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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: About Timbre and Audio.
Post Subject: I do not think you get me...Posted by Romy the Cat on: 12/10/2019
 rowuk wrote:
In the case of brass players - including Mr. Schlueter, I would maintain that many simply have no interest in historic context for Mahler or Bruckner - or older music. Case and point: a Giovanni Gabrieli recording by the Met brass section. Sure, it is “glorious” playing but completely ignores what we have learned in the last 40 years. It offers nothing over a Gabrielli recording by the Philadelphia, Chicago and Cleveland brass sections from the 1960s. They only played the notes. That is not a function of the media, it is a function of the modern musician not investing in their musical growth. 
In some cases, growth is even blocked by the orchestra. The last trumpet auditions for the New York Philharmonic specified that the audition was to be played only on specific instruments made by the Yamaha or Bach companies. Other manufacturers were simply not allowed. This is a restriction in dynamics and color not found in Europe for instance. .

Rowuk, look at the problem deeper. I was not looking for a sympathy to the sentiments that I express and we both obviously share. The idea that I proposed has a different angle. The people who run the music industry and the orchestras are not idea or who are in the mission to vandalize sound. They in a mission to make money to sell sound, would it be actual performances or recordings. As we, as society “progress”, classical live performances very much compete with other forms of time spending. Today most of classical music listening for a regular Joe is happening over youtube or via recordings. It is know that bad playback techniques (all forms DSP, compressions algorithms and many others) result of complete elimination or great degradation of playback to be less transparent to performing satellites, chromatic complexity and expressive density. As the result the music leader with MBA degrees do not particular feel that the musical intricacy is something that might be monetizeable, thus the demands to play Yamaha pipe only and neglect to musicians desires to go for complex colors. I am not insisting that I am right, is was just a perspective….

 rowuk wrote:
Celibidache is an idiot. He even refused to allow his solo trombonist to play in Munich - because she was not a man. She won the audition from behind a curtain - only the playing was evaluated. I would maintain that he fed his own ego and did not care if the music was comprimised. We are lucky that he had at least a couple of lucid moments. .

Come on, rowuk, you can do better than this. Let separate idiocy individuals from the musical event they produce. Adrian Aeschbacher was not only an idiot but a shit deserved to be hangs but it does not remove the fact that he was the one that give to humanity the most stunning Brahms Second concerto in December 1943. Should I start to talk about Wagner, I do not think that anybody argue that he was horrible human being but I do not think that anybody would argue that he was one of the greatest composers out there. Celibidache in fact much lesser evil.  It is very easy to hate him for numerous ugly interviews he gave, his behavior and yes, his celebrated stupid misogyny. However, he was no less than a product of his time. 100 years back misogyny, and particularly in orchestras, was very dominating tendency and Celibidache was just a product of his time. I can give from a top of my head a name of great of great conductors who were the very identical assholes, you do not need to listen me, just look at the rosters of the orchestras in the past. The guilt of Celibidache that he lived for a long time and was faced with the more contemporary society where women got not only voice, way to advocate their voices and ability to get a sympathy to own cases. The very same Abbie Conant would fight with let say Vienna Philharmonic (who OFFICIALLY do not accept female musicians in 20 century) during the reign of let say Toscanini, Weingartne, Knappertsbusch, Klemperer, Walter, Krauss then the new will not even make the newspapers. I would not be surprises if during the time of Hans Richter would not be permitted in the music halls …  Celibidache for sure is old school musician… 
 
Yes, I admit that when I looking at the face of Gunter Wand connecting Bruckner in 90s I see the most wonderful expression of humility and humanity. At the same time when I look at the face of Celibidache doing the same works then most of the time I want to vomit. Still, this is the biggest mystery of greatness: the content of actions overrides the content of character. Celibidache left very many stunning performances. Listen for instance his Tokyo Oct 1990 Bruckner 7 with Münchner Philharmoniker… 
 
You see the Goethe’s Mephistopheles is not devil, he is trickster, a seducer.  “I am part of that power
which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”  Was Celibidache some sort of musical Mephistopheles? Well, in 2 days after Celibidache and Munich played the 7th I mentioned above they played the 8th. Listen that 8th from Oct 20 and you decide for yourself….

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