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Form an orderly queue from the left, and keep it at a high level thanks! ;-)!
I still feel that classical requires some life experience to play it really well.
I caught a bit of a program on NatGeo with this boy pre-schooler in a suit - and a bow tie IIRC - growling and leaping about our Lord. I nearly barfed, but I was also angry! Same point really.
If you've read this, a response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
Follow Ups:
fsd
While 'old-geezer' is an English usage, 'geezer' for me is quite recent American usage.
And in this particular context I was referencing the drearily boring emphasis - here at Music in AA (and in the wider world) - on the outward physical attributes of young female classical musicians. Whence Boring-Old-Fart and Dirty-Old-Man are 'necessary and sufficient' and thus efficient.
Which is why I used them.
'Concision and precision are ever in conflict as we converse.' - Timbo in Oz.
Dig it, maaate!
;-)!
If you've read this, a response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
t
you ought to know.
If you've read this, a response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
Edits: 11/10/11
I don't go near computers on weekends, so no posts then.
But, I used to be younger. Doesn't that count? Seems as though I should at least get some credit here.
Anyway, thanks for your always interesting posts. Should you have the time, I'd really enjoy reading your summary of piano history. I seem to recall reading something here somewhere that you were something of an expert on that.
there are two kinda 'paths' with piannies![There IS a third path, the English single action which became a dead end. No escapement and no check. NO dazzling ripple and not LOUDDD! JCB's (the London Bach) PC's were mostly written for them. A dead end.]
Two main sort of structure/mechanics issues, stopping the hammer bouncing again and again (check/escapement) and how the whole thing would sound.
Two design/aesthetic paths too, power and weight, versus speed and subtlety. Two different actions.
There were the folks who wondered what they could do with a harpsichord, sharp hard and clangorous. One that could play loud OR soft on any given single note, instead of a pretty much fixed loudness with a given size of furniture. Cristofori began this path, left hanging for 50-100 years. Silbermans (organ makers of northern 'germany') - brothers & cousins etc took it up. Spread to England, France, via Andreas Baeckers (ex Silbermann trainee) through Broadwood, Clementi, Erard, Pleyel. These double-actions were so powerful that they needed heavy and quite resonant (lots of boundary joins) timber frames, which couldn't be made stiff and fast until the iron frame came along mid 19C. Long decays, big-hall sound. A bit hard and sharp. Like a HC! ;-)!
Then there were the folks who tried to get a very pure, fast, subtle, and expressive (2H/4H/6H/8Harmonic) 'clavichord' sound. The clavichord being a composer's tool. An explorative and inward sound which went a LOT louder than any clavichord's limited dynamics per note, but with very fast decay.
It split into two paths with the HAAS family's BIG clavichords late 18c and the forte-pianos of Stein/Streicher (Augsburg/Vienna and a marriage), Walter, Haschka, and ultimately Graf, and Bosendorfer which stopped making Viennese Actions around WWI. Yet THIS path is what made the piano famous among kenners - via Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert all preferring VAs, most of their lives.
These VA pianos have very fast decays, and can play very, very softly, yet they can't play as LOUD as a contemporary Silbermann or Broadwood, Erard, Pleyel or Cristofori. BUT they are wonderfully a clever bastard's instrument and fully mature technically by 1800. Wrest-planks - where the pins are - in front of the keys - tend to warp over many decades / centuries. Fast, stiff and light.
Mozart NEVER had enough money but his second-hand Walter was treasured rather more than was Constanze IMO.
By the time LVB was being sent pianos he was profoundly deaf, he received several DA's from French and English makers which could not have done well over all those mountains in carts.
A simplification? - consider the Celestion SL600 and SL700 against say a smallish 5-driver Dunlavy column, big heavy and good too.
With the rise of the middle classes, the concert halls got bigger, and the Double Action piano won.
It's not better, nor superior in any expressive sense, it's just the winner within a mass-market of newbie 'aesthete' bourgeois wannabees.
Unlike many people I am not a devotee of '"free?" markets' being 'wonderful' and worshipable, because I am not at all convinced that the short-term interests of consumers are always in their long-term interests.
I did spend most of my career in reform of Australia's markets and industries. As an analyst, and later a change-agent in health-care and its use of informatics. Before that I was an infantryman - a senior NCO, and then what we called 'Int.'
If you've read this, a response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
Edits: 11/13/11
Interesting career that you've led.
Your info on pianos is exactly what I, and I beleive other here, needed. I've copied your info to keep as a reference. Thanks. Surprisingly, I haven't found many books on the evolution and history of pianos, although plenty on pianists and composer-pianists.
As it is, I supposed we differ on preferences. Everytime I've heard any old style pianos, they've alway sounded inferior to me. I just can't take any of that harpsichordy sound. There was some HIP baroque ensemble playing Bach which I recently heard, and they used some sort of early, twangy piano for continuo. I just didn't take to it at all. My thought during the whole perfomance was that if Bach, or any musician of his day had a modern Steinway, Baldwin, or anything at their disposal, it'd be adios muchacho, gone-in-a-NY-minute to the old thing.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on old instrument sound.
"Unlike many people I am not a devotee of '"free?" markets' being 'wonderful' and worshipable, because I am not at all convinced that the short-term interests of consumers are always in their long-term interests."
That IS a good point.
But as you say, they DO lack life experience. I'm not sure that makes a lot of difference in repertoire such as the Sarasate Tarantelle or the Bazzini "Ronde des lutins"! ;-)The ones I liked the best were the 14-year-old trumpeter in the Haydn Concerto (believe me, I've accompanied that piece, and kids can REALLY mess up on it!), the 11-year-old in the Bruch Concerto, and 14-year-old Midori in the Bernstein Serenade (a way more complex piece than what the other kids performed - even aside from the strings breaking). The singers (the girls anyway) seem as if they're on the Charlotte Church / Hayley Westenra track. ;-)
This was the first time I heard Aled Jones - I know he's been featured on many recordings. I guess he was OK - I thought some of the notes sounded a bit odd, but that could have been the recording too.
Edits: 11/10/11
Under - Royal Occasions and their music!
If you've read this, a response is preferred.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
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