# Rite of passage or waste of time?



## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

I've been looking into the Beethoven Piano Sonatas again and I've felt spoilt for choice. Do I go with Kempff? Ashkenazy? Gilels? Arrau? Kovacevich? Barenboim? Brendel? (The answer is Gilels, by the way.  ).

Anyway, it made me think more generally (not just about the Beethoven) about _why_ there are so many recordings of these seminal works and whether or not we really need them. I think there are two main ways of looking at it:

1) Any pieces of music that have been recorded many times by all the greats, whether Beethoven Sonatas, Chopin Etudes, Brahms Klavierstucke or whatever else, are pieces that are a kind of rite of passage. They are the greatest of the great and _of course_ any musician is going to be drawn to them and want to offer the world their own unique take on them. After a certain point, there are no Great, Definitive recordings, only alternative offerings by interpretative rivals. To have a cycle praised alongside the likes of those listed above will get you a place in many people's libraries for a long time.

2) When so many fantastic pianists have already recorded these pieces, when those recordings are so marvellous and largely unchallenged, when no one feels as though they really need someone else to come along because _no one_ has got the pieces right yet, what is the point of doing them again? You'll offer something different, but it's something that no one really needs - why should we care about your personal attachment to these pieces? Music shouldn't be about the constant, repetitive, endless appreciation of the same pieces, it should be about a mutual exploration of time and culture through the lens of a creative art - so shouldn't you instead devote more time to championing neglected works of the past and present?

I think there are elements of truth in each of these, and there are certainly performers who do good work playing the classics and forgotten pieces, but I lean more towards the second view. I don't want yet another interpretation to listen to, I want one of my favourite pianists to play me something that none of the others have played so well or at all.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

The way I look at it, different performances illuminate different aspects of a great work. Things as wonderful as Beethoven piano sonatas can't be fully contained in a single performance. Lesser works, perhaps, but the sonatas are much too multi faceted.


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## Mephistopheles (Sep 3, 2012)

bigshot said:


> The way I look at it, different performances illuminate different aspects of a great work. Things as wonderful as Beethoven piano sonatas can't be fully contained in a single performance. Lesser works, perhaps, but the sonatas are much too multi faceted.


I suspect you're right, but I also suspect diminishing returns.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Mephistopheles said:


> I suspect you're right, but I also suspect diminishing returns.


And I _strongly_ suspect that you are right. However, there is the survival factor. For instance, Nicholas Hodges may find it necessary to mingle avant garde recordings with 'traditional' works in order to maintain a supply of vittles.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

In today's world, the returns diminish fairly quickly, because the goal today is to create a "proper" performance. There isn't much variety, because everyone is working with the same basic criteria for judging.

But in the past, it wasn't that way. You bought Stokowski's Beethoven or Toscanini's Beethoven because it was Stokowski or Toscanini just as much as because it was Beethoven. The range of interpretation was broader, so the returns didn't diminish quite so fast.

I was listening to Heifetz the other day, and I was struck by just how different it was than any current recording. So much personality.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Today it's not so much about the personality or the style of the performer, but what will sell. People will always record Beethoven sonatas because they are guaranteed a good return against relatively cheap production costs (compared, say, to symphonies). Also, we know that people collect pieces, so if someone already has all the current recordings, then they are likely to go out and buy the new one in order to add it to the collection.


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