The Most Important LvB Piano Sonata Cycle Comparison in the History of the World

[DavidW]

Locked, you say?

Ha! Yeah, but they won't be angry with you this time!

[AnotherSpin]

Define "grotesque" and "joke."

And I also listened to Minsoo Sohn's Waldstein. There were some passages I didn't like, but I could not find anything shallow, lacking in depth, empty inside, or the like. Can you enlighten me?

Perfectly fine to me. Enjoy!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Perfectly fine to me. Enjoy!

Thank you for the clarification!

[AnotherSpin]

Thank you for the clarification!

Ask any time

[Mandryka]

Lest anyone thinks that it's all in the ears of the hearer, something @Brian came close to suggesting yesterday, that concepts like shallow etc are entirely subjective, contrast for shallowness  Claudio Columbo

and Minsoo Sohn

[(poco) Sforzando]

Lest anyone thinks that it's all in the ears of the hearer, something @Brian came close to suggesting yesterday, that concepts like shallow etc are entirely subjective, contrast for shallowness  Claudio Columbo

and Minsoo Sohn

So before I listen, is one supposed to be shallow and the other not? 'Cause I can't tell. I want to know who most creates a coherent musical structure using the notes Beethoven has provided. Sort of reminds me of a spot in my friend Doug DeVita's play Fable, where Ethel Merman is being harangued by a host of BS stuff, and she replies, "I don't care about any of that sh**, I just want to know: do I come in on the upbeat, or the downbeat?"

And who is Claudio Columbo?

[Atriod]

I've listened to about a dozen Minsoo Sohn performances so far, inspired by this thread. There was a little bit of a learning curve. My first impression was of technical brilliance, rhythmic precision, a slight preference for staccato jabbing, but maybe a little too much relentlessness - listening to some of the earlier sonatas in particular left my ears a little bit tired. Sort of like a modern concert grand piano analogue to a very fast chamber orchestra reading of the Beethoven symphonies.

But then I listened to the Waldstein earlier this week and had my conversion moment. Obviously, I like the finale to have that soft "magic," but I like a slow middle movement and a kind of disorienting first movement. It should have that feeling of doing something completely new. Sohn checks all three boxes and then some. It clicked entirely with what I want of a Waldstein.

Todd's comment about Sohn being "museum-quality" at times rings true; sometimes you want something more spontaneous, more impassioned. But sometimes, museum perfection is just the thing.

Museum quality playing sounds like a pejorative, it's not something I have ever sought in classical music or any music for that matter. In audiophile muzak like Steely Dan Aja they had a mini documentary on VH1 (after Carson Daily's TRL, sup millennials) they were talking about how they would adjust the timing of instruments coming in down to microseconds, doing take after take to get it perfect. They had one of the greatest tenor saxophonists play on some album and it sounds like a dime a dozen rent a sax player with how much they directed him. That documentary made sense why I didn't like this music, it's music made for the operating room. I suppose museum quality rock is another way to put it. About the antithesis of something like Dylan, Faith No More, pre-war delta blues, etc.

I saw Hamelin recently, the Ives Concord Sonata was a near 1:1: replication of his Hyperion recording (minus the flute), that was not a bad thing as that recording is incredible. The other piece I was really looking forward to is one of my favorite piano pieces, Gaspard de la nuit, it was so flawless, dynamics so perfectly measured and not exagerated. But there was something about it... the performance was just merely excellent, it felt way short of someone like Sergei Babayan or Joseph Moog.

I've only heard Sohn's Beethoven in passing, streaming and not dedicated eyes closed listening so I can't say if museum quality is right or not. I wasn't particularly engaged by it but that could be because I was also doing stuff like surfing the web or playing with the kids. I blind bought his Goldberg Variations as I'm seeing him play it this year.

I am curious to hear Sohn's Transcendental Etudes, but I can't find a way to hear it (@mandryka?). I wonder if it will be like Kirill Gerstein which does sound like "museum quality."

On the topic of museums I did get to finally cross off Monet's Haystacks from bucket list along with some Constables. Thank you museums and all the private collectors that display their art in museums.

[Todd]

Museum quality playing sounds like a pejorative

It is not.

[AnotherSpin]

So before I listen, is one supposed to be shallow and the other not? 'Cause I can't tell. I want to know who most creates a coherent musical structure using the notes Beethoven has provided. Sort of reminds me of a spot in my friend Doug DeVita's play Fable, where Ethel Merman is being harangued by a host of BS stuff, and she replies, "I don't care about any of that sh**, I just want to know: do I come in on the upbeat, or the downbeat?"

And who is Claudio Columbo?

Do you hear the difference between Sohn and Columbo? If so, what is it? Hint: who has more Zen?

[Todd]

Do you hear the difference between Sohn and Columbo? If so, what is it? Hint: who has more Zen?

Now I know a trigger word.

[Atriod]

And who is Claudio Columbo?

Just one more thing...

[(poco) Sforzando]

the performance was just merely excellent . . .

I'll settle for excellent. Reminds me an anecdote about Stravinsky, when someone telegraphed him to say, "Your piece was great success! will be even greater success if you let X touch up the orchestration!" To which Stravinsky replied, "Satisfied with great success."

As for MS's TE, I heard them live but he has not recorded them. Perhaps he felt they were not sufficiently museum quality. Can we go on to op. 31/3?

[Atriod]

I'll settle for excellent. Reminds me an anecdote about Stravinsky, when someone telegraphed him to say, "Your piece was great success! will be even greater success if you let X touch up the orchestration!" To which Stravinsky replied, "Satisfied with great success."

As for MS's TE, I heard them live but he has not recorded them. Perhaps he felt they were not sufficiently museum quality. Can we go on to op. 31/3?

Maybe excellent was not the right word. Bland? Though I'm not even sure if that is correct.

This is from Jed Distler's review of Yeol Eum Son playing Mozart's Piano Sonatas which I found one of the most perfect descriptions of the ones I heard:

On the other hand, some of the sonata finales come off sounding square, underplayed, and just plain bland. Compare her relatively prissy and clipped C major K. 330 Allegretto and B-flat major K. 333 Allegretto grazioso readings to the variety of inflection of Maria João Pires' DG recordings or the inventive vitality of our reference Roberto Prosseda and Robert Levin traversals. Indeed, Son's earlier K. 330 Allegretto on the Onyx label boasted more life and spontaneity

What he says about life and spontaneity are more lucid terms that are more easily understood, and some of what I heard in Hamelin's Gaspard contrasted against the likes of Babayan or Moog. Perhap's Son's Mozart cycle is museum quality, I have not heard Pires' DG recordings that Distler mentions but her Denon/Brilliant Classics is one of my two desert island cycles.

I see it's not the TE he recorded but a Liszt disc I would still like to hear.

[Todd]

What he says about life and spontaneity are more lucid terms that are more easily understood

What is the objective definition of the word "life" as it pertains to recorded performances?  Same question for the word "spontaneity".  In order for words to be lucid and easily understood, they must have objective definitions.  To give a concrete example using something that physically exists, if I use the word "milk", many and perhaps most people will assume I mean cow's milk, but without a clear, objective definition, even that can cause confusion.

[(poco) Sforzando]

"Variety of inflection" is a good and useful term, referring to the minute variations a gifted performer may bring to accent, dynamics, rhythm, tempo, touch, and the like. These things, I think, can be discussed and are musically meaningful. The difference, say, between hearing a performance that could have been generated through a computer program and one created by an inventive artist. I don't however hear "museum quality" as necessarily a pejorative, unless it is taken as somehow the equivalent of computer-generated, while in my experience museums can be pretty lively places.

[Todd]

I don't however hear "museum quality" as necessarily a pejorative, unless it is taken as somehow the equivalent of computer-generated, while in my experience museums can be pretty lively places.

Yep.  Just a couple weeks ago I was at the Antique Implement Society and saw an ancient Fairbanks-Morse engine at work.  Very lively.  Beyond that, fine art museums very often house masterpieces of art, whether paintings or sculptures or other media.  I would never have thought that "museum quality" would be construed negatively, but different strokes, and all that.

[Mandryka]

So before I listen, is one supposed to be shallow and the other not? 'Cause I can't tell. I want to know who most creates a coherent musical structure using the notes Beethoven has provided. Sort of reminds me of a spot in my friend Doug DeVita's play Fable, where Ethel Merman is being harangued by a host of BS stuff, and she replies, "I don't care about any of that sh**, I just want to know: do I come in on the upbeat, or the downbeat?"

And who is Claudio Columbo?

What's a coherent musical structure?

[Atriod]

I will try to reply less sarcastically than he did. The frivolities are meant offer an analogy. You could translate the metaphorical descriptions to more concrete ones. Perhaps a "stream of consciousness performance" is one that sounds improvisatory and in-the-moment. Perhaps a "zen" performance does not mean the performer is a Buddhist, but rather that the performance exudes a deep calm and peacefulness.

Certainly it makes for more colorful reading than "this one is faster than that one." One gets the sense that Todd writes these for his own entertainment even more so than for ours.

I will never understand when I visit my parents I sometimes see my dad watching a shopping channel show selling stuff from coins to vacuum cleaners, he has never given me an answer why other than smiling and laughing. I had a sensible chuckle when Todd was writing about some piano concerto comparison and gave different descriptions of an identical performance from a pianist he thought recorded it twice until it was pointed out by another GMG'er they are the identical performance on the different reissues Todd was listening to. So I certainly hope it's for Todd's entertainment.

What is the objective definition of the word "life" as it pertains to recorded performances?  Same question for the word "spontaneity".  In order for words to be lucid and easily understood, they must have objective definitions.  To give a concrete example using something that physically exists, if I use the word "milk", many and perhaps most people will assume I mean cow's milk, but without a clear, objective definition, even that can cause confusion.

Jed Distler was scientifically accurate in his use of words, just like yourself.

[AnotherSpin]

Lest anyone thinks that it's all in the ears of the hearer, something @Brian came close to suggesting yesterday, that concepts like shallow etc are entirely subjective

[..] 

Well, of course, all is in the ears of the hearer; everything is more than subjective, that's beyond doubt. It's foolish to rely on the applicability of any objective, let alone 'scientific,' criteria. That's why every ranking here is nothing more than futile and groundless.

[Todd]

Jed Distler was scientifically accurate in his use of words, just like yourself.

IOW, you can't answer the question.  I suspected as much.