In article <db52779e-a4aa-4f8c-86aa-aa06f79fc970n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>Why should any musician listen to previous interpretations? They have
>the score, they have been trained in how to read it, translate it into
>sounds. They have their instrument, and they have their technique and
>imagination. That's all they need.

Obviously something like that has to suffice when one is playing
something for the first time, particularly old music where no one
alive has ever heard it.... That's a world I've been in for a long
time. I can't say as I really like it though: It's simply a
necessary situation for some music, and decades ago, I was pining
for a situation where performers (singers especially) had actually
grown up hearing the music. Now some have, and results are good!
Meanwhile, we have others saying "Of course I've never heard this..."
& their results are tedious. One might get some interesting
iconoclast out of such a scenario, but mostly one just gets mediocre
nothing....

So why should any musician listen to other interpretations? To
learn more about music! Once one has established one's repertory,
sure, maybe there is no more reason to hear others. Why do you
listen to others?

>Have you read Pierre Bourdieu.

Yes. And in fact, much of your discussion seemed to be saying how
much e.g. growing up hearing particular music ends up affecting
someone more deeply than they realize.

On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 6:17:44 PM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:

>
> So why should any musician listen to other interpretations? To
> learn more about music! Once one has established one's repertory,
> sure, maybe there is no more reason to hear others.

I'd like to hear from musicians about this.

In article <31a2c479-dc18-4594-bb1d-ac291793ae66n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>I'd like to hear from musicians about this.

It's probably in part due to the specific influence of the jazz
tradition, but when contemporary improvisors are interviewed, there's
usually substantial discussion of their influences, what they heard
growing up, what they like to listen to now.... It's an ordinary
part of many musical conversations, so I'm not sure what seems
strange to you....

In article <ui3hhg$de3$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>It's probably in part due to the specific influence of the jazz
>tradition, but when contemporary improvisors are interviewed, there's
>usually substantial discussion of their influences, what they heard
>growing up, what they like to listen to now.... It's an ordinary
>part of many musical conversations, so I'm not sure what seems
>strange to you....

BTW, my middle daughter was really pompous about this when she was
a teen -- and I guess I'm only assuming she's softened her views
since.... "I only listen to music I make!" was a typical rejoinder
from her when someone would ask her what she liked.... Well, OK.

On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 3:53:17 PM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 5:06:01 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> > In article <084dea02-214b-47db...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >Every performer, informed or uninformed, ought to come up with
> > >their own approach. Interpretation is an art.
> > Well yes, but that doesn't rule out building more on what others
> > have done, rather than starting from scratch.
> Give me a concrete example. Did Cortot’s pupils build on what Cortot had done when they played Chopin? I don’t hear it. Did anyone build on what Furtwangler did?

I remember comparing the Pearl releases 'Pupils of Clara Schumann' and 'Pupils of Liszt'. The Schumann pupils all sounded almost exactly the same, whereas the Liszt pupils seemed to have nothing in common with each other. It was an interesting contrast as far as what it implied about the respective approaches to pedagogy. Don't you think though that there are absolutely identifiable lineages built on learning the style of a teacher? Like, how else do you get stylistically-distinct 'French pianism' as opposed to 'Russian pianism' for example - is it the weather?

On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 3:31:30 AM UTC+8, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> In article <ui3hhg$de3$1...@hope.eyrie.org>,
> Todd M. McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
>"I only listen to music I make!"

This is so powerful...

On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 1:07:39 PM UTC, cheregi wrote:
> On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 3:53:17 PM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> > On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 5:06:01 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> > > In article <084dea02-214b-47db...@googlegroups.com>,
> > > Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >Every performer, informed or uninformed, ought to come up with
> > > >their own approach. Interpretation is an art.
> > > Well yes, but that doesn't rule out building more on what others
> > > have done, rather than starting from scratch.
> > Give me a concrete example. Did Cortot’s pupils build on what Cortot had done when they played Chopin? I don’t hear it. Did anyone build on what Furtwangler did?
> I remember comparing the Pearl releases 'Pupils of Clara Schumann' and 'Pupils of Liszt'. The Schumann pupils all sounded almost exactly the same, whereas the Liszt pupils seemed to have nothing in common with each other. It was an interesting contrast as far as what it implied about the respective approaches to pedagogy. Don't you think though that there are absolutely identifiable lineages built on learning the style of a teacher? Like, how else do you get stylistically-distinct 'French pianism' as opposed to 'Russian pianism' for example - is it the weather?

I don’t think that teachers necessarily build identifiable images. Leonhardt and Walcha didn’t.

Re French pianism as opposed to Russian pianism, let me ask you something: does Cortot’s touch sound so different from Horowitz’s in their early recordings of the Liszt sonata?

On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 12:56:35 AM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> On Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 1:07:39 PM UTC, cheregi wrote:
> > On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 3:53:17 PM UTC+8, Mandryka wrote:
> > > On Friday, November 3, 2023 at 5:06:01 AM UTC, Todd M. McComb wrote:
> > > > In article <084dea02-214b-47db...@googlegroups.com>,
> > > > Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >Every performer, informed or uninformed, ought to come up with
> > > > >their own approach. Interpretation is an art.
> > > > Well yes, but that doesn't rule out building more on what others
> > > > have done, rather than starting from scratch.
> > > Give me a concrete example. Did Cortot’s pupils build on what Cortot had done when they played Chopin? I don’t hear it. Did anyone build on what Furtwangler did?
> > I remember comparing the Pearl releases 'Pupils of Clara Schumann' and 'Pupils of Liszt'. The Schumann pupils all sounded almost exactly the same, whereas the Liszt pupils seemed to have nothing in common with each other. It was an interesting contrast as far as what it implied about the respective approaches to pedagogy. Don't you think though that there are absolutely identifiable lineages built on learning the style of a teacher? Like, how else do you get stylistically-distinct 'French pianism' as opposed to 'Russian pianism' for example - is it the weather?
> I don’t think that teachers necessarily build identifiable images.. Leonhardt and Walcha didn’t.
>
> Re French pianism as opposed to Russian pianism, let me ask you something: does Cortot’s touch sound so different from Horowitz’s in their early recordings of the Liszt sonata?

Do you mean here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feWKbokuPek and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoQ1WGWrox4 ?

I really would like to be compelled by the idea that 'national style in classical pianism' is an artificially-imposed narrative with no real explanatory power, but I'm not convinced yet. As for Cortot and Horowitz here, I am not such a good listener that with this old audio I can definitively say much about touch, but I can say there are at least a few differences in interpretation (but whether those are at the level of 'national style' is pure speculation). But the differences are much more pronounced if you pick something more canonical, like Chopin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGi7LYzBPoI vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXz8-rQ2hE

So maybe it's possible to argue that the Liszt sonata was new enough at that time, and so widely heard as played by the composer during his lifetime, that the different schools of interpretation had not yet had a chance to diverge all that far..? And then of course ubiquity of audio recordings interrupts the whole process dramatically.

On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 7:56:49 AM UTC+8, cheregi wrote:
> and so widely heard as played by the composer during his lifetime,

Actually I have no idea if this part is true. I just assumed from what I know about Liszt...

In article <77ae519e-f972-492c-bd97-8628662d0df2n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Monday, October 16, 2023 at 10:56:31 PM UTC+1, steve...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Any thoughts about Kit Armstrong's recording of Byrd and Bull
>> on DG?
>If you're interested in piano then try Daniel Ben Pienaar's Byrd
>CD - released this year.

Pienaar's is an idiosyncratic pianism, not really projecting the
resonance of the instrument.... Armstrong has some similarities
in this repertory, as both use quick skittery fingers, sort of
hovering over the keys -- apparetnly an attempt to compensate for
not having the rebound of a harpsichord for the various fast runs.
(And Pienaar has also released a complete Gibbons.) For a more
rounded pianism, as I've mentioned before, Alan Feinberg is probably
the most accomplished in his album of Bull & Byrd for Steinway....

In article <ugk2dc$eka$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>Alamire has released (on "Inventa") a new recording of his _Songs
>of sundrie natures_ (1589). A new reading of the complete _Psalms,
>songs and sonnets_ (1611) seems like a reasonable ask....

I'm still hopeful the latter will appear.

The Byrd year seems to be going out with a whimper, though....
Maybe more will follow.