# are you tedious about finding the right version of a work of a composer(s)



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

I am partially, sometime i want the easy way naxos or brillant for my wallet that is...
But other time i want the real deal, not that naxos a bad provider, but it happen
that some of there cd or tame of the flavor of the artist i said ''some'' not all , i
said it once i love naxos.

But here the thing look at Jannequin naxos nail it whit french chansons(chants des oiseaux) since this song
is ment to be short sung fast, long version of this are not so good or bad, i stand my ground on this.

Than some people conducted Carlo Gesualdo and avoid dissonance or is excentric sound, this is a capital sin, im still angry at the double cd Herreweghe put out on out there label 

Look at another exemple , no mather how mutch i like Solage and i love womens, Primo solage fume fumeux par fummé most be sung slowly long version are better and male singning it are better, it's 
not me , it's common sense, but i still love de caelis ensemble rendition of Solage since there are other
amazing ars subtilior artists.

One last exemple i love Carl Orff trilogie of music inspired by medieval poem, i like the fact brilliant offer this trilogy(nice shot brilliant), but i preffer the naxos of this work but it dosen't come in a trilogy format only the work were all familiar whit.

The problem is they accelerated the symphony or leider, naxos dosen do this and it's better.

The last exemple is Naive rendition of les sacres du printemps of mighty Igor Stravinsky, once again the cheaper naxos is better than the luxueous naive, why because the conductor tame the brutallity of the ballet, naxos version shred in brutallity, and les sacre has to be brutal not tame soften.

So yes im a tedious buyer sometime i need the right version of the composer?

Have you ever heard a version and you were a bit annoy, like why do they speed this up, or the contrary why is this so slow, why is a version of something brutal tame and soften.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Well it took me about a dozen Beethoven symphony cycles before I figured out what I wanted. I think it is pretty easy to keep buying recordings of a favorite work until one finds the most satisfying one.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

This is called versionitis, a disease that many music lovers (me included) suffer. There is no cure and treatments to control it can be very expensive in fact.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

You never can tell how it's going to go. Sometimes you strike lucky with the first version you buy, and sometimes you strike out with half a dozen. But that's part of the fun of collecting for me and I don't see, nor would I describe, this as tedious.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm usually fairly happy with the first versions I hear with the exception of noisy or marginal recordings. Also sometimes if a performance is too idiosyncratic I learn to avoid those performers. All other performers will be showing _me_ how a piece should be interpreted, not the other way around.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Sometimes the more versions of a work I hear, the more I realize it's a horrible work.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

If I like a piece, I tend to turn into a searcher for the holy grail. That explains all the CDs squirreled around my house.


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## ilysse (Jul 10, 2016)

Sometimes...I've been having a very hard time finding Debussy ' s Clair de Lune. I don't read music and don't know much about how it is 'supposed' to sound but I used to have a recording I listened to often and I'm unable to find the same recording. Everything else sounds too slow or too fast. I had to take a break from my search because it was making me crazy haha 

There are a few pieces I've done this with. Usually pieces I've grown up listening to and I'm looking for the same sound. Others have been sound quality issues or liking one singer over another when it comes to vocal pieces. Not that one is done right or wrong or even better but just my personal taste.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Manxfeeder said:


> If I like a piece, I tend to turn into a searcher for the holy grail. That explains all the CDs squirrelled around my house.


​


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

yes, very.....and once found this holy grail I stick to it .....and it prevents me from discovering other "holy grail " versions , but once another "holy" is found I'd have two of them and I cherish it


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## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

I would replace tedious with comprehensive and then yes


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

In a number of works I have only one recording (Lohengrin for example) and I like it very much. But in some other works I went OCD and bought recording after recording in sheer infatuation with the work. This resulted in about 24 Fidelios, 10 Barbers of Seville, 10 Maria Stuardas, and so on. I do have maybe half-a-dozen La Sonnambulas, but did find my holy grail Sonnambula with Natalie Dessay--the last one I bought.


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## Boldertism (May 21, 2015)

Beethoven's Symphonies are probably the biggest victim of my search for the Holy Grail. I say victim because I always skipped to the "good parts." I think I've heard the "DUN DUN DUN DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN" from Beethoven's 5th finale maybe a bazillion times (Spotify doesn't help this at all.) After a while it stops sounding like anything, like saying a word over and over.

After all this I can say for certain, Karajan 80's has the best DUN DUN DUN (I mean have you heard the brass on that? Good grief.)


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I like things to be faithful to the composer but not at the expense of a lifeless performance. I want performances that have character. I want some personality from the conductor to shine through. I want to hear tension or drama. I feel it adds something to the performance. 

I hear so many performances that are just notes on a page. I can program computer software to play all the instruments and play the music exactly as written. I want a human element. I want to feel something.

Orchestral clarity often plays a part in my choices as well. I want to hear details. I don't want stuff buried that I'm supposed to be hearing.

I also believe recordings should have a flow. Tempos etc. should make sense when compared to the overall vision of the work and I want them to feel as if they flow naturally from one movement to the next. That's really more of a personal thing for me but I hate when someone plays the first movement marked Allegro and plays it as a Presto and then for the second movement marked Adagio plays it as a Largo. It doesn't feel right to switch gears to that extreme to me. It makes the work feel choppy.

In the end there's also usually more than one way to perform a work and make the whole thing work for me so I usually have many recordings of everything that I really enjoy but works that I'm not really partial too I can deal with only having 1 or 2 recordings.


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## majlis (Jul 24, 2005)

I'm not a versionist, except on very rare, nearly unknown and forgotten historical recordings by underrated and forgotten players. But I know he/her.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"tedious" is an external viewpoint.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Ukko said:


> "tedious" is an external viewpoint.


My wife thinks his use of the word "tedious" is very apt.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> My wife thinks his use of the word "tedious" is very apt.


I am willing to assume that your wife is a woman. Needless to say...


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## Bevo (Feb 22, 2015)

I have posted something of this in the past and caught a LOT of flack for it, but I'll say it again anyways. I am also very critical of the performance interpretations as well, but I am a firm believer that if the composer included repeats they should be recognized! I get that we have recordings to rewind now days, and I also get the argument most make, that the reason for repeats were to instill the themes so the audience could recognized them as they were being developed (which is true). But I still feel they should be respected. And also, why then are there some pieces, such as Mozart's 35th Symphony, that opens in the common sonata form but doesn't use a repeat at all? I'm sure many will try to argue again, but that will always be one of my most critical aspects of finding the best interpretations.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There is no holy grail! I can't think of a single major and much-recorded work where I have found one account that makes all the others redundant - and i certainly do explore version after version of works that I love. The best I can do is come up with a few very different accounts that seem together to have the work covered. Anyway, my purpose in collecting lots of different versions of the same work is because each different account can show me a different side (a different flavour, a different meaning even) of great music. There can surely never be a single best Beethoven 5 or Jupiter Symphony or Tchaikovsky 5, can there?


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

No. A work can probably be performed in many "right" ways.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> There is no holy grail! I can't think of a single major and much-recorded work where I have found one account that makes all the others redundant - and i certainly do explore version after version of works that I love. The best I can do is come up with a few very different accounts that seem together to have the work covered. Anyway, my purpose in collecting lots of different versions of the same work is because each different account can show me a different side (a different flavour, a different meaning even) of great music. There can surely never be a single best Beethoven 5 or Jupiter Symphony or Tchaikovsky 5, can there?


No, pure and simple . :tiphat:


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Hm, maybe versionism is the "final stage" . I have a tendency to develp all kinds of "conditions", but this I don't yet suffer. But I have another very annoying problem: if the very first version I hear is good enough (mainly the recording quality, but also if it has some kind of distinctive characer) I consider it the one and only interpretation. All others sound alien and wrong. But I guess this is easier problem to live with. Cheaper for sure :lol:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Lenny said:


> Hm, maybe versionism is the "final stage" . I have a tendency to develp all kinds of "conditions", but this I don't yet suffer. But I have another very annoying problem: if the very first version I hear is good enough (mainly the recording quality, but also if it has some kind of distinctive characer) I consider it the one and only interpretation. All others sound alien and wrong. But I guess this is easier problem to live with. Cheaper for sure :lol:


If the first version is a good one it can set the standard that other versions will not meet. That happened to me on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. My first was Ormandy. I have purchased a half dozen more since then and none are as good as Ormandy. I just failed to realize that having such a good thing one should be satisfied and not search for more.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Lenny said:


> Hm, maybe versionism is the "final stage" . I have a tendency to develp all kinds of "conditions", but this I don't yet suffer. But I have another very annoying problem: if the very first version I hear is good enough (mainly the recording quality, but also if it has some kind of distinctive characer) I consider it the one and only interpretation. All others sound alien and wrong. But I guess this is easier problem to live with. Cheaper for sure :lol:


Very easy way out , don't you think?


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## kanishknishar (Aug 10, 2015)

I consider it healthy and not tedious. Striving for perfection (an illusion that can never be attained) is a fundamental driving principle that has allowed humanity and civilization to prosper for centuries.

There is much to be found when you compare renditions. There are so many intricacies to any masterpiece that the more one enriches oneself, the more it can savor the piece.

I can't imagine listening to Schubert's Ninth without Tennstedt's live rendition on BBC but I can't imagine not hearing Furtwangler's Schu9 [don't remember the year/orchestra] that I heard. They each bring something to the table the other can't. Furtwangler: Furtwangler. Tennstedt: Electricity in good sound.


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