Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Tue, Dec 7 2010, 5:35PM
I have just read the article on the site regarding the renewal by Chailly of his contract with Decca. They are contemplating Brahms and Beethoven cycles. Can someone enlighten me as to why we need more Brahms and Beethoven cycles. There is already an overabundance of such cycles. Why do we need more of the same?
Tue, Dec 7 2010, 7:51PM
#2
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Is it the profit motive that keeps recording companies producing more of the core repertoire? Or is the arrogance of conductors wanting to leave their mark?
Tue, Dec 7 2010, 11:01PM
#3
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Is it the profit motive that keeps recording companies producing more of the core repertoire? Or is the arrogance of conductors wanting to leave their mark?
I think that's something of a false dichotomy.
Perhaps companies keep recording the core repertoire because people like it?
Or conductors want to record it because there's genuinely something new to say about it?
And I'm not sure why a conductor's desire to 'leave a mark' need necessarily be born of 'arrogance'.
Tue, Dec 7 2010, 11:37PM
#4
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
For me the question is not "why" but "why not" :)
I guess the reason for recording another set is the same as the reason why people listen to classical music over and over again. Even though the composers passed away and can't create anything new, we still listen to their work.
In my opinion in music there is no definitive interpretation. There is pursuit of excellence.
Wed, Dec 8 2010, 12:00AM
#5
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
I am not convinced that people would not like to listen to more Hindemith or more Messiaen for example if given the opportunity. Perhaps, people buy and like the core repertoire because it what is marketed to them as you mentioned in your first reply. Or still yet, because they like the packaging of that shiny new disc or box set. Or just to try yet another rendition. It is difficult to find anything but core repertoire at the record stores that still exist. In fact, you have to go out of your way to find recordings that are not core repertoire. Flooding the market with the same recordings over and over again simply makes them lose their cultural and artistic value. There are many so-called orphan works that are waiting in the wings to get a listening. The major labels like Decca should shift their focus. Upstarts like ECM are already doing it.
As for the claim of arrogance, I stand by it. Conductors take themselves so seriously intellectually that they feel they need to leave a legacy.
Wed, Dec 8 2010, 12:09AM
#6
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
I wouldn't go as far as saying that there is nothing new under the sky, but basically an entire of generation of conductors have played the same thing, the same way, for years. One gets to the point of thinking "been there, done that." I am not trying to be a smart ass, let alone claim to be jaded. I do agree with you that there is "no definitive interpretation" and that there is "pursuit of excellence." However, think about it. How many ways can you play that adagio for the umpteenth time. Of course, it comes out different every single time but there are only so many ways you can play it. There are only so many notches on the metronome before it becomes an andante. Are we to believe that music can recombine in a myriad of ways just like the human genome? I am far from convinced.
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 12:53AM
#7
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
I am not convinced that people would not like to listen to more Hindemith or more Messiaen for example if given the opportunity.
Perhaps Hindemith and Messiaen aren't as worth listening to as Brahms and Beethoven?
(Deliberately provocative, incidentally - I like Messiaen a lot.)
It is difficult to find anything but core repertoire at the record stores that still exist.
That's something of a different (if, perhaps, related) matter.
Physical stores are being rapidly supplanted by online ones. If the ones that remain are to stay in business they have to sell things, and it's obviously the core repertoire that sells.
Shelves of Holmboe, Schnittke, Xenakis and Klami might excite aficionados, but they're not going to provide a living for the shop owner.
Even good Second Division - I suppose that should now be Championship - composers don't sell in any great volume.
The good news though, is that online sales - and especially downloadable content - means that less well-known composers can be better served*, since it's easier and cheaper to make digital file copies of archive & previously deleted catalogue recordings available than it is to make, distribute and stock physical media. (That's only part of the process though - it doesn't make copyright any less of a potential barrier to making such content available.)
* it doesn't, of course, mean they actually will be.
Flooding the market with the same recordings over and over again simply makes them lose their cultural and artistic value.
On what do you base this assertion? How are you measuring 'cultural and artistic value'?
If the number of recordings of a work is a correlative of its cultural value, then the opposite would actually seem to be the case.
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 12:02AM
#8
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
I asked the same question in my head - as only a few weeks ago when
DG/Decca signed Barenboim a new complete Beethoven cycle was announced
as well.
The first answer I came up with was simply the existence of loyal fans.
Imagine classical music fan Tom is a fan of Chailly (or Barenboim etc.) from his other recordings. Tom also likes the Beethoven symphonies.
Chances are Tom will buy it under heavy major-label promotion, or get one or more copies from his friends
for birthday or Christmas.
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 11:34AM
#9
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
This is an interesting discussion unfolding here. I have often thought over the years that there is too much of the safe canonical repertoire being put out again and again. Of course it is for commercial reasons. But we must be thankful that some labels - e.g. naxos and hyperion and ECM are 'plugging the gaps'. There is a superb recording of Frank Martin's 'Polyptique' for violin and two string orchestras which came out about a couple of years ago on ECM. A much under-rated composer in my opinion.Even Chandos recently put out a CD of Dallapiccola orchestral works which is likewise excellent (and receieved a cracking review in Gramophone magazine at the time). As far as the canon goes, I get fed up of conservatism even at the Proms - for example the same Sibelius symphonies being performed. Have you noticed that it is always 2 and 5, sometimes 1 and 4 which get played? Hardly ever 3 and 6 which are great works. Occasionally we get the magnificent seventh. I suppose we all have our favourite Beethoven - I still like Klemperer with the Philharmonia from round about 1960 I think. Astonishing tempi!
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 3:35PM
#10
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Incidentally, I forgot to add: I agree with Parisboy - too many recordings flooding the market of the same works does devalue the esteem which we hold them in. We end up thinking 'oh no not another set of the same old same old'. Music should never lose the 'shock of the new'. Over-familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt!
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 3:35PM
#11
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Incidentally, I forgot to add: I agree with Parisboy - too many recordings flooding the market of the same works does devalue the esteem which we hold them in. We end up thinking 'oh no not another set of the same old same old'. Music should never lose the 'shock of the new'. Over-familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt!
Thu, Dec 9 2010, 7:28PM
#12
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
People who have been listening to music for years probably don't need one.
But I know when I started listening in the 1970s, I tended to go for recent recordings, on the grounds that they were likely to be better recorded (not, I know, necessarily so!).
Unless people get talked into 'ancestor worship' ('I say, old boy, you really MUST hear the Furtwangler....') I'd say it's quite natural to want to hear a contemporary recording.
Which, of course, suits the recording industry.
Still, I tend to make a beeline for labels like Chandos, Hyperion, Naxos etc who devote a substantial proportion of releases to less well trod trails.
Fri, Dec 10 2010, 1:50AM
#13
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Furtwangler! Gawd strewth I wouldn't give that young upstart the time of day!
Your comment made me chuckle. (Lark Ascending). Perhaps I am guilty of 'ancestor worship' mentioning Klemperer. And I am only a mere 40 something who started like you listening in the 70's.
I agree that a lot of us probably want recent recordings - I have just asked for a recommendation of Sibelius sixth!
However, I do think that the argument between artistic ethics if you like and commercial interests is a valid one!
Fri, Dec 10 2010, 6:07PM
#14
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
There are all sorts of reasons for choosing to listen to older recordings, partsong. They might have been contemporary when we first started listening and thus tend to fix the way we hear things (I'm like that with Boult on RVW and Elgar, Barbirolli in Delius, Kubelik with Mahler and Kempe with Strauss). And there are some people so absorbed in classical music that they really do listen to 20 versions and emerge with preferences based on careful listening from an earlier era. I suspect it can be as fascinating exploring classical recordings from the 20s and 30s (or 40s and 50s) as it can be exploring the jazz of that era. But is it inevitably so much better that new recordings will fall its shadow?
I think there's a bit of game playing going on too - gaining kudos by expressing a preference for Horowitz or Gould or the Busch Quartet (their renditions are inevitably 'sublime'). Can come across like 'learnt responses' - I'm a classical buff so I must reference the 'classic' recordings. It just adds to the fuddy-duddy way classical music can appear on the outside. Which I find just as tiresome as a violinist with spikey green hair or a cellist in a bikini launched as the next big thing.
Sat, Dec 11 2010, 6:41PM
#15
RE: Why do we need another Brahms and/or Beethoven cycle?
Uhm...How am I measuring artistic and cultural value? The value is strictly the value that the we/I assign to them. For example, the value that society as a whole assigns to a given work is a function of the listening pleasure we/I procure from listening to the works. Value is also a function of an accepted benchmark for example the achievements that other composers have reached before a certain composer made his/her mark on the classical music world. Could Mozart serve as a benchmark for Beethoven? I suppose that when I made the assertion that flooding the market with the same works devalues them was made based on economic reasons. For example, when a company issues too many shares it diminishes the value of the initial shares. They are worth less. Another example is when products that were initially rare go mass market. That makes the products less expensive but also less desirable since they become easily accessible and therefore easily disposable.
An interesting question. (And not dissimilar to ones about the general 'conservatism' of concert programming.)
It's unlikely that Decca would go the expense of recording more Brahms and Beethoven cycles if they didn't think people would buy them.
This, of course, raises a whole host of issues - do companies record what the public wants? Or does the public buy what is marketed to them? True, people can only buy what's available - but they can exercise discretion and not buy things, in which case companies might change their minds about what to record in the future.
It's also unlikely that Chailly would want to spend time recording them if he didn't feel he'd got something new to say. (Although not impossible, obviously - maybe Decca are paying him such a huge amount to record them that he'd be daft to turn it down?)
But I do agree with your general point - there's clearly a sufficiency of recordings of Brahms, Beethoven and various other 'canonical' composers. I just counted around 100 complete Beethoven cycles after just a quick search for them. Who really needs another one? (A largely rhetorical question, of course.)
But that said, I know at least one person who'll buy a new Brahms cycle - a friend who currently has "into the hundreds" of recordings of Brahms symphonies. (Then again, he is planning on writing a book about them, so I suppose he has a good reason :-)
"Louder! Louder! I can still hear the singers!"
- Richard Strauss to the orchestra, at a rehearsal.