or depth inherent in their own mind, emotions, and experience of life, which has no necessary source in the work they are performing (the work as written by the playwright or notated by the composer), but which adds to our experience of the work and makes us feel, for the duration of the performance, that that extra quality is part of the work itself? Is it really true that anything a performer can do with, or to, a work of art is actually a part of the work itself? And if a work really must be every bit as profound and moving as it can be made to sound by a great performer, wouldn't it also be true that it must be every bit as shallow and boring as it seems when rendered by a poor one?
 
#25 ·
This may be a facile response but I think that if a performer/orchestra/conductor extracts something special of a certain work, it is because that something special is inherent to the music. It may not have been revealed up until that peformer/orchestra/conductor revealed it, but it has indeed been there in the music ever since the composer inked the notes on paper.
 
#31 ·
Kraut yes, limburger DEFINITELY NOT. :lol:
 
#32 ·
I love it when a conductor is able to put emphasis on essential long term parts of a work, especially in symphonies. This is what separates the good performances from the great ones.

One thing I posted in the current listening thread recently was Mahler 4 Ricardo Chailly Barbara Bonney, and one thing that really impressed me was a certain connection in the first and fourth movements. There is a polarizing E minor horn solo in the middle of the development section of the first movement, and a similar E minor horn solo comes back in the first orchestral interlude in the song final movement. Both horn solos are played with such incredible force and emphasis, and, most importantly, similar force and emphasis so that it is an important "deja vu" moment. It's like we go straight back to the lingering uncertainty and terror that was hinted at in the first movement. Other conductors do not do this as powerfully.

Of course, as people are saying on this thread, this is a connection that was already there in the composition itself, but nevertheless was so well emphasized here in the performance.

One thing that's a bit controversial but in my opinion certainly possible is that a conductor can bring out connections that the composer didn't think of. I mean, of course the composer is aware of the unity of the work and the notes he wrote, but often it's not always clear how that unity is best brought out. For example, in Tchaikovsky 5, the motto theme is clear and present in all four movements (especially in the last movement), but how does one best conduct it in each time its heard to bring out it's maximum effectiveness and role in a linear emotional narrative? That's never an obvious thing, even probably to Tchaikovsky himself.
 
#33 ·
I read somewhere that most composers are appalled on first hearing their works performed. The interpretation is never anywhere near what they intended. I don't know if that holds true when for instance the composer is also conducting, but it stands to reason a composer may not be the best interpreter of a work any more than a songwriter necessarily is.

As to which works sound better than I once thought they were, I've gone on record as almost hating Mozart. But goodness me! When Mitsuko Uchida plays his piano music it is profoundly moving.
 
#36 ·
I read somewhere that most composers are appalled on first hearing their works performed. The interpretation is never anywhere near what they intended. I don't know if that holds true when for instance the composer is also conducting, but it stands to reason a composer may not be the best interpreter of a work any more than a songwriter necessarily is.
This does seem to be a common experience, though I'm always happy to read about composers who were deeply affected by performances of their own works--who felt that a given conductor, orchestra, or performer really understood them. Shostakovich, for example, occasionally broke down in tears when he heard his own works played well--as when Karajan and the Berliners played his 10th symphony in front of him. Though he wasn't given to such gestures, he even got up onto the stage to embrace the maestro. Mind you, this wasn't a first performance.

As to the thread's question, I'd say Richter playing Schubert's G major sonata. Not sure anyone knew quite what was in that work till this magical pianist brought it out--perhaps including Schubert! Richter himself wouldn't like my saying this, of course: he claimed, very plausibly, that it was up to performers to play the notes as written, period.

And yet I'm not always sure where Schubert ends and Richter begins when I listen to the sonatas.
 
#35 ·
The argument that if a performance of a supposedly lesser piece of music makes the piece shine that the shine was 'always in the piece,' is I think taking an academic premise of logic a bit too literally, especially when performers are involved. Performers have, it is to be hoped, all the requisite technique and musicianship, but those same qualities which make one performer that much more remarkable over another with the same technical skills -- innate charisma, a palpable power to communicate -- has that performer also more than able to 'bring more to the score than is inherent in the score.'

Ask just about any relatively experienced performing musician: it is entirely possible with all the tricks of the trade, and imagining /acting - believing the piece to be of more interest and depth of 'intent' than it is, to bring extra -- as in external / outside of -- qualities to a score which is lacking in either musical interest, integrity or 'content.'

Similarly, a performer can also -- via a tremendous application and manipulation of technique -- bring remarkably good sound forth from an instrument which has very little good quality to offer, and no, some of this is mental projection, nowhere implicit or explicit in the score.

A standard challenge for a player in training is to render some of the most doggedly academic and uninteresting pieces of music (usually etudes -- for pianists, the Czerny Etudes often are cited in this context) with as much musical aplomb as possible. This is one aspect of the craft expected of a good player and all pros -- the playing of dull or lesser pieces in such a way that what is brought to it makes up for the lack.
 
#38 · (Edited)
There seems to be a line. On one side, if someone says that the "shine" was always in the piece, that somewhat takes away from the virtuosity of the performer who revealed that shine. On the other side, if someone claims that it was the performer to make it sound better than it actually is (to use the OP's way of putting it), that would detract from the composer and his/her work.

I do feel that the shine is in the piece, but after reading your post, I agree with you that that's perhaps taking that premise of logic too literally. As you say, the human element, the charisma, communication, etc. is not something to be taken lightly as it is vital to classical music where there are countless musician ensembles and performers playing the "same" piece of music.

On the flip side, to take your example, can we say that after a great performer with charisma, communication powers and other intangibles has brought a "dead" piece to life, that the composer and the composition also deserves a bit of that praise?
 
#39 ·
I think that there exist very good partnerships of performer and composer, which make the performer and composer both sound better than they usually do.

Is that "better than they actually are"? Depends on whether you think we are our true selves when we're with our favorite companions, or whether those companions make us better than we actually are.
 
#43 · (Edited)
Can performers make music sound better than it is? Yes, they can. As has been said above, indifferent poetry or plays can move an audience when recited or acted by people who know how to use their voices. And history shows that 'fashions' make us silly - we think things are fabulous and are truly moved, but looking back on such things, we cringe, when it's no longer cool.

'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so', & I agree with those who say that the question should be 'can performers make us think music is better than it is', but the idea is inherent in the original question anyway - it must 'sound better' to an audience made up of beings influenced by atmosphere, fashion, crowd emotions etc.

Not to say that a piece of music dismissed as hackneyed and unsubtle may not have hidden beauties that have never before been brought out, and were inherent in the piece. Or the original critics may have been right.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
If musical or literary texts were completely self-interpreting, then a computer-generated 'read-to-text' version Shakepeare's Henry V "Saint Crispin's Day Speech" would be as dramatically compelling as a reading by Laurence Olivier or Christopher Plummer.

Who needs Maria Callas when you have metronome markings?

Mahlerian: But the score does not dictate interpretation. Rather, the score is the basis for all possible interpretations.
I'm in deeply-moved agreement.

The score's the guideline, but not necessarily the baseline.

Making a musical phrase 'sing' and 'emote' is a tacitly-understood art which comes from one's own experiential realm of intelligence, taste, and judgement. . . and knowing how music affects one's self. These are not qualities which can be quantified and written down with any type of scientific precision as 'instructions'; they're not things that can be formulated, rule-book style like a logarithm.

For instance, by way of illustration--- switching gears and speaking of literary qualities: You can teach someone meter, assonance, rhyme, literary tropes, complex metaphysical conceits, metaphors, iambic pentameter, tetrameter, hexameter, or whatever. . . but it wouldn't necessarily make them a good poet if they followed everything to a 'T' by the rules and tricks of the trade. A distinctly human perception of what to focus on and what to emphasize-- is something that is quite incapable of exact formulation. An art is not a science.
 
#50 · (Edited)
You are well-named, Bulldog! Can a duck take on a dog? Let me try to restate your thought by inverting and expanding it, and tell me if I'm reading too much into it.

"Any musical work, no matter what it consists of, whether a single note or many thousands of notes arranged into an operatic tetralogy, has as much aesthetic excellence, conceptual meaning, and expressive content as any performer can make any listener feel or believe that it has."

"Now just wait a darn minute...!" [voice of Jimmy Stewart]

Still chewing that bone?
 
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