I started out wanting to present some rain-related music, but instead ended up presenting pairs of performances of the same piece.
The first is Arabesque 1, by Debussy, played on the piano by Kathryn Stott, immediately followed by an orchestral transcription (or arrangement; usually the word "transcription" is used for a piano reduction), by the Philharmonia Orchestra --I think; it might be another one! It's lovely growing old; you laugh at the same jokes even if you hear it recounted twice within an hour!
In a later pair of pieces, I cut between one version and another. I don't know whether that's strictly legal; credit must be given for each recording, as part of our arrangement with ASCAP, and so on, but with mp3 which contain blended music, it's difficult to put all the credits in the metadata (the information about the performance that is displayed on some radios and computers, as the music is playing). This is what I do with The Gnome, a movement from Pictures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky).
For the last several days the song "I'm crying, baby, baby" has been in my head. It took me a while to realize that I was hearing two different versions on the radio. Evidently, the song was written by Smoky Robinson, and later covered by the version I'm most familiar with: by Linda Ronstadt. I did not feature that pair of performances on the show, but I have to mention that it actually triggered off the idea.
This weekend I have to go off to the wilds of Massachusetts, where there is no easy Internet access where I'm visiting (I mean, they do have a Laundromat that has free Internet, provided you wash clothes there...) so I'm leaving my computer behind, and uploading the podcast will have to wait until later next week.
In pop music, of course, when an artist covers a song, it is usually a different arrangement of it. Few artists sing the exact arrangement of a song they're covering. In classical music, though, different performances of the exact same piece can sound very different, because the instruments being used, the venue, the particular sound of the performer, all put their stamp on the performance. For instance, a performance of the Beethoven 5th Symphony, one of the most iconic pieces in the classical repertoire, from the 1940s would sound entirely different from a performance in the 1980's. By 1980, people had discovered the principle of using "original instruments", which means that almost any instrument from back in the days of Beethoven would have sounded weaker and --to our ears-- harsher, or sometimes a little edgier, and in other cases, more mellow, than the modern equivalents.
To take just one example, in Bach's day, they had a certain sort of valve-less trumpet, where you had to get the different notes by lip control and pressure control alone, without the use of valves or pistons. The bore (the inner diameter of the tube) was smaller, so some things were easier to do, I'm told. But their sound was quieter, and they had a certain shining bell sound. Modern valve trumpets have a lower range, to begin with, because each additional loop of tubing makes the note lower. Also, the wider bore makes it easier to play lower notes rather than higher. Finally, as everyone knows, modern trumpets are very loud; the trick is to play them softly. Baroque trumpets (of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries) were soft-sounding.
Similarly, all the instruments: violins and the violin family, flutes, clarinets, bassoons, oboes, all sounded different back then. So the more recent performances of old music (I mean 18th and 19th century music) actually sounds even older than it would have sounded if played a few decades before that, because we can now play instruments that are copies of instruments of the sort played "back when." It is a little confusing, that as time goes on, we learn more about the past, and can imitate it better! Comparisons of performances of the 1940s with performances of the 1990s will have to wait for another occasion.
Part A
Claude Debussy: Arabesque No 1
Here we feature the piano version followed by an orchestral version
Felix Mendelssohn: Octet for strings in E flat major, Op 20- Scherzo, Allegro leggierissimo
First we have Hausmusik London, led by Monica Huggett, the original octet scoring, and then The Academy of St Martin In-The-Fields in an expanded orchestral version.
Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Gnomus
First the piano version, by Vladimir Askhenazy, then a full orchestration. There are two orchestrations: one by Maurice Ravel, and the other by Mussorgsky himself; I don't know which this is.
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue - Contrapunctus 1
The first version is played by Loeki Stardust Recorder Quartet of Amsterdam. As you will hear, the bass is a little weak; bass recorders are soft in the lower registers, and nothing can be done about that.
Part B
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue - Contrapunctus 1
That performance is followed by an orchestral arrangement by William Malloch. This particular movement has been orchestrated fully, and transposed up to a higher key; in later movements, Malloch takes far greater liberties with the music.
Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin- No 3, Forlane
First we have an orchestral transcription. The transcription was by Ravel himself. Then we have Kathryn Stott playing the original piano version.
John Denver: Leaving, On a Jet Plane
First we hear John Denver's own performance, accompanied by several guitars; then we hear Peter, Paul and Mary singing the version that went to the top 10, two guitars and string bass.
Pete Seeger: If I Had A Hammer
Trini Lopez, a nightclub singer with lots of charm, very well known in the 60s, sings the first version. Then we have Peter Paul and Mary again, singing their hit version from about the same time.
Part C
The Von Trapp Family Singers
There actually was a group of musical performers from the Von Trapp family, made famous in The Sound of Music, and they have a popular ski lodge in Vermont to this day. They sing and play three pieces, as follows--
- Brahms: Guten Abend, Gut' Nacht (Wiegenlied)
- Anonymous: Two Old Netherland Dances, played on recorders
- Anonymous Scottish: Eriskay Love Lilt.
This famous piece has a lovely high soprano line, especially for two places in the melody. I play only one version of it, by a mixed choir, though originally it would have been sung by a boy's choir.
Leigh Howard Stevens
This performer is an expert in the symphonic marimba. He plays four Bach pieces, a couple of which we have heard played on the Moog Synthesizer a couple of weeks ago, and another on a modern synthesizer.
- Fugue in B-flat major
- Two-Part Invention No 3 in C major
- Two-Part Invention No 4 in D minor
- Two-Part Invention No 5 in B-flat major
- Two-Part Invention No 6 in F major
This is the opening movement of one of Mozart's most mature works. Only one version is being played here; this is an authentic performance, with a period fortepiano, an early sort of piano that sounds a lot quieter than a modern concert grand.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F major, op 93 - Movement 1
The opening movement of the Eighth Symphony, particularly liked by Richard Wagner.
I hope you enjoyed that, and I'll see you next week!
Archie
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