Maria Tipo plays Beethoven Piano Concerto n.4 op.58 (Mov I Part 1)

[joedevenroe]

An affectation in my mind is an instance where the player inserts an idiosyncratic element that is foreign to the work's ethos. In this case I see all she does as part of a whole—coherent, perfectly attuned with the work, and with a perfect combination of sound, phrasing, intention.

[joedevenroe]

What are you specifically referring to? The scale that follows immediately the theme is never played with such lyricism: it is always rushed and inexpressive.

[lourak]

It seems to me that both Tipo and Zuccarini are playing with the tempo too much - too many affectations for my taste.

[joedevenroe]

@lourak The tempo fluctuations, which are not as drastic as you state, are due to the op.58's imposing some quite dramatic dynamic shifts: sound affects tempo. I was once told by a great conductor—one of the legendary ones—that in approaching a piece he first thought of the sound; that in turn informed the tempo. I never though that way, but it opened a new vista on music interpretation for me. As to affectation, I see no signs of it.

[lourak]

@joedevenroe Thanks for responding! I'll have to be brief right now, but I would like to get back to you later (or tomorrow) with a bit more in explanation of what I mean - your comments are appreciated and, I think they warrant a response. In the mean time, please give consideration to what you think an "affectation" might be - I'd like to elaborate on my own definition, which will help make my point.

[lourak]

@joedevenroe Just one hint until I get back to you: I was able to have my breakfast after the opening statement by Tipa - and I made it back before the orchestra's entry. I don't mind free floating for a while, but this, I think, is not within a stylistically normative range.

[lourak]

@joedevenroe PART 1 - Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Well - your points seem well informed (and are well taken!) - and, I would say not controversial. As a pianist, I am quite aware of the need to adjust various aspects of my interpretation (particularly tempo) in order to allow the sonority of the instrument to find its state of repose - whether in the resolution of chords and dissonances, or simply to allow a given dynamic event to settle down to a needed level.

[lourak]

@joedevenroe PART 2 - This is an intuitive process. However - I am sure you would agree that any adjustments that we make in this regard happen within certain defined and stylistically normative limits. I don't see any reason to assume, that "sound" is, of necessity, and in all (or even most) cases, the parameter that must force other parameters, that are working with equal necessity towards realizing the conceptual and architectural dimensions of a work to subordinate themselves

[lourak]

@joedevenroe PART 3 - to any given sonorous event. I am not prepared to agree that any one dimension should have that priority - and certainly not as a general rule! I have noticed in the playing of the great pianists - that a solution is always found, that allows all elements to work together in achieving clarity of sound as well as continuity of motion so as not to lose developmental tension. This seems to happen in the great musical works of the great composers.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe This is a sufficiently stimulating discussion you've opened, and worthy of reflection. I have to agree with joedevenroe on the whole, as I see nothing at all that even remotely meets the definition of affectation in Tipo's reading, in spite of the admittedly relaxed tempi. As for tempo fluctuations, there really are none save for the nearly imperceptible ebb and flow indispensable to any interpretation that respects inflection as the measure of expressive music making.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe In no way does Tipo compromise the demands of classical era decorum, which is hardly immune from the aesthetic agenda it inherited from the baroque era, namely, the role of affect, a concept pristinely articulated by the Affektenlehre.Musical animism depends on rhythm sufficiently flexible to convey the tension BETWEEN the notes, an agenda that, at the same time, relies on the organizational principles imposed by meter (a skeletal apparatus that ought never be confused for rhythm)

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe The conductor you cite made a most astute remark, though his approach hardly strikes me as monolithic. I suspect he was speaking rather generally about his individual approach to the demands of *performance* as opposed to those attached to musical interpretation, which as lourak rightly points out, are considerably more complex, and which require consideration from multiple perspectives, at once technical, aesthetic, and historical.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe Oddly enough, Nikita Magaloff, with whom I studied briefly in Montreux, made a similar remark to me during a lesson, though he hardly meant to make of it an edict as much as a contextual suggestion with regard to the idiosyncratic disposition of piano sound. Like no other instrument, a tone diminishes and degrades the moment it is produced at the piano. Thus, in order to convey a coherent, yet flexible rhythm, a player is obligated to energize what occurs *between* the notes.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe This is what the Russians, by the way, refer to as *intonatsia*, a concept that is not only a theoretical construct designed to evaluate the character of pitch relations, but a pragmatic recipe, if you will, for inflection. While affective inflection is hardly a license to abandon the formal ( organizational) constraints imposed by meter, it is an opportunity to shape, with consistency, the motivic figurations that inform musical construction.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe I've written about the subject of intonatsia at length, devoting an entire chapter to it in three of my five books published by Amadeus Press. I address it in even greater detail in my forthcoming book on Scriabin (IU Press) Perhaps you might find it interesting, so I'll cite myself here..... more to come.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe Here's an excerpt or two from my writing intonatsia (In "Brahms: A Listener's Guide (Amadeus Press). "In an attempt to adapt one genre, music, to another, speech, intonatsia provides a mechanism for the expression - and experience -of musical affect. The concept proposes an aesthetic connection between musical expression and and speech, and refers to the dynamic tension between notes. [continued...]

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [intonatsia",con't] While its domain is that of microdynamics, intonatsia's aim is to sculpt the musical line and assimilate the inflections of speech. From this perspective intonatsia is an interpretive tool that allows the performer to illuminate the psychological dimensions of a composition.The interval, or distance between two pitches, is the breeding ground of intonatsia.Viewed as the science of musical articulation, intonatsia refers to the attraction one tone has for another.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re:intonatsia, con't] The nature of that attraction we call an *affect*. Yavorsky aptly described this phenomenon as the principle of *auditory gravitation*. When two or more pitches are horizontally arranged and sequentially distributed, they form independdent units of rhythm, or *motives*, which articulate and drive a work.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re *intonatsia, con't] These are, in effect, the musical cells of a composition. In the rhythmic play of these tiny compositional motors lurks the sourcal declamation: here music whispers, cajoles, rages, shouts, seduces...Yavorsky.describes intonatsia as "the smallest form in in time...[and] the disclosing of the expressivity of a tonal cell, that is, in time of the potential energy of a system."

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re:intonatsia, con't] Equally significant is his [Yavorsky's] observation that "the comparison of two tones (or moments) that have different gravitations [suggest] the expressiveness of speech, the transfer of its sense and character." But in the view of [theorist] Boris Asafiev, intonatsia was also a distillation of social conditions that could be expressed symbolically in music....

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re: intonatsia, con't] Divorced from the word, as it is in instrumental music, intonatsia is the realm of innuendo and bridges the gap between music and social (behavioral) conventions...What concerns intonatsia, then, are not the notes themselves, but what occurs between them. Intervallic space -- the dark matter of music -- is rarely empty, but a kind of gravitational field in which tones emerge, collide, and resurface.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re: intonatsia, con't][ Each pitch is a repository of cumulative energy, pregnant with the one that follows. Like the neural network of the brain, intonatsia is a synaptic process that telegraphs meaning across distance. Purged of the word, which in speech plays host to intonation, music gives sanctuary to affect and inflection. Silence and distance, while properties of intonatsia, are not identical to it, but a measure of its inflective potential.

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe [re: intonatsia, con't] Thus intonatsia is to music what light and shadow are to painting: a means of determining perspective; it relies on an exponential procedure that gauges dynamic perspective and renders affective expression intelligible. [END- these citations about Intonatsia are taken from my books: "Brahms: A Listener's Guide" and "Liszt: A Listener's Guide" (as well as "Beethoven Symphonies: A Listener's Guide") each published by Amadeus Press]

[guirlandes3]

@joedevenroe {correction to earlier post about intonatsia] "In the rhythmic play of these tiny compositional motors lurks the SOURCE OF ALL declamation: here music whispers, cajoles, rages, shouts, seduces..."

[joedevenroe]

Extraordinary performance: this concerto Beethoven's greatest—where he achieved the greatest balance between solo and orchestra, in a medium that was not as congenial to him as, say Mozart or Brahms—is too often played with soft dynamics in a sort of search for classical purity, which is contrary to the aesthetics of this wondrous concerto. Maria Tipo, respects the violent dynamic shifts which the scores imposes, consigning her reading with a rare expression, diction, and a marmoreal beauty.

[lourak]

@joedevenroe Hugh?

[eottoe2001]

Things improve with age.