On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 09:15:34 -0000, Mark McNeill
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Get with the programme, Ed. If you want to hear Bach as Bach heard it
himself then a harpsichord or an organ is the instrument of choice.
Quoted message said:It's a complex issue, I know, but Bach's approval of the fortepianos he
tried, and his description of keyboard pieces as just that - pieces for
keyboard - give a fair amount of leeway for what is right and proper for
performances of Bach's keyboard works. I was persuaded of some of the
merits of Bach on the piano by Glenn Gould's two publicly released
recordings of the Goldberg Variations; if you haven't heard Murray
Perahia's recording of the same piece, you're missing a most
extraordinary treat.
I think I said elsewhere, I prefer the Perahia recording to the Gould,
although I couldn't say why. Possibly Perahia is more lyrical, I
don't know.
Quoted message said:<Devil's advocate> But all this begs the question, why on earth should we
want to hear Bach as Bach heard it?
That was a response to Ed's assertion that live music is less pure
than studio recordings. I have no particular preference either way -
well, maybe a slight preference in that I actually like the sound of
the harpsichord, but I like piano music as well. Listen to Goldberg
(played on the piano) back to back with Chopin and Ed's assertions
regarding the unimportance of influences are shown up for the
falsehood they truly are.
Quoted message said:Historical accuracy in performance
is not an aesthetic virtue; I'd submit it has nothing to do with
aesthetics at all (as witness so many scratchily worthy recordings by
e.g. Heinrich Goebel and his Cologne bunch). Research may illuminate all
sorts of details of score or performance; but that doesn't mean that the
one-to-a-part performances by Rifkin, say, or Jeggsie's sewing-machine
tempi, are intrinsically *better* - in any sense other than drily
historical - than Karajan's big-band approach. </Devil's advocate>
I think you might be arguing with the wrong person here - Ed is the
one saying that some versions of the classics are intrinsically more
worthy than others. I have several different versions of a number of
pieces, each interpreted slightly differently. I like the scholarly
approach of the Academy of Ancient Music, and I like the balls-out
Karajan style too.
Quoted message said:Wildly OT, I know, but does anybody know of a newsgroup for recumbent
bikes & trikes?
I think there might be one at rec.music.classical but ICBW :-)
Guy
--
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