# Interpretation over Piece in Preferences



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Do you find that it is more the interpretation that makes you enjoy or not enjoy a work rather than the piece itself?

I do.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

I want more of the eccentric performances. Is anyone this 'different' today?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you find that it is more the interpretation that makes you enjoy or not enjoy a work rather than the piece itself?
> 
> I do.


No, I find both to be essential to my enjoyment.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you find that it is more the interpretation that makes you enjoy or not enjoy a work rather than the piece itself?
> 
> I do.


A really good interpretation can make a weak work actually sound better than it is. Like Barenboim's marvelous reading of the otherwise dreadful Furtwangler 2nd symphony. And a poor interpretation can certainly make a great work sound terrible and give a bad first impression. But overall, the music overrides any interpretation. A truly great work can withstand a wide range of interpretations. Mahler symphony interpretations are all over the place and yet they're all perfectly acceptable and don't ruin the music. What can ruin a work is lousy playing. But then is crappy playing an interpretation or just bad musicianship?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Luchesi said:


> I want more of the eccentric performances. Is anyone this 'different' today?


Different? Do you mean embarrassingly misguided, perverse, and lacking in understanding of the music he's playing? No one I can think of.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Do you mean embarrassingly misguided, perverse, and lacking in understanding of the music he's playing?





Glenn Gould said:


> There is about the Appassionata – an egoistic pomposity, a defiant ‘let’s just see if I can’t get away with using that once more’ attitude—that on my own private Beethoven poll places this sonata somewhere between the King Stephen Overture and the Wellington’s Victory Symphony.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Gould actually was genuine in his interpretations at least, and that's a far stretch from most.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Different? Do you mean embarrassingly misguided, perverse, and lacking in understanding of the music he's playing? No one I can think of.


He was recording a lot of Schoenberg at the time. They wanted the LvB.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Do you find that it is more the interpretation that makes you enjoy or not enjoy a work rather than the piece itself? I do._

Then I'd say you like the playing or player more than the music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Different? Do you mean embarrassingly misguided, perverse, and lacking in understanding of the music he's playing? No one I can think of.



Honestly Edward, you know you're not seeing the wood for the trees. He's a piano player, not a historian or a musicologist. He's not interested in "understanding the music" or anything so arcane. He just wants to produce a response to the score in sound which many people will like, and which is sufficiently close to what people expect the sonata to sound like to allow the record company to label it _Appassionata _and sell records. They're all like this, these entertainers, and they have in their ranks the likes of Wilhelm Furtwangler, Edwin Fischer, Maria Yudina, Josef Hofmann, Vladimer Horowitz etc etc etc. If you don't want misguided, perverse and lacking in understanding find some nerdy student of yours with the chops to run through it.


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

I am surely for the piece ,interpretation does not matter very much to me,although some interpretations I like better the piece is 90%


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Honestly Edward, you know you're not seeing the wood for the trees. He's a piano player, not a historian or a musicologist. He's not interested in "understanding the music" or anything so arcane. He just wants to produce a response to the score in sound which many people will like, and which is sufficiently close to what people expect the sonata to sound like to allow the record company to label it _Appassionata _and sell records. They're all like this, these entertainers, and they have in their ranks the likes of Wilhelm Furtwangler, Edwin Fischer, Maria Yudina, Josef Hofmann, Vladimer Horowitz etc etc etc. If you don't want misguided, perverse and lacking in understanding find some nerdy student of yours with the chops to run through it.


I wonder what Beethoven would've thought of what Glenn Gould decided to release? 

Gould bemoaned that he could only release one interpretation on one record. He wanted to give his audiences 10 clips to build their own recording. His imagination was limited by the technology of the time.
Today we can take small clips from our favorite performers and put together a recording of a work, but I don't know if anybody does that. It would involve a lot of thinking.


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

If I’m remembering another thread correctly, Waehnen’s preferred way of listening to Mahler’s Sixth involves substituting the finale for the finale of the Seventh. So it is possible to do this with playlists and I would guess some people might put together a playlist of a work with the correct movements in the correct order but with their preferred performers for every movement. Myself, I prefer to listen to one complete interpretation at a time even if it has its weaknesses. If you want to put together your own playlist of Gould’s 1955 _Goldberg Variations_ with your preferred interpretation, that is probably also doable with Audacity or similar audio splicing software, and a copy of the complete recording sessions which were released by Sony. This sounds close to Gould’s ideal that you mentioned.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

So what about, say, Beethoven or Mahler? So many different interpretations of the same work are wonderful. What do they have in common? The music!

I think there probably are a few pieces where I am not sure I would like the music so much but do find it wonderful in one single interpretation but I can't think of an example at the moment. But for the most part it is the music, the music, the music. Sure, I revere some performances especially but this is because they seem to do particularly well in realising what is in the music.


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

Enthusiast said:


> So what about, say, Beethoven or Mahler? So many different interpretations of the same work are wonderful. What do they have in common? The music!
> 
> I think there probably are a few pieces where I am not sure I would like the music so much but do find it wonderful in one single interpretation but I can't think of an example at the moment. But for the most part it is the music, the music, the music. Sure, I revere some performances especially but this is because they seem to do particularly well in realising what is in the music.


I think I basically agree with this. I must like the _music_ first. Then there is a lot of enjoyment to be gained from comparing different approaches to it. I do this with the Brahms symphonies all the time, but others also. What about this performance is different from the last one I listened to? How does it compare with my own mental picture of the piece? Balances? Tempi? Sometimes the phrasing? If there are singers it adds several extra dimensions also, _especially_ in opera.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Monsalvat said:


> I think I basically agree with this. I must like the _music_ first. Then there is a lot of enjoyment to be gained from comparing different approaches to it. I do this with the Brahms symphonies all the time, but others also. What about this performance is different from the last one I listened to? How does it compare with my own mental picture of the piece? Balances? Tempi? Sometimes the phrasing? If there are singers it adds several extra dimensions also, _especially_ in opera.


Yes!


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