[DjBobby]

 
Lupu's playing is from a higher plane. Shame he is so unwell.
 

 

 
I thought Yuja's dresses shot her to fame.....
 

 
So, we have a general agreement on that one: Lupu's audio synced over Yuja's legs video?

 

[uchihaitachi]

grimaud's hotter

 

[CanadianMaestro]

 
grimaud's hotter

 
I thought you were into Martha Argerich?

Grimaud: Only if she doesn't smell like the Wolves she's always hanging out with.
 
http://helenegrimaud.com/wolf-conservation-center

 

[uchihaitachi]

   
I thought you were into Martha Argerich?

Grimaud: Only if she doesn't smell like the Wolves she's always hanging out with.
 
http://helenegrimaud.com/wolf-conservation-center

I went to one of her 'french cultural' lectures in london a while back where she lecture on about wolves. (I need to brush up on French, forgot way too much) It was an interesting experience to say the least.
 
Argerich -51 years which would make her the same age as me. I wouldn't mind that

 

 

[CanadianMaestro]

   
 
So, we have a general agreement on that one: Lupu's audio synced over Yuja's legs video?

This thread's really diversifying.

 

[eyeresist]

Rattle: Don't like him with the BPO. He did a pretty good Mahler 3 and 4 with the Birmingham, however.  Rattle apparently did great things for the musicians of the BPO, improving governance for them, etc. Will be interesting to see/hear what he does once he assumes the helm at the LSO.

As for Abbado, I enjoy his late Mahlers with the Vienna, Chicago, and Berlin. That guy gets around. For me though, Abbado remains an enigma, he's not someone I crave or would await with held breath a remastered recording. Strange.

I think I've read that the LSO will be getting a new hall too. That would be nice; they might release a listenable record for a change. I hope Rattle stops trying to make his mark on the Old Masters and broadens his repertoire.

I thought late Abbado was a bit overrated. People talked as though he was already in communion with the afterlife! He did do good stuff. His disc of Prokofiev's Nevsky etc is terrific.


Speaking of Beethoven, how do we feel about the "slow" movement of the 7th symphony? My own feeling is that the allegretto marking was a mistake, but these days such opinions are "incorrect".

 

[RRod]

I think I've read that the LSO will be getting a new hall too. That would be nice; they might release a listenable record for a change. I hope Rattle stops trying to make his mark on the Old Masters and broadens his repertoire.

I thought late Abbado was a bit overrated. People talked as though he was already in communion with the afterlife! He did do good stuff. His disc of Prokofiev's Nevsky etc is terrific.


Speaking of Beethoven, how do we feel about the "slow" movement of the 7th symphony? My own feeling is that the allegretto marking was a mistake, but these days such opinions are "incorrect".

 
It says "Allegretto" in the manuscript, and it works fine as an actual Allegretto. You prefer more an Andante con moto?

 

[eyeresist]

Speaking of Beethoven, how do we feel about the "slow" movement of the 7th symphony? My own feeling is that the allegretto marking was a mistake, but these days such opinions are "incorrect".

It says "Allegretto" in the manuscript, and it works fine as an actual Allegretto. You prefer more an Andante con moto?

[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J12zprD7V1k[/VIDEO]


Just comparing track lengths, the old school conducters used to take it slower than the modern norm: Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch, Schmidt-Isserstedt, Klemperer, Beecham, Krips, Jochum, Fricsay, Kurt Sanderling, Bruno Walter....
_

 

[DjBobby]

Speaking of Beethoven, how do we feel about the "slow" movement of the 7th symphony? My own feeling is that the allegretto marking was a mistake, but these days such opinions are "incorrect".

 

  It says "Allegretto" in the manuscript, and it works fine as an actual Allegretto. You prefer more an Andante con moto?

 

Just comparing track lengths, the old school conducters used to take it slower than the modern norm: Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch, Schmidt-Isserstedt, Klemperer, Beecham, Krips, Jochum, Fricsay, Kurt Sanderling, Bruno Walter....
_

 
If it says Allegretto, so let it be Kleiber's Allegretto 

. Funeral March is reserved only for his Eroica. So, if Beethoven wanted it slower he could have written it.
On the other hand, most of his metronomic markings seem to be quite fast, provoking a flood of popular literature about Beethoven's erratic metronome. In that respect maybe not all of the old recordings are quite "wrong", because some of the old school conductors realized that it would be very difficult to keep his tempos with a massive German orchestras of that time. As it is different to drive Tesla and a big truck, drove them both

.
I think keeping Ludwig's tempo markings generally sounds good to my ears, but not always literary sticking to his metronomic markings. Or as the Vienneses would say: Allegretto with Gemütlichkeit.

 

[CanadianMaestro]

In 1823, Beethoven's assistant, Schindler, asked him "What is a funeral march doing in this symphony (7th)"?  Beethoven's explanation was unusual but cryptic. Only Schindler's response is recorded. "We have to show all this in the complete edition, because nobody would be looking for these things".
 
The possible origin of the Allegretto/7th is interesting. It is rooted in a possible connection between LvB's letter to his "Immortal Beloved" in 1812. This "Immortal Beloved" was probably Josephine von Deym, his pupil from 1805, whom LvB admired and loved for years. They had met in Bohemia in 1812, a meeting that ended in final separation. Is the great love of his life too prosaic a theme for a symphony full of euphoria?  Could Beethoven not have said to Schindler: "The second movement - I loved a woman, and she loved me as well. I anticipated the separation, the pain. That is the second movement. I am always moved when I hear it".
 
 

 

[RRod]

Just comparing track lengths, the old school conducters used to take it slower than the modern norm: Furtwangler, Knappertsbusch, Schmidt-Isserstedt, Klemperer, Beecham, Krips, Jochum, Fricsay, Kurt Sanderling, Bruno Walter....
_

 
That's why they're old school conductors

I've heard this movement taken slower than 60bpm... no way that's anywhere near being considered an Allegretto, unless they're considering the pulse to be the eighth note, but it's marked in 2/4 and even the old school conductors make something of the quarter notes. An actual 100bpm allegretto makes the movement an entirely different beast.

 

[CanadianMaestro]

That's the whole idea behind conducting -  mold the piece to one's tempo preferences. Nothing new there.

 

[RRod]

  That's the whole idea behind conducting -  mold the piece to one's tempo preferences. Nothing new there.

 
Within the bounds of the composer's intentions. I'll grant an Allegretto from as low as 90 up to 120 or so, for max fudge room. I wouldn't grant a 60, which is re-composing, not conducting. Conductors took these tempos because their understanding was "Beethoven was mistaken." Well we're beginning to accept that maybe he wasn't.

 

[uchihaitachi]

These discussions about tempi remind me of richter's schubert Zzzzzzzzzzz........

 

[RRod]

  These discussions about tempi remind me of richter's schubert Zzzzzzzzzzz........

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible
 
Speaking of music that doesn't move, I was moderately pleased by "Become Ocean," having finally given it a dip.