Apropo numerous performing-related threads...

[Dalibor]

I noticed there is alot talk here about performances of this and that work. Don't you think that it is mostly due to the fact that there was no recording technology in old days? If composers had those devices they could record their's music exactly as they wanted it to sound and I suppose much of the todays "phylosophy" about performances would not exist at all.

I myself am much more interested in different versions (revisions) of works than in interpretations. Unfortunately, I think that conductors/performers (and composers) were never more conservative in viewing old music than these days. Works are usually perfermed with very little, if any adaptations. And when eventualy there is an adaptation, it is ussualy lousy and superficial.

[Ralph]

I wouldn't assume that a composer would necessarily settle once and for all time for an urtext reading of a work. Composers have often remarked how hearing one performance particularly pleased them over another but that always opens the possibility of still further interpretation.

And composers generally are poor conductors of their own works.

[Gary]

I wouldn't assume that a composer would necessarily settle once and for all time for an urtext reading of a work. Composers have often remarked how hearing one performance particularly pleased them over another but that always opens the possibility of still further interpretation.

And composers generally are poor conductors of their own works.

So true. However, Mahler and R. Strauss were both great conductors (of their day) and composers. Then you have Stravinsky who remarked that neither Boulez's nor Karajan's recording of The Rite was good enough to be preserved.

[Corlyss_D]

I noticed there is alot talk here about performances of this and that work. Don't you think that it is mostly due to the fact that there was no recording technology in old days? If composers had those devices they could record their's music exactly as they wanted it to sound and I suppose much of the todays "phylosophy" about performances would not exist at all.

I doubt that would settle it either. Composers in the recorded sound era are subjected to a variety of interpretive performances. Everytime there's a metronome marking 78-92, you can bet someone will perform it at 78 and another will perform it at 92. It just doesn't compute that knowing exactly how the composer would have performed it would settle the issue.

I myself am much more interested in different versions (revisions) of works than in interpretations. Unfortunately, I think that conductors/performers (and composers) were never more conservative in viewing old music than these days. Works are usually perfermed with very little, if any adaptations. And when eventualy there is an adaptation, it is ussualy lousy and superficial.

Can I interest you in some early music? Some Susato, perhaps, or Pretorius? How about some Anon.? The EM field teems with as many different performing editions as there are groups performing. Who hasn't heard 20 different performing editions of Estampita and the ever popular Lamento de Tristano?

Pssst! I think you dropped your ess!