
When conductor and soloist clash, a performance can turn into a contest of wills - tintinnabula
https://theamericanscholar.org/whos-the-boss/#.W1zDZC2ZPmF
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jancsika
Classical music interpretation is awfully anti-intellectual sometimes.

Example:

Tchaikovsky composed a theme for the second movement of his B-flat minor piano
concerto which moves along at a given tempo, then gets repeated in the piano
solo where it is typically played at greater than twice the original speed.

I've never read a serious criticism of that piece on the grounds that the laws
of music dictate that the same unadorned theme cannot possibly hold together
at such disparate tempi. I've also never heard an audience member say, "I
liked it when it was slow, but when it sped up to be twice as fast it wasn't
tasteful," nor, "I liked it when it sped up but it was like molasses at the
beginning of the 2nd mvt." Instead, most people take as gospel the score that
Tchaikovsky wrote and make a good faith effort to make sense of what he wrote.

Why are we willing to do that for dead composers but not for live classical
performers?

Are we to really believe that in the 21st century, with thousands of
profession recordings of Brahms, Beethoven, etc., there is _so little_ leeway
wrt tempo that a performance like Gould's could be unworthy of a good-faith
listen? Especially given how contrapuntal Brahms' writing is...

Here's an even more glaring example: how fast should one play the final
appearance of the main theme in Chopin's Pollonaise-Fantasie Op.61? If you
take it slow you can illuminate the beautiful chorale-like Back-inspired
voicing that Chopin was so fond of, at the expense of the main theme. If you
take it fast enough to let the main lyrical theme ring out, you go too fast
for the listener to hear those same intricate inner voicings. Both are valid
interpretations, and they are mutually exclusive.

How about _one_ professional recording of Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata that
transposes everything up by a minor third so those low blocky voicings don't
sound so muddy on the thick metal strings of a Steinway grand _which did not
exist when Beethoven wrote it_?

Hell, how about _one_ professional recording of Appassionata in F-sharp minor
because, "It makes the fingering in a particularly nasty passage a little
easier that way." Would an audience give it a fair hearing, or would they all
spontaneously develop perfect pitch and suddenly care deeply about 19th
century key associations that they vaguely remember hearing a sentence about
from a music appreciation course 15 years prior?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
"That was strangely specific", but rather illuminating for this layman, thank
you.

~~~
jancsika
I forgot that Gould had two instructive examples:

* Scriabin's _Desir_. Gould uses (I think) four mics: one inside the piano, one near it, one in the 3rd or 4th row, and one in the back of the hall. He plays the piece, then he gets his engineer to cross-fade among those mics to smoothly change the amount of reverberation for each segment of the piece.

* Mozart's Sonatina in C major. Since it was written for beginners, Gould plays it in the style of a beginner. :)

I don't think either are successful, but they are brilliant concepts. I wish
more classical performers would take risks like that.

------
fredley
There's also a third party battling for control sometimes: the leader of the
orchestra - the violinist at the very front of the orchestra, closest to the
conductor (they often walk on separately from the rest of the orchestra - with
the conductor). You can tell how much respect the conductor _actually_
commands over the orchestra by seeing whose lead is followed. If you've ever
been at a vanity performance—where someone essentially pays to conduct a
famous orchestra—you'll often see the first violinist working hard to lead the
orchestra (watch how big their bow gestures are, and where the other musicians
are looking for their leads), and the conductor just waving along.

If you're a newbie to orchestral music (or not), just watch the dynamic
between the first violinist and the conductor. Sometimes it's a battle,
sometimes it's a trusting relationship. It's almost always dramatic.

------
sp332
This reminds me of an incredible bit of satire from P.D.Q. Bach (Peter
Schickele)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vHpeUO5mw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vHpeUO5mw)

------
andbberger
See also:

[https://youtu.be/9Nx09pigZRI](https://youtu.be/9Nx09pigZRI)

------
cityroasted
The recording on Tidal
[https://listen.tidal.com/album/1786058](https://listen.tidal.com/album/1786058)

