# Classical works played in a romantic style



## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

One of the things that intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is the frequency with which classical works - Mozart, Beethoven etc - are performed/recorded as if they were romantic works.

Almost without exception, it sounds completely wrong to my ears.

Your views?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

tempo said:


> One of the things that intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is the frequency with which classical works - Mozart, Beethoven etc - are performed/recorded as if they were romantic works.
> 
> Almost without exception, it sounds completely wrong to my ears.
> 
> Your views?


The same view as yours.

I listen to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven exclusively in period performances with fortepiano as needed.

I find excessive vibrato distracting in Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, especially in chamber music.

I have tossed quite a few Haydn and Mozart CDs by the Tokyo and Emerson quartets in the garbage due to anachronistic slides and annoying vibrato. I have no tolerance for this.

So, any of you folks who like romantic performances of Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, check my garbage can once a week.

My misfortune can turn out to be your salvation!


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## Guest (Jul 21, 2014)

I felt this way for a while, but have since become more tolerant. Now, I can appreciate classical works in a variety of different performance styles. I like a trimmed down Beethoven symphony, but I have absolutely no problem enjoying these symphonies conducted by the likes of Karajan, or Szell, or Klemperer, or Fricsay. Haydn and Mozart are the same. I will concede that if I had to choose one performance for each, it would more likely be HIP, but I wouldn't exclude other interpretations. For that matter, I also prefer HIP for baroque, but don't mind romantic conductors trying their hands at the same works - I love Klemperer's recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion!


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## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

At what point did the 'perform everything as if it were written by Wagner' policy become the norm?

I mean, if you take a look at the list of recordings typically considered 'classic' or 'definitive', the things that stand out are that a) these recordings invariably come from the 60's and b) invariably follow the 'make it sound like Wagner wrote it' approach.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

hpowders said:


> The same view as yours.
> 
> I listen to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven exclusively in period performances with fortepiano as needed.
> 
> ...


Any advice regarding good recordings? Period ensembles?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Overall I prefer non-HIP to HIP. 
Max Pommer and Jordi Savall are some of the best HIP performers, IMO.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Piwikiwi said:


> Any advice regarding good recordings? Period ensembles?


For quartets and chamber works of Haydn, Mozart & Beethoven, I'm especially fond of the *Quatuor Mosaiques*. Naive Records recently reissued all their performances of Haydn's string quartets; it's _not_ the complete Haydn, but a 10-disc set with the most important and famous: op. 20, 33, 64, 76, 77 and the _Seven Last Words_ (op. 51). These only came back available in the fall of 2013. Get it while you can. Also excellent is the London Haydn Quartet. I have their performances of Haydn's string quartets, op. 20 and op. 33 (They've done the earlier op. 17).










The Quatuor Mosaiques also have rather hard-to-find performances of Mozart's 10 final quartets and Beethoven's first 6 (= op. 18). These can be purchased as downloads (from ArkivMusic), but the CDs have gotten scarce -- and expensive. Hopefully Naive will reissue these as they did with the Haydn. Check out the Quatuor Mosaiques' superb performance of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet (K.581), coupled with the Clarinet Trio ("Kegelstatt") -- and this has recently been reissued by Naive:


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

It isn't often that I throw a cd in the garbage; when I do, it feels great.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

tempo said:


> One of the things that intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is the frequency with which classical works - Mozart, Beethoven etc - are performed/recorded as if they were romantic works.


What intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is that people often think emotions in music and strong expression through it's means were invented in romanticism and everything before XIXth century was (and should still be) played in "pure" manner.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

It depends on what you specifically mean by "romantic", I don't mind some of Beethoven's symphonies played in the romantic style, but I do NOT like and will never like when they're played in the *ultra-romantic* style, a-la Furtwangler/Bohm. Their uber-slow tempos kill the forward-drive, momentum, and structure of his symphonies.

I love Karajan's Beethoven (1963 DG cycle) above anyone else (along with Kleiber's 5th, 7th). Would you consider Karajan romantic? I think he was a good mix of romantic and classical, which is exactly what Beethoven was. It works perfectly. Fast, HIP-like tempos, but with a rich lush romantic sound.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Aramis said:


> What intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is that people often think emotions in music and strong expression through it's means were invented in romanticism and everything before XIXth century was (and should still be) played in "pure" manner.


I'm intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is that HIP is seen as pure/dry/unemotional when it's anything but. Mozart and Bach and others didn't really come alive to me until I heard it in HIP and it clicked that these composers weren't just shiny prettiness or bloodless elegance, but the music was real, vital and stylish. And to think - all you had to do was immerse yourself in treatises about playing music written by, or at the time of, these great composers? Who would have thought?

In general I think classical music suffers a bit from an intense nostalgia for the 50s to 70s (and even some of the recordings that were considered classics then). You can sort of see why - it was a heyday of popularity, the recording industry was really getting off the ground etc but it's a morbid obsession in some ways. As these classical adn baroque recordings sound less and less like the practice younger prople hear today, I'm sure they'll fade in popularity although some may still be acknowledged as strong achievements of a type and style


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Piwikiwi said:


> Any advice regarding good recordings? Period ensembles?


For Beethoven's symphonies, check out John Eliot Gardiner & the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. Gardiner is always worth checking out, and his Orchestre is a first-rate period ensemble. Also excellent is their performance of Schumann's symphonies (this has recently been reissued in a new cover as a "Collector's Edition"


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

A question: I'm looking at getting a pianoforte edition of Mozart's piano concertos. I find four especially recommended:

*Malcolm Bilsom (fortepiano) / John Eliot Gardiner (conductor) / English Baroque Soloists (Archiv). Complete, 9 CD set.

*Jos Immerseel (fortepiano) / Anima Eterna Orchestra (Channel Classics). Complete, 10 CD set. Out of print, pricey from Amazon sellers.

*Viviana Sofronitsky (fortepiano) / Musica Antigua Collegium Varsoviense / Tadeusz Karolak (conductor). Complete, 11 CD set. Out of print, pricey from various sellers.

*Ronald Brautigam / Michael Alexander Willens / Die Kolner Akademie (BIS). This series is still ongoing -- and may be focused only on the "great" concertos. From what I can see, they have released thus far: 18 & 22 (in 2014); 20 & 27 (in 2013); 19 & 23 (in 2013); 17 & 26 (in 2012); 24 & 25 (in 2011)

























I appreciate that fortepiano is an acquired taste -- and it is one that I've slowly become accustomed to. I have read conflicting accounts of these four. Brautigam and Sofronitsky have gotten the most consistent good reviews. And both seem to have done the best job of balancing the inherently low-volume fortepiano with the inherently louder backing orchestra -- in terms of sound quality / microphone placement. Any recommendations / warnings about these?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I used to be a HIP-only person. Now I've mellowed. My gate seems to swing both ways now. 

Although I would give a second thumbs-up to the Quatuor Mosaiques, especially their Haydn recordings. They play HIP but with feeling and intelligence.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

dgee said:


> I'm intrigues/puzzles/annoys me is that HIP is seen as pure/dry/unemotional when it's anything but.


I don't really think that OP meant HIP vs not HIP performances and it was not the issue I adressed. Sometimes even the HIP recordings are accused of "romanticisation".


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Aramis said:


> I don't really think that OP meant HIP vs not HIP performances and it was not the issue I adressed. Sometimes even the HIP recordings are accused of "romanticisation".


I agree, as I read the original post. Sometimes, "HIP" is made to be synonymous with original-instrument performances. I read "HIP" in the richer (and more literal) sense: namely, how deeply does historical scholarship inform one's performance (ornamentation, tempo, tuning, how many instruments per line, etc.). The larger HIP trend has been very helpful even on the mainstream. I think here of the performances of Claudio Abbado (in his later years) with Orchestra Mozart and of Charles Mackerras (at the end of his career) with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I especially find Mackerras' pair of recordings of Mozart's major symphonies outstanding in every respect. I believe that the orchestra uses modern instruments, but the style, the tempo choices, etc. owe much to a generation of HIP recordings. Mackerras' recordings are a good example of performing Mozart in a classical and _not_ in a romantic style. In a similar way, Abbado's performance of the Mozart violin concertos (with Baroque violinist Giuliano Carmignola) is a performance deeply sensitive to classical performance standards.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Is it too romantic to play Mozart music in long phrases, singing phrases, uninterrupted, not disrupted, flowing? Like how Bruno Walter and Pablo Casals played his symphonies, or Otto Klemperer. It's a view I've jeard from music lovers, that that's what Mozart is really about, that's what the music sounds best like.

Or is it better to stagger the voices so that sometimes one voice actually holds another back, actually seems to clash, to bump, interfere with the lyrical flow? 

Or have these questions about balance, voicing, articulation got nothing to do with romantic/classical style? 

I was prompted to ask this after listening to Harnoncourt's extraordinary new recording of the 39th symphony with CMV..


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## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

I was basically talking about the habit of performing Beethoven's symphonies as though they are Bruckner's symphonies, with massive amounts of string vibrato, slow tempos and huge orchestras and Mozart's operas sung as if they were written by Verdi, with loads of vocal vibrato and melodrama.

I would be very surprised if Beethoven had a Georg Solti rendition of the Ninth in mind in 1824, and I'd be very surprised if Mozart intended Porgi Amor to be performed in the manner that Callas and other twentieth century sopranos performed it.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"Classical works played in a romantic style."

Dreadful... (_shudder._)


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## Guest (Aug 5, 2014)

I like my music with some meat on its bones, so I'll take Haydn or Mozart with HvK and the Berlin Phil any day over any HIP performances. Also, to my ears, older digital recordings don't do HIP string instruments any favors: they sound even more astringent!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I like my music with some meat on its bones, so I'll take Haydn or Mozart with HvK and the Berlin Phil any day over any HIP performances. Also, to my ears, older digital recordings don't do HIP string instruments any favors: they sound even more astringent!


That's not meat; _its fat_ -- (Bubelah, its _schmaltz_, even.) 
Clogs the arteries, kills the body :lol:


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