I have some folders with recordings grouped purely on the merit of conducting, but they contain only pieces I like in the first place.

 

It's all about the music. A great performer can add something special, open our ears to things we hadn't heard before, but it all comes down to the music - that's always foremost. I've collected thousands of cds over the years of obscure, and wonderful, music performed by lesser orchestras and conductors simply because no major orchestra or maestro will take it up. And that's ok with me. The performances are usually good enough.

Now, when a major group does take on something unusual, the results can be electrifying. Take Furtwangler's 2nd symphony. A long, seemingly dull, turgid slog. It's been recorded a number of time, even by Wilhelm. It was interesting but that's about it. Nothing special to hear. Then along comes Barenboim with Chicago - it was a revelation! It was exciting, cogent and wonderful. But this happens all too rarely. I still hope that some big time orchestra and conductor (there aren't many of those left) will make first class recordings of the Amy Beach symphony, the two Kalinnikov symphonies, and a whole lot more.

There are a lot of people who will go hear a concert just because of the performer. The Star System. I hate it, but it happens and I must confess I do it from time to time, too. I guess I can't blame them. I'd rather hear a third class orchestra play the Balakirev first symphony over a first class band do any Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or even Mahler. It's all about the music.

 

Both for me. Sometimes I don't even like a work, but the performance makes it all worth hearing. Sometimes I like a certain work, but I don't feel any performance captures what I think is there.

 

A spectacularly good performance of a not so great piece can make it sound worthwhile once or twice or even three times, but eventually intrinsic quality will out. On the other hand, I've always been capable of listening around a flawed performance of a great work. I don't always enjoy it, but I'm at least able to appreciate the work's merits.

 

I'm very much thinking about this question right now because I'm exploring Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff. Both these composers tried to create scores which would force performers to give more of themselves.

Here's an interpretation of Cardew's Autumn 60



The score consists if 16 sections which look like this

Each musician composes a piece which fits the two bars with their time signature. He has to observe all but two of the other indications.

Why did Cardew do this? Simples. He wanted to get the musicians to engage more thoroughly with the music they were creating together.

The first performance in Cambridge was the occasion of a huge altercation between Cardew (conducting) and the instrumentalists -- he accused them of entering superficially into the spirit of the score because they composed sections which sounded like conventional classical music. They weren't avant garde enough.

Clearly there are elements of this type of thinking in some pieces by Cage, Stockhausen and Feldman also.

 

What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real? And, interpreting a score brings up issues of difference and change so much so that every performance of a written score will be different from every other one. Recording certainly solidifies a performance, but is that really what the music is if what is there on the recording differs from what is there on another recording or in the next live performance of the piece? Though the "music" of the score doesn't change, the "music" of the various performances will be various. So what are we left with?

In some sense we can only cherish a work of music by way of its performance, which can render it pleasing or non-pleasing, invigorating or discouraging, lovely or ugly …. Yet, I grimace at that very remark having spent time studying Bach scores on the page and appreciating the wonders and beauties of intervals, harmonies, and technical nuances of compositional construction -- all without ever actually hearing a performance (outside of what I hear in my head). Too, I know I can be deeply moved by staring at notes on a score page, as I can be deeply moved by the sounds flowing from a symphony orchestra, an instrumental soloist, or from my stereo speakers.

If I do hear a piece of music in my head, is that real? I can imagine unicorns and purple spacemen, too.

I have thousands of records and CDs. (Yes, I'm one of those folks -- but you all know that already!) Do I possess these discs as music? In other words, can I hold Beethoven's nine symphonies in my hand, or is the music only rendered when the needle is set to the groove or the machine translates 0s and 1s into sound waves?

What exactly music is boggles me enough that the initial question of this thread seems distant. I often wonder what exactly I am hearing when I experience, say, the Mahler 2nd. I can only ever hear a single moment of the music, so how is it that I somehow comprehend this giant work as a unit? If my memory completely collapses, will my appreciation of music end with it? Does hearing a musical work as a unit depend on memory at all? How is it that I can comprehend a theme when I can only ever hear the slightest, smallest moment of it at any given time? At least when I looking at the score I can take the piece in as I would a painting or sculpture -- in a kind of "single vision".

This is all mysterious to me. Which perhaps explains why I continue on exploring music. I've always loved a good mystery.

 

What a piece of (classical) music is remains a problematical consideration. Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real?

Music exists in score, but the score is only a way of conveying ideas precisely to a player or group; it is basically a "recording" of a musical idea, but in abstract form, not actual sound.

By contrast, since the advent of recording technology, we can now "record" musical ideas which are also exact reproductions of performances. We have it all.

Recording has shifted the bias of "score/idea" and "performance" in favor of performance. Thus, music is becoming more ear-oriented, rather than score/idea oriented.

Thus, the "idea" of a work in score is becoming increasingly outmoded as a criteria, since we have recording. "Score" is becoming increasingly specific to the musical "ideas" of a work. I doubt that many listeners choose music on the basis of "abstract" ideas, except in the most general way, or to prove how smart they are.

 

Regarding performance:

Why are there so many ways to perform the same piece of music? What is interpretation?

 

Some pieces respond well to a wide variety of interpretations and some don't. It is the composition that makes the difference. And compositions come first for me. I don't mean everything has to be a great towering masterpiece - just that it has to be what I experience as a successful and worthwhile work. It can be light and fun or big and deep, good music or great music. Then comes the performance, the interpretation. The more I get to know a work the more demanding I become. And some works are just not worthwhile unless they are played well. With works that are rarely played or recorded and that I do not like very much I do often wonder if my lukewarm response is down to a poor performance and how much is the composition.

 

Only with Beethoven, I'm VERY severe with the performance with Piano Sonatas, Symphonies and Piano Concertos. And this happens, because the compositions are of the highest possible level and, with our performances, we MUST meet these enormous composer's expectations. With Bach, I have also the same opinion. With other composers, as you have written, I look first at the composition (is it good, or it isn't) and after the performance. As I have written there is no performance I didn't like it with works of Faure or Franck, because of their wonderful music masterpieces. Also with my Master, with the exception of B Sonata, I'm not very severe with the performances. It is OK to have RESPECT for the score. I firmly believe that no performance can save a bad music score.

 

There's a model of music which I sometimes think underlies people's thinking, it goes like this.

1. The composer has a conception in his head about what a piece of music sounds like, an aural vision.

2. He tries to write this aural vision down in a score.

3. When the performer plays it's his job to recreate the composer's aural vision into real sound.

So basically what we have is a concept of musical work as a set of rails, a framework, which the performer has to follow. And the performer's job is essentially one of decoding.

I don't say this is a good or bad model yet, I just want to articulate it correctly first.

 

There's a model of music which I sometimes think underlies people's thinking, it goes like this....basically what we have is a concept of musical work as a set of rails, a framework, which the performer has to follow. And the performer's job is essentially one of decoding...I don't say this is a good or bad model yet, I just want to articulate it correctly first.

What the composer puts in the score are simple musical elements: pitch, rhythm, and some vague dynamics. There is so much more to music as a "living thing" (an embodiment and expression of 'being.'

Performance can have a significant impact on a composition both positive and negative. However I don't think any performance however good can make a poor composition great.

I do. Music I would normally not have any interest in can be made palatable by the player, including music I'm presently engaged with, such as the piano music of Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909). In fact, I see the larger part of being a "classical" music listener as being concerned with this very point.

Remember how the mundane Goldbergs were suddenly illuminated by Glenn Gould in the 1960's? This poses a question:
If an "Inherently great" tree fell over in the woods with nobody around, would anybody recognize its inherent greatness?

 

No doubt at all it has got to be performance, each interpretation adds or subtracts from the composition.

 

So, a poor piece of music can be made great by a performer?

 

Perhaps I am being too romantic but I feel many performers try to get under the skin of a piece, to bring it to convincing life. And perhaps for better known pieces they might even seek something new and individual (to them). Even composers who also play or conduct are often not noted for performing their own music as written.

 

Performance can have a significant impact on a composition both positive and negative. However I don’t think any performance however good can make a poor composition great.
So for me it’s the composition that is more important, given the proviso that there is at least one good performance out there for me to hear

 

One has to hear and/or know music to know if they like it. I've heard many great performance of music I don't like; none of them are with me any longer. Some of that music I liked at first but not in the long run. So I'd have to say it's the music that makes the difference, not the performance.

 

But how can you tell which is which? Maybe all the performances you rejected are because they were poor performances, and the music you kept is because it is a good performance.
If you "liked it at first but not in the long run," aren't you really refining your selection of performances? The "work itself" is a vague notion, but aren't you "refining" the performances to an ideal one which reflects the work?

 

Here's a comment Feldman made in three performances of Triadic Memories, it's obvious that he has no fixed conception of what the music should sound like. It's in Goodbye to Eighth Street. And this is Feldman, who was writing pretty conservative music at that time - I mean, the notation is the usual notation.

David Tudor: amazing reflexes,
focused on just one mosaic at a time,
a nondirectional approach of equal
intensity and clarity, regardless of what
was being played, an accumulative
effect of time being frozen.

Roger Woodward: more traditional,
which also means more unpredictable in
how he shapes and paces. I would call it
a prose style. Where Tudor focused on
a moment, Woodward would find the
quintessential touch of the work, hold
on to it and then as in one giant breath,
articulate the music's overall scale. Like
Tudor, Woodward played everything as
primary material. He is a long-distance runner. Tudor jumps high over the bar.
Where Tudor isolates the moment, by
not being influenced by what we might
consider a composition's cause and
effect, and Woodward finds the right
tone that savours the moment and
extends it.

Aki Takahashi is very different.
Takahashi appears to be absolutely still.
Undisturbed, unperturbed, as if in a
concentrated prayer. Kafka writes about
approaching his work as if in a state of
prayer….The effect of her playing to me
is that I feel privileged to be invited to a
very religious ritual

 

I liken it to ice cream. The different pieces are different flavors, and you either like them or not at some basic level. If you ask 100 chefs to make chocolate ice cream, you will get 100 different executions of it. Some will be subtly different, and others will have major differences. Some may even put sprinkles on top! That is the performance quality.

 

Still don’t think greatness can be made from mediocre ingredients
Adages spring to mind about silk purses and sows ears etc

 

There are a few exceptions, but I am a firm believer in the idea that a transcendental performance is the key to really understanding and loving a piece of music. I never cared much for Beethoven's 9th until I heard Furtwangler/Bayreuth. To this day it remains my favorite recording of anything. Ditto for Bruckner and Gunter Wand (even though I've since explored other, better performances), Szell's Mozart symphonies, Gieseking's Debussy, etc. With the case of lesser-known music that is perhaps of less quality than the core repertoire, we simply haven't had the requisite amount of performances to really bring such music to life. When I've listened to, say, the symphonies of Berwald and Raff on Naxos; I've wondered if we had a Bernstein, Barbirolli, or Furtwangler to conduct them, how much more convincing they would be. I recently listened to Joshua Weilerstein's Sticky Notes Podcast (an absolutely amazing podcast BTW) on Florence Price's 1st Symphony, and he spoke about the significance of "inventing" performance traditions for music that is out of the repertoire. I think that's a very important thing to consider.

 

In this forum I'd rather read the music than listen to a recording . Attending a live-event , I prefer to engage with performance musicians over conversing with a composer . Hmm , perhaps I've taken the question oddly .

 

I am an artist with no regard to consumerism . That's it . I will ignore the Cultural Ambassador from France who notes I am a great one in my city . I'm at this meeting for the free food .

 

A person who declares "the work itself" in the abstract sans performance is going by theoretical music theory knowledge, as well as having a good ear and ability to recognize such structures by ear as well. A non-trained person, if they have a good ear, can do this aurally as well, using intuition instead of academic training.

But this is possible only with harmonic progressions and melodies which lie within the parameters of "recognizable music." It would get more difficult as we get into more modern music.

 

Performance is just the variance in composition from where the composer left off; a conductor's additions. It's no doubt that composition is way more important. Kind of a no-brainer.

 

Elgars Cello con by du Pre is the one that I consider the best that I have heard, compare this with a performance by the average Cello from a provincial orch and the difference would be obvious to most people so it is a matter of interpretation by the performer not just a '"variance'' in composition. Agreed that it would not be possible without the composers work is obvious. :tiphat:

 

You've missed the main point of my post, which was: The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music. What you've written ^ ^ ^ is irrelevant to my point and just obfuscates simple issues. The score/script versus a musical or dramatic performance is Aesthetics 101.

 

Well, maybe I did miss your point, because you're right, the performance IS the music, and the score is just instructions.

The point I question is how value judgements about a work can be made unless there is a performance to go by. I have doubts about how credibly this could be done "abstractly" by saying something is "a great work" apart from any performance, which is the impression many here seem to be under, with statements like:

"I have some folders with recordings grouped purely on the merit of conducting, but they contain only pieces I like in the first place."

"It's all about the music. A great performer can add something special, open our ears to things we hadn't heard before, but it all comes down to the music - that's always foremost."

Don't statements like this seem to contradict what you are saying, Edward, that the "performance is the music?" They are speaking as if "music" was somehow removed from performance. There's more:

"I've always been capable of listening around a flawed performance of a great work. I don't always enjoy it, but I'm at least able to appreciate the work's merits."

"Does the "music" exist as the score written by the composer? Or, is music rather something that must be heard to be real?"

"It is the composition that makes the difference. And compositions come first for me...it has to be what I experience as a successful and worthwhile work. It can be light and fun or big and deep, good music or great music. Then comes the performance, the interpretation."

What are all these people talking about, Edward? You yourself said "The score is a set of directions for creating music, the performance is the music."

 

I think a good example of how a performance makes or breaks a piece can be found here in Scriabin's Etude Op. 8 No. 5, one of my favorite etudes for piano:

Listen in this order
Magaloff:

Richter:

If I had never heard Richter's wonderful interpretation I would have never even liked the piece...

 

A quotation from Feldman which I just remembered -- he said that there's an old saying "man makes plans, God laughs" but what's the case is that the composer makes plans and music laughs.

 

Concerning the nature of Beethoven's "idea" scores after his hearing had failed, and how this impacts the question of 'performance vs. composition.'

The differences between 'music one imagines in one's head' and an actual performance should be obvious on one level. The 'music in your head' is not actual sound, of course. It's based on memory, as anyone who has experienced 'earworms' knows. How precise is memory? It's not as precise or complete as an experience of actual sound.

Since memory is based on experience, we can assume that Beethoven had heard many performances of music, had written lots of scores, was thoroughly familiar with, and had mastered the Classical tonal music he was immersed in.

So it's no great wonder that Beethoven was able to write scores in his familiar musical syntax while deaf. It's not much different than someone who knows their spoken language, an is able to write it down, even if deaf.

Yes, these scores are 'musical ideas' insofar as they convey instructions; the degree to which he was familiar with the language of music in score form is what made these scores as 'musical' as they are, even before performance.

So in this sense music can be said to have a dimension of 'idea' associated with it; but this is not equal to, or as precise, or useful except as a guide to writing it as instructions, as an actual performance would be. Let's not forget that the 'idea' of music depends entirely on memory.

In this sense, the musical process is not so different than spoken and written language, in which music has no one-to-one meanings such as "chair," but does have one-to-one correspondences between written notes and pitches.

So this brings us to the next question: what is 'musical meaning,' and why does this always emerge when John Cage's music comes up?

This must mean that the "musical meaning" that many Classical/tonal music lovers demand and define as "music" is music of a certain kind, mainly tonal. And this requires that the music use a certain syntax, and that this music conforms to a particular kind of "musical meaning" which we call "idea."

Thus, the dichotomy between "the idea of music" and "sound itself as music" are become congruent and meaningful if the "idea" is of a certain kind and uses a certain syntax.

We can see from this state of affairs that "music" as most people think of it is dependent for meaning on an "idea"of what music "is" by their definition. This seems like an "idea waiting to be exploded" to me.