In article <8c9897bc-44b8-48c4-ad1c-7d5f0b6b0601n@googlegroups.com>,
Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>Instead, I am all the time conscious of its production, it's
>creation at the piano.

Right.

On Tue, 12 Dec 2023, Todd M. McComb wrote:

> In article <95f943fe-0cb3-4eb2-80e0-1b4dd62bd64bn@googlegroups.com>,
> Mandryka <howie.stone01@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You mean he wants us to never forget that these sounds are being
>> produced by the labour of a human being at a piano?
>
> I believe it is the composer's labor that he is evoking....
>

On the first of these comments, how could a listener not realize that
from *any* performance? As to the second comment, why should a
listener care?
--
Al Eisner

In article <f71b1eab-0842-a0be-a735-7f721abf2e33@slac.stanford.edu>,
Al Eisner <eisner@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>On the first of these comments, how could a listener not realize that
>from *any* performance? As to the second comment, why should a
>listener care?

Well, you don't need to care, but those are the vectors of this
performance. Getting into Beethoven's head? That's facsinating
to some. Does the peformance rwally reach that aspiaration?
Debatable, but that's the impression cultivated.

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 6:36:31 AM UTC, Al Eisner wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Dec 2023, Todd M. McComb wrote:
>
> > In article <95f943fe-0cb3-4eb2...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> You mean he wants us to never forget that these sounds are being
> >> produced by the labour of a human being at a piano?
> >
> > I believe it is the composer's labor that he is evoking....
> >
> On the first of these comments, how could a listener not realize that
> from *any* performance? As to the second comment, why should a
> listener care?
> --
> Al Eisner

You can forget just by getting really absorbed into the flow of the music. In the same way you can forget that you’re watching a play when you get so absorbed in the flow of the drama.

I’ll tell you a true anecdote. Once I saw a performance of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. There’s a moment in the play where it’s one piece of bad news after another for Oedipus. Well I was so caught up in the drama that I actually forgot I was watching a play, phenomenologically it was as if I was watching real events unfold and I was identifying with the characters. When someone came on to tell hi that he’d killed his father, I unreflectively, spontaneously, said out loud “On no!”

In article <ulearl$202$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>In article <f71b1eab-0842-a0be-a735-7f721abf2e33@slac.stanford.edu>,
>Al Eisner <eisner@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>On the first of these comments, how could a listener not realize that
>>from *any* performance? As to the second comment, why should a
>>listener care?
>Well, you don't need to care, but those are the vectors of this
>performance. Getting into Beethoven's head? That's facsinating
>to some. Does the peformance rwally reach that aspiaration?
>Debatable, but that's the impression cultivated.

I need to stop writing these on my phone. Sigh.

On Thu, 14 Dec 2023, Mandryka wrote:

> On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 6:36:31 AM UTC, Al Eisner wrote:
>> On Tue, 12 Dec 2023, Todd M. McComb wrote:
>>
>>> In article <95f943fe-0cb3-4eb2...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Mandryka <howie....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> You mean he wants us to never forget that these sounds are being
>>>> produced by the labour of a human being at a piano?
>>>
>>> I believe it is the composer's labor that he is evoking....
>>>
>> On the first of these comments, how could a listener not realize that
>> from *any* performance? As to the second comment, why should a
>> listener care?
>> --
>> Al Eisner
>
> You can forget just by getting really absorbed into the flow of the music. In the same way you can forget that you’re watching a play when you get so absorbed in the flow of the drama.
>
> I’ll tell you a true anecdote. Once I saw a performance of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. There’s a moment in the play where it’s one piece of bad news after another for Oedipus. Well I was so caught up in the drama that I actually forgot I was watching a play, phenomenologically it was as if I was watching real events unfold and I was identifying with the characters. When someone came on to tell hi that he’d killed his father, I unreflectively, spontaneously, said out loud “On no!”

I can understand this for a play, but I don't think the analogy is a good
one. In a piano performance, one is already hearing an actual piano, as
perhaps filtered by the recorded sound. (Okay, I'm omitting things like
sound synthesized to resemble a piano, but I'm sure that's not what you
meant.) Are you hearing some Platonic ideal of played music? I'm afraid
we will have to disagree on this.
--
Al Eisner

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 2:54:53 AM UTC-8, Mandryka wrote:
>
> You can forget just by getting really absorbed into the flow of the music..

There is no "flow" in the Bludgeoned Keyboard "sonata",
and most certainly not in Afanassiev's reading of it.

Cheers

On Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 5:42:16 AM UTC-8, Marc S wrote:
> Sonata sped up to 138:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edEdJiB17Dk
>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYT67nV76M

Cheers

This thread made me revisit Celibidache's Beethoven and also Mozart (of his Mozart recordings I only ever liked his interpretation of 550) - and honestly, screw Celibidache; even his Brahms. There were always things that put me quite off in his interpretations... Sure he does some things very nicely, but ultimately his style just isn't for me, just got caught up too much with the sound he was able to get out of the orchestra (apart for some things he did interestingly and very different from most others I heard, and the singing is mostly very beautiful in his recordings) - thing is, it is just too round and soft for my taste in the end.

So for Beethoven Symphonies it's Mengelberg, Karajan and maybe also some Fricsay (especially 1 and 8) for me.

Marc S schrieb am Samstag, 16. Dezember 2023 um 19:55:10 UTC+1:
> This thread made me revisit Celibidache's Beethoven and also Mozart (of his Mozart recordings I only ever liked his interpretation of 550) - and honestly, screw Celibidache; even his Brahms. There were always things that put me quite off in his interpretations... Sure he does some things very nicely, but ultimately his style just isn't for me, just got caught up too much with the sound he was able to get out of the orchestra (apart for some things he did interestingly and very different from most others I heard, and the singing is mostly very beautiful in his recordings) - thing is, it is just too round and soft for my taste in the end.
>
> So for Beethoven Symphonies it's Mengelberg, Karajan and maybe also some Fricsay (especially 1 and 8) for me.

Oh and Klemperer for the slow movement of the 9th (and probably also the 1st and last - would have to relisten) -- still undecided whether I like the Testament or EMI/Warner more (would have to relisten).

On Sunday, December 10, 2023 at 1:56:31 PM UTC-8, Dan Koren wrote:
> On Sunday, December 10, 2023 at 10:15:02 AM UTC-8, Mandryka wrote:
> > https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/beethoven-hammerklavier-sonata-valery-afanassiev/d9wj4lp5yasha
> >
> > Slow (of course) in the first movement,
> > and full of ideas about phrasing.
> Like many (most?) Afanassiev recent
> performances, this one is hesitating,
> ponderous, ruminative, and completely
> ineffective as a performance. It sounds
> like his main purpose is to show how
> deeply he is thinking about the music.
> rather than to move his audience.
>
> Like many (most?) recommendations
> you make this one is totally bonkers.
>
> Piano performance is a performing art,
> not an exercise in collecting "ideas".
>
> Listen to this:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2f-sOK0MmJKIFosoajyv_UckqJQ4ldrD
>
> Cheers

No "ideas" in music?

But what if the first movement is about the Ego and its fundamental impulse to assert power and control?

What if the Ego, thanks to its meticulous and proud discipline, sees itself in the mirror?

What if it proceeds to doubts and self-deconstruction..?

What if it, after many phases of struggle...

(skipping to the Fugue)

....it turns finally to pure Logic for ultimate resolution?

But then Logic implodes..

....too conflictual and lacks heart...

And it is ridden with self-generated contraries --

But there's no escaping Logic.

Thus the Logos reconstitutes itself at a higher order.

It sheds egoistic conflict, appears as Ethereal Vibrations...

...which reconstitute the universal desideratum of Progress.

Hand over Hand this newly restored Progress strives with Herculean strength....

And reaches the Apex.

The Hammerklavier ends.

Dominant-Tonic.

Just imagine if that "idea" could be expressed in music.

Wouldn't that be amazing?