Alfor's Rarities

[Ferruccio]

Oh! Charades

In Deutscher Sprache - CHARADES - spielen sie das auch in Deutschland sans linguistic frontieres -
Gosh what a misch masch!

This is one for Tim Tim, sans doubte.

Thanks Alfor.

tobyjj

Hi Tobyjj,

I am indeed always up for a spot of composer 'punditry', although the thread containing
musical wordplay has gone rather quiet of late, which is partly my own fault, of course.
Here is something I spotted on another forum yesterday:-

You can Telemann by where he likes to live. I just Toch a trip Orff into one of the Wilder areas Faure Wieck, and to be Verdi Franck, it nearly drove Menotti.
I know opinion Varese, but even Vivaldi urban noises, the Bizet traffic, De Falla engines, as well as knowing there are Mennin the streets Callas enough to knock your Bloch off. I couldn't resist the urge to Galuppi home early Satie, and I Haieff to say I Still prefer the Mitropoulos. The Boyce were Sor that I had Gibbons up and succumbed to the Riegger of the Field so easily, but I don't give a Schuetz.
I was practically Krein from my Severacs and Pains brought on by that brief time in the countryside! Even the sounds got my Dandrieu up; let me Liszt some of them: the Rorem of the wind, a constant Birtwhistle, the Menuhin of the Katz, the Lipatti-Patti-Glinka-Poulenc of the Reiner on the roof, the Gluck-Gluck of the hens, and every morning a woodpecker or some Byrd Chopin holes in a Tree. My only company was a Thorne Busch, a Partch of poison Ives, a Braun Babbit, and sometimes a Wolf, nothing Moore. For a Forrest Grainger it may be Fine - it may be the Katz Milhaud -- but I could have died of Borodin. A friend suggested my making this Tureck; "Abegg" his pardon, but I will never go Bach to those Gotterdaemmerung Hillis. They Suk!
No, I don't care for the Ruggles life. I like a good Mehul - - a little Suppe, some Szigeti, maybe some Salome at my local Taverner with a little lime Schubert after (even if they don't always clear the Crumbs off the table). And I like to Locatelli while I'm Eaton Maderna at night. Is that asking for Egk in Meyerbeer?
Nono! So many people Berio themselves under a Holst of problems they know they can't Handel. Their answer is too Offenbach to nature - - into Haydn, it seems to me. I Karajan a d'Indy life in the Berg for the most Paert. Maybe it isn't Perle Bliss for everybody, but it's Godunov for me.

Mine's paltry in comparison, but here is one I submitted to an Irish national newspaper a few years ago in response to a running chain of letters called 'Beethoven's Chopin Liszt', which talked up people's favourite composers and (I think) the state of live classical music in Ireland. I didn't make it too complicated, because of expectations of readership (justified or otherwise) and was restricted by space, but I was pleased with it.
Unfortunately they never printed it...

Sir, - I too had a Harty laugh when reading Tan Dun Ravel-ling all the
Ries-cent pieces in this veritable symphony of a topic, especially
when De Falla was being so Pergo-lesi with his "4'33" sorbet" (but he
Berlioz an apology and I Schütt really raise my Glass to him - you're
Litolff the hook Mr Treacy!).
Nyman new voice here - and I don't want to confess Tubin a Suk - but
Kodály be brass-h and suggest that, living as we do in Ireland, we
Alkan st-Reich all these previous composers Orff our Liszts and begin
Agnew? If so, I'd be glad to Tournemire to any further Bar-Torke
because, as I Verdi suggested, it's a great theme with some fantastic
players! Now I must compose myself and stop writing before my Hans
Rott! - Yours, etc

4c

Alfor, Timtin and 4candles, you're bastardly talented, wow! LOL

[Bettringen]

Greetings from Willy Astor

[fleubis]

I know better than to even think about trying to compete in this ring!

[alfor]

Revised (improved) fingering:

Rachmaninov Etude op.33,6 revised.pdf

[alfor]

Revised (improved) fingering:

Barber Sonata 1A revised.pdf

Barber Sonata 1B revised.pdf

[fleubis]

After much difficulty I solved my problems here and got these 3 files downloaded. Can't comment to much on the Rach etude as this is one I don't play. But I'll be glad to have these fingering suggestions should I work on it. (After hearing Richter's performance, I'm not sure I want to! )

Was very intrigued by you additional work on the Barber 1st mov't since I've played this sonata for over 30 years and continue to have great enthusiasm for it. I find in the first movement, Alfred, you have principally made additions and only a few changes. The change that struck me as the most important was changing the repeated notes which were all played with 2nd finger to now alternate between 1 and 2 -- which is the way I play it. I continue to get excited when playing the triumphant recapitulation of the principal theme at bar 110 and need restraint there to not let it get away from me!

[alfor]

Dear fleubis,

you know that I have an excellent recording of the sonata by an fairly unknown German pianist - and I will soon listen to it again with the score in front of my eyes.

I generally have the ambition to learn music from the score before (possibly) studying a recording.

Regarding the Barber sonata I think the metronome marking for the first mvt. is a bit too fast and imho a couple of minor tempo changes are essential anyway. (Instead of„Allegro energico“ I would label the mvt. „Allegro moderato, ma energico“).

Correct pedalling of this mvt. still hampers me: There are too many long notes which cannot be realized literally.
I tend not to use the sostenuto pedal, btw.

Take bars 8 & 9: It is neither possible to hold the c flat and f of the l.h. over two bars with the fingers, nor is it acceptable to press down the right pedal for two bars!

Page 4, last bar and similar: different issue: I tend to use to use two „long pedals“ in each bar, so grouping each two augmented triads of the left hand. With more pedal changes (or even no pedal at all two bars later, or at the end of page 5) I am somehow missing the respective fundamental notes: b and f in the second bar on page 5).

Also not sure how to pedalize bars 4 & 5 on page 8 and parts of page 12.

Would you like to reveal your solutions??

Thank you

All best

alfor

[fleubis]

Afred, I guess I tend to play this piece as more of a romantic piece and where such long bass notes cannot be sustained with the hands, the damper pedal is used, as clearly the sostenuto cannot. First, I agree Barber's tempo marking is little aggressive so I play it a bit slower. Page 1 bars 9 & 10 -- one pedal for both bars, there really is no other solution, but slowly cresecendo. End of page 4 and the start of the ostinato, I take two pedals to the bar throughout the ostinato (yes I know that is a highly romanticized way of playing it, but my feeling is that the thematic material warrants it). On page 8, it's one pedal for both bars on that A flat pedal--no other way to realize it--but again slowly crescendo and on page 12. My feeling is that you either pedal to sustain those pedal points or composer's intention is being missed. Pedal points are all over this piece and sostenuto is not possible. Clearly, I have no desire to play this piece in a 20th century "secco" style. I see it as a 20th century "romantic" piece,

[alfor]

Thank you for encouraging my tendencies of realizing this piece!!
I surely agree that this is an essentially „romantic“ piece.

Although „Barber“ is a familiar name to every fairly educated European music lover,
you hardly find him programmed on an European concert stage. You can take it for sure that every
year his „Adagio for strings“ is broadcasted many times by German broadcasting stations,
but I never ever encountered any other work of Barber in Germany - neither in the concert hall
nor through a broadcast.

Recently listened to a performance of B.'s violin concerto (youtube!)
which imho has much in common with the respective works by William Walton.

Interesting enough the Sonata (and the Excursions*) have been „occupied“
by (North)-American and Asian pianists and are scarcely played by any European pianist (Kissin!).

*Masterpieces when played by Masterpianists like Firkusny!

[fleubis]

Well, being of American birth, I got very familiar with Barber in university and one of my other joys was accompanying singers performing Barber songs which are a real treat. To most of the world he is known for the Adagio for strings in it's many incarnations and his violin concerto is about as romantic as it gets. (Must confess to NOT being a fan of his piano concerto, however.) Like I said awhile back, Barber seems to be played in the US in mostly academic setting and I only rarely heard it in concert so am not at all surprised that you don't hear it in Europe. That being said, there is a lot of "modern" European music that never gets heard in the US. (Would you care to guess how much gets heard here in Panama?)

Anyway, thank goodness for CD's. At my age and in my location I'm not about to take on the task of enlightening a non-existent audience. I'm off to the Post--Isokani's new Eiges CD has just arrived.