Rocksolid Light

Welcome to novaBBS (click a section below)

mail  files  register  newsreader  groups  login

Message-ID:  

If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!


arts / rec.music.classical.recordings / Re: SCHERCHEN...

SubjectAuthor
* SCHERCHEN...MELMOTH
+* Re: SCHERCHEN...Dan Koren
|`* Re: SCHERCHEN...MELMOTH
| `* Re: SCHERCHEN...Dan Koren
|  +- Re: SCHERCHEN...Dan Koren
|  `- Re: SCHERCHEN...Dan Koren
+* Re: SCHERCHEN...Chris J.
|`- Re: SCHERCHEN...Mandryka
`- Re: SCHERCHEN...Juan I. Cahis

1
SCHERCHEN...

<6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39793&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39793

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!cleanfeed3-a.proxad.net!nnrp1-2.free.fr!not-for-mail
Subject: SCHERCHEN...
From: theom...@free.fr (MELMOTH)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Organization: MELMOTH
X-Newsreader: MesNews/1.08.06.00
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 14:13:50 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: theomonk@free.fr
X-Plugin-copyright: 2003-AS
X-Plugin-EXIF: http://www.chasta.com/fr/plugin.htm et http://chasta971.free.fr
X-Plugin-info: plugin-XFace
X-Plugin-version: 0.1
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Lines: 693
Message-ID: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 May 2022 14:13:52 CEST
NNTP-Posting-Host: 90.32.253.144
X-Trace: 1652616832 news-3.free.fr 2975 90.32.253.144:5536
X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net
 by: MELMOTH - Sun, 15 May 2022 12:13 UTC

Well...
Those who read Me here know my absolute love of a conductor that I
consider as one of the 5 or 10 greatest conductors...I named Hermann
SCHERCHEN...

I am therefore going to tell you (in several episodes) the incredible
life of this fabulous man !...

My source : the little book of more than 100 pages
(French/English...With a remarkable iconography) included in an
extraordinary Tahra box set (5 CDs - TAH 185-189), containing works of
Bach, Beethoven, Schönberg, Krenek, Berlioz Prokofiev, and
Kalinnikov...

NB: This conductor is probably, among all the conductors of the XXth
century, the one who played and recorded the widest repertoire, and was
in particular, as you will see, an ardent defender of the composers of
his time, a fact rare enough to underline...

Let's begin !

I - THE FIRST LIFE: 1891-1950

Carl Hans Hermann Scherchen was born in Berlin, from a very modest
family, on June 21, 1891, at 8 Göbenstrasse, where his parents owned a
liquor store. His father Carl Hermann Julius (1857-1912) had married
Jihana Berka Burke (1862-1950) on May 12, 1885, and from this marriage
was born another son, Alfred (1886-1951).
The grandparents, Cral Gotlob (1830-1896), a coordinator by trade, and
his wife Johanna Ranze (1830-1866), came from Striegau in Silesia, as
did the great-grandfather, the carpenter Christian Scherchen
(1756-1833), who had married Anna Rosina Langner (1797-1847).

At the age of seven, the child discovered the violin and played it in
his parents' bistro, where customers came to listen to him. A complete
self-taught man, Scherchen never attended a conservatory, but thanks to
his inner listening exercises and concert attendance, he built up an
impressive repertoire, ranging from Bach to the most contemporary
composers (Reger, Debussy, Mahler, etc.).
In 1903, the concerts of the virtuoso Franz von Vecsey, with his
prodigious technique, made him aware of his limits as a violinist and,
in a school essay, to the question "What do you want to do?", he
answered: "At twenty, I will conduct the philharmonic orchestra and be
a conductor in Berlin" (!).

In 1907, he became violist of the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin
Philharmonic, where he played under the direction of Arthur Nikisch,
Oskar Fried, Felix Motl, Felix Weingartner, Richard Strauss, etc. He
also played in cafés, at the Krolloper, at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches
Theater, and at the Lunapark in Berlin. In October 1910, he attended
the concert where Fried conducted Pelléas et Mélisande by Scoenberg
and, in January 1911, the 7th by Mahler. The performance of Pelléas
gave him new sensations, unknown until then, and in Mahler's symphony
he perceived for the first time a new meaning of Art, prefiguring
Expressionism, which would reveal itself to him in all its acuity with
the work of Schoenberg.

1912 is a crucial year in Scherchen's life: it is the year of the
premiere of Pierrot Lunaire, by Schoenberg, who gives the first
performance on October 16. The work was then played during a German
tour shared by the composer and Scherchen, who made his official debut
as a conductor at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich on November 5,
1917. He played the work again in Berlin on December 1.

[Continued in the next issue!]

The following year, he gave the first private performance of
Schoenberg's Kammersinfonie (May 7, 1913): thanks to this concert, he
became a friend of Carl Flesch and Arthur Schnabel and, through them,
met the Jewish banker Franz von Mendelssohn who, with 3,000 marks,
financed his first concert with a large orchestra.
Thus, on February 4, 1914, he conducted the Blüthner orchestra in a
program including Mahler's 5th and Schoenberg's symphony. The following
month (March 18), he gave his second concert (Haydn's 103rd, Mozart's
Petits Riens and Bruckner's 9th). In the spring, he was invited, as
second conductor to Paul Scheinpflug, to conduct the Riga Symphony
Orchestra in the Russian seaside town of Dubbeln. For more than two
months, he conducts four times a week a whole repertoire, mostly
Russian (Dargomyzsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Cui, Liadov, Rimski etc...).
The last concert takes place on August 11 and is interrupted by the
arrival of soldiers carrying flags and guns. The next day, the
announcement is made that Germany has declared war on Russia. The
German and Austrian musicians of the orchestra have only one way out:
to flee as far as possible, within the country, with all the risks that
this represents.
Scherchen became a civilian prisoner of war and, as such, remained in
Russia until April 1918.

Faced with this forced captivity, he did not remain inactive but
learned Russian vocabulary and grammar, managing to read Russian
literature in its original language, above all Dostoyevsky. He also
became a clock repairman, composed a quartet and lieder, but also
experienced hunger and cold, insomnia and deprivation of all kinds. One
day, he was ordered to go to the town of Wjatka, where he arrived in
the winter of 1916. They wanted to create an orchestra with a real
conductor and the name Scherchen was mentioned. The following year he
became a teacher in a makeshift school, teaching German, history of
religions and music. The classes included children as young as 4 years
old as well as illiterate 23 year olds!

1917 was above all the year of the Russian Revolution. On March 6, St.
Petersburg fell, the Tsar fled, it was the liberation from all that was
unbearable. The Bolshevik revolution occurred in October, the first one
having destroyed only the unbearable predominance of a caste. The
events of October changed everything because, for the first time, the
possibility of a return of German prisoners to their country was
possible. During the exodus, Scherchen met the editor of the Russian
magazine Melos, Piotr Suvchin, and the electro-acoustician Auraamov in
Moscow. In his memoirs, he summed up this very long period of 44 months
in Russia as follows: "Melos and acoustics are the last two gifts I
received during my captivity, in addition to my string quartet, my
teaching experience and my conducting practice.

[Continued when I have the courage, My good ones...]
Filled with new horizons, Scherchen returned to Germany and Berlin in
April 1918. He creates the Scherchen Quartet with which he gives the
first performance of his string quartet composed in Russia (December
3). He takes over the direction of the Berlin workers' choirs (Schubert
Choir and Mixed Choir of Greater Berlin), conducts for the first time
the Berlin Philharmonic (September 12). The following year, he founded
the Society for New Music (Neue Musikgesellschaft) which gave six
concerts a year in the Philharmonic Hall and continued his concerts
with the Berliner Philharmoniker (Mahler's 3rd on November 23). In
1920, he was hired at the State College for Music to give courses on
the problems of the New Music, courses in which Schrecker, Haba,
Horenstein, Krenek etc. participated. On February 1, the first issue of
the journal MELOS is published. In September, he toured Silesia with
the Schubert Choir and on October 10, he conducted the
Grotrian-Steinweg Orchestra for the first time in Leipzig and met
Nikisch personally. On June 17, 1921, he married Auguste Maria Jansen,
who gave him a son, Wulf.

1922 was an important year in his artistic development and the
advancement of his career: on March 17, during a concert with the
Berlin Phikharmonic, he conducted the premiere of Krenek's first
symphony; from October on, he succeeded Furtwängler as conductor of the
concerts of the Museumgesellschaft of Frankfurt but above all, he
became the permanent guest conductor of the Musikolllegium of
Winterthur with which he remained linked until 1950 (first concert on
October 25). At the same time, he continued his concerts in Leipzig.

In 1924 (September 13), he gave his first radio concert at the
Frankfurt transmitter, which immediately made him aware of the problems
associated with acoustics. This discovery was the beginning of the
research that he continued until the end of his life (i.e., in his
studio in Gravesano in 1954): "the acoustic existence of music".
(Scherchen was an undeniable pioneer of music on the radio, as a recent
thesis by a young German musicologist, M.Kreikle, proves).

In 1927, he travelled four times to Romania where he conducted a
complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies. 1928 marked a new stage in
his career: he was invited by the city of Königsberg as Director of
Music. Indeed, the Reich Radio wanted to create a symphony orchestra
with him and base it in Königsberg, as representative of the Ostmark.
This proposal appealed to Scherchen, who was able to create an
orchestra from scratch (he conducted it until October 1931). From 1928
on, Scherchen's radio activity continued to develop, conducting
numerous operas on the Berlin transmitter, where he was able to carry
out experiments with spatialization and sound waves. This same year
marks another important event in his life: he conducts for the first
time Bach's Art of the Fugue, which had been "recreated" the previous
year in Leipzig by the cantor Karl Straube. This work never ceased to
accompany Scherchen, who played it for 38 years, even going so far as
to write his own instrumentation, which he premiered in Lugano the year
before his death.


Click here to read the complete article
Re: SCHERCHEN...

<761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39804&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39804

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
X-Received: by 2002:a05:622a:54d:b0:2f3:ce29:234a with SMTP id m13-20020a05622a054d00b002f3ce29234amr12563498qtx.559.1652644234772;
Sun, 15 May 2022 12:50:34 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 2002:a25:4ac4:0:b0:64b:343b:799f with SMTP id
x187-20020a254ac4000000b0064b343b799fmr14146393yba.335.1652644234302; Sun, 15
May 2022 12:50:34 -0700 (PDT)
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!209.85.160.216.MISMATCH!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 12:50:33 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.247.181.171; posting-account=zoRlLAkAAADnaynpk4ZzIoUiINS0rxoJ
NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.247.181.171
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
User-Agent: G2/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: dan.ko...@gmail.com (Dan Koren)
Injection-Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 19:50:34 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 by: Dan Koren - Sun, 15 May 2022 19:50 UTC

Too long to read ......

On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 5:13:57 AM UTC-7, MELMOTH wrote:
> Well...
> Those who read Me here know my absolute love of a conductor that I
> consider as one of the 5 or 10 greatest conductors...I named Hermann
> SCHERCHEN...
>
> I am therefore going to tell you (in several episodes) the incredible
> life of this fabulous man !...
>
> My source : the little book of more than 100 pages
> (French/English...With a remarkable iconography) included in an
> extraordinary Tahra box set (5 CDs - TAH 185-189), containing works of
> Bach, Beethoven, Schönberg, Krenek, Berlioz Prokofiev, and
> Kalinnikov...
>
> NB: This conductor is probably, among all the conductors of the XXth
> century, the one who played and recorded the widest repertoire, and was
> in particular, as you will see, an ardent defender of the composers of
> his time, a fact rare enough to underline...
>
> Let's begin !
>
> I - THE FIRST LIFE: 1891-1950
>
> Carl Hans Hermann Scherchen was born in Berlin, from a very modest
> family, on June 21, 1891, at 8 Göbenstrasse, where his parents owned a
> liquor store. His father Carl Hermann Julius (1857-1912) had married
> Jihana Berka Burke (1862-1950) on May 12, 1885, and from this marriage
> was born another son, Alfred (1886-1951).
> The grandparents, Cral Gotlob (1830-1896), a coordinator by trade, and
> his wife Johanna Ranze (1830-1866), came from Striegau in Silesia, as
> did the great-grandfather, the carpenter Christian Scherchen
> (1756-1833), who had married Anna Rosina Langner (1797-1847).
>
> At the age of seven, the child discovered the violin and played it in
> his parents' bistro, where customers came to listen to him. A complete
> self-taught man, Scherchen never attended a conservatory, but thanks to
> his inner listening exercises and concert attendance, he built up an
> impressive repertoire, ranging from Bach to the most contemporary
> composers (Reger, Debussy, Mahler, etc.).
> In 1903, the concerts of the virtuoso Franz von Vecsey, with his
> prodigious technique, made him aware of his limits as a violinist and,
> in a school essay, to the question "What do you want to do?", he
> answered: "At twenty, I will conduct the philharmonic orchestra and be
> a conductor in Berlin" (!).
>
> In 1907, he became violist of the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin
> Philharmonic, where he played under the direction of Arthur Nikisch,
> Oskar Fried, Felix Motl, Felix Weingartner, Richard Strauss, etc. He
> also played in cafés, at the Krolloper, at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches
> Theater, and at the Lunapark in Berlin. In October 1910, he attended
> the concert where Fried conducted Pelléas et Mélisande by Scoenberg
> and, in January 1911, the 7th by Mahler. The performance of Pelléas
> gave him new sensations, unknown until then, and in Mahler's symphony
> he perceived for the first time a new meaning of Art, prefiguring
> Expressionism, which would reveal itself to him in all its acuity with
> the work of Schoenberg.
>
> 1912 is a crucial year in Scherchen's life: it is the year of the
> premiere of Pierrot Lunaire, by Schoenberg, who gives the first
> performance on October 16. The work was then played during a German
> tour shared by the composer and Scherchen, who made his official debut
> as a conductor at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich on November 5,
> 1917. He played the work again in Berlin on December 1.
>
> [Continued in the next issue!]
>
> The following year, he gave the first private performance of
> Schoenberg's Kammersinfonie (May 7, 1913): thanks to this concert, he
> became a friend of Carl Flesch and Arthur Schnabel and, through them,
> met the Jewish banker Franz von Mendelssohn who, with 3,000 marks,
> financed his first concert with a large orchestra.
> Thus, on February 4, 1914, he conducted the Blüthner orchestra in a
> program including Mahler's 5th and Schoenberg's symphony. The following
> month (March 18), he gave his second concert (Haydn's 103rd, Mozart's
> Petits Riens and Bruckner's 9th). In the spring, he was invited, as
> second conductor to Paul Scheinpflug, to conduct the Riga Symphony
> Orchestra in the Russian seaside town of Dubbeln. For more than two
> months, he conducts four times a week a whole repertoire, mostly
> Russian (Dargomyzsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Cui, Liadov, Rimski etc...).
> The last concert takes place on August 11 and is interrupted by the
> arrival of soldiers carrying flags and guns. The next day, the
> announcement is made that Germany has declared war on Russia. The
> German and Austrian musicians of the orchestra have only one way out:
> to flee as far as possible, within the country, with all the risks that
> this represents.
> Scherchen became a civilian prisoner of war and, as such, remained in
> Russia until April 1918.
>
> Faced with this forced captivity, he did not remain inactive but
> learned Russian vocabulary and grammar, managing to read Russian
> literature in its original language, above all Dostoyevsky. He also
> became a clock repairman, composed a quartet and lieder, but also
> experienced hunger and cold, insomnia and deprivation of all kinds. One
> day, he was ordered to go to the town of Wjatka, where he arrived in
> the winter of 1916. They wanted to create an orchestra with a real
> conductor and the name Scherchen was mentioned. The following year he
> became a teacher in a makeshift school, teaching German, history of
> religions and music. The classes included children as young as 4 years
> old as well as illiterate 23 year olds!
>
> 1917 was above all the year of the Russian Revolution. On March 6, St.
> Petersburg fell, the Tsar fled, it was the liberation from all that was
> unbearable. The Bolshevik revolution occurred in October, the first one
> having destroyed only the unbearable predominance of a caste. The
> events of October changed everything because, for the first time, the
> possibility of a return of German prisoners to their country was
> possible. During the exodus, Scherchen met the editor of the Russian
> magazine Melos, Piotr Suvchin, and the electro-acoustician Auraamov in
> Moscow. In his memoirs, he summed up this very long period of 44 months
> in Russia as follows: "Melos and acoustics are the last two gifts I
> received during my captivity, in addition to my string quartet, my
> teaching experience and my conducting practice.
>
> [Continued when I have the courage, My good ones...]
> Filled with new horizons, Scherchen returned to Germany and Berlin in
> April 1918. He creates the Scherchen Quartet with which he gives the
> first performance of his string quartet composed in Russia (December
> 3). He takes over the direction of the Berlin workers' choirs (Schubert
> Choir and Mixed Choir of Greater Berlin), conducts for the first time
> the Berlin Philharmonic (September 12). The following year, he founded
> the Society for New Music (Neue Musikgesellschaft) which gave six
> concerts a year in the Philharmonic Hall and continued his concerts
> with the Berliner Philharmoniker (Mahler's 3rd on November 23). In
> 1920, he was hired at the State College for Music to give courses on
> the problems of the New Music, courses in which Schrecker, Haba,
> Horenstein, Krenek etc. participated. On February 1, the first issue of
> the journal MELOS is published. In September, he toured Silesia with
> the Schubert Choir and on October 10, he conducted the
> Grotrian-Steinweg Orchestra for the first time in Leipzig and met
> Nikisch personally. On June 17, 1921, he married Auguste Maria Jansen,
> who gave him a son, Wulf.
>
> 1922 was an important year in his artistic development and the
> advancement of his career: on March 17, during a concert with the
> Berlin Phikharmonic, he conducted the premiere of Krenek's first
> symphony; from October on, he succeeded Furtwängler as conductor of the
> concerts of the Museumgesellschaft of Frankfurt but above all, he
> became the permanent guest conductor of the Musikolllegium of
> Winterthur with which he remained linked until 1950 (first concert on
> October 25). At the same time, he continued his concerts in Leipzig.
>
> In 1924 (September 13), he gave his first radio concert at the
> Frankfurt transmitter, which immediately made him aware of the problems
> associated with acoustics. This discovery was the beginning of the
> research that he continued until the end of his life (i.e., in his
> studio in Gravesano in 1954): "the acoustic existence of music".
> (Scherchen was an undeniable pioneer of music on the radio, as a recent
> thesis by a young German musicologist, M.Kreikle, proves).
>
> In 1927, he travelled four times to Romania where he conducted a
> complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies. 1928 marked a new stage in
> his career: he was invited by the city of Königsberg as Director of
> Music. Indeed, the Reich Radio wanted to create a symphony orchestra
> with him and base it in Königsberg, as representative of the Ostmark..
> This proposal appealed to Scherchen, who was able to create an
> orchestra from scratch (he conducted it until October 1931). From 1928
> on, Scherchen's radio activity continued to develop, conducting
> numerous operas on the Berlin transmitter, where he was able to carry
> out experiments with spatialization and sound waves. This same year
> marks another important event in his life: he conducts for the first
> time Bach's Art of the Fugue, which had been "recreated" the previous
> year in Leipzig by the cantor Karl Straube. This work never ceased to
> accompany Scherchen, who played it for 38 years, even going so far as
> to write his own instrumentation, which he premiered in Lugano the year
> before his death.
>
> On October 24, 1929, he conducted for the first time the famous Leipzig
> Gewandhaus Orchestra, then went on tour with the Radio-Königsberg
> Orchestra and gave his first concerts with the Paris Symphony Orchestra
> (December NB: created by Mon Maître Pierrot Monteux!). That same year,
> his first and most famous work, the Manual of Conducting, was published
> in Leipzig by Weber. It was translated into many languages and is still
> an authority. In June 1930, he gave his first conducting course in
> Königsberg, an activity that he continued in many other cities (Paris,
> Vienna, Brussels, Budapest, etc.), and, from 1954, in his own studio in
> Gravesano, in the form of congresses that have remained famous.
>
> In 1932 he gave concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and conducted a
> concert of the Deutscher Arbeiter Sängerbund in Braunschweig, the final
> piece of which was a grandiose orchestration of the Internationale.
> From September to November, he worked in Vienna on the formation of a
> youth orchestra, the Studio Orchester. After a last concert in Berlin
> in mid-December (Kaminski's opera Jürg Jenatsch), he left Germany
> because, with the rise of Nazism, his vision of life would not allow
> him to exist. He spends a large part of 1933 in Strasburg, at the
> invitation of Fritz Munch, especially in August, where he organizes a
> big event that he calls "15 years of music", and in October-November,
> where he conducts Tristan and Othello at the Opera. In January-February
> 1935, he conducted Lohengrin and Don Giovanni in Trieste and in June he
> met a young Chinese woman of 30, Xiao Shusien, in Brussels. He fell in
> love with her and left for China in early 1936 to marry her.
> Chronologically, she will be Scherchen's fourth wife, after Paula
> Schramm (Pauline Retting, the mother of the conductor Karl Ristenpart),
> Gustel Jansen, and the theater actress Gerda Müller (1884-1951). Other
> women more or less shared his life: the actress Carola Neher
> (1900-1942), who died of typhus in a Russian concentration camp near
> Kazakstan, a Swiss harpist, etc...
>
> Back in Europe, he left for Barcelona where, on April 19, he premiered
> Berg's Violin Concerto, with Louis Krasner as soloist. In 1937, he went
> to Bucharest, but also to Budapest (conducting courses) and above all
> to Vienna, where he created the famous Musica Viva orchestra, thanks to
> private funds and the support of Alma Mahler-Werfel, with the aim of
> performing all of Mahler's works. At the end of the year, the orchestra
> toured Italy, but on March 10, 1938, the adventure came to an abrupt
> end due to political events (Anschluss). This ensemble, which was
> called Musica Telaviva, was composed mostly of Jewish musicians who had
> fled fascist Germany.
>
> In 1939, he was invited to Palestine to conduct the orchestra whose
> first concerts Toscanini had just given. He stayed there from May to
> July, alternating concerts and conferences that were incredibly
> successful. He spent the war period (1940-45) in Switzerland,
> continuing his concerts in Winterthur and assiduously visiting
> libraries with the double aim of unearthing forgotten scores and
> researching ancient texts to write his books (Vom Wesesn der Musik,
> Muzik für Jedermann). He left Switzerland only twice: in January and
> July 1940 for concerts and conferences in Greece. Every summer, from
> 1941 to 1944, he gave concerts in Gstaad and recorded for His master's
> Voice in Switzerland his first 78 rpm records (46 sides recorded in
> 1941/42, which we will probably reissue).
>
> [Continued when I have the time]...
> From 1945 on, he was in charge of the musical direction of the
> Studio-Orchester Beromüster - that is to say the BBC in Zurich - where
> he had the Swiss Rolf Liebermann as his assistant. In 1946, he began
> touring and giving concerts abroad: Amsterdam (February), Venice
> (July). In 1947, he was called to Ankara to reorganize the Turkish
> musical life (Beethoven festival in May). In June, he left for South
> America for the first time (Chile) and, on his return, made his first
> appearance at the Darmstadt Festival, devoted to contemporary music
> (premiere of Furioso by Liebermann).
>
> In 1948, new concerts in Chile, as well as in Uruguay and Argentina.
> During the summer, he gave a course in orchestral conducting in Venice.
> On November 13, the mayor of Leipzig sends him the following telegram:
> "/We call you to the direction of the Gewadhaus. Saxon and Radio
> authorities are ready to grant you the Conservatory and the artistic
> direction of the symphonic concerts of Radio-Leipzig". The German
> authorities had also offered him the direction of the Berlin
> Philharmonic and the Staatsoper. For various reasons, mainly personal,
> Scherchen gave up all these positions.
>
> In 1949, he conducted again in Germany (Bonn, Munich, Berlin Drede,
> Leipzig), and returned to Uruguay (July). On October 5, he premiered
> Liebermann's first symphony in Winterthur.
> The year 1950 is the year of all disasters: he gives his last concert
> in Winterthur, his mother dies on May 12 at the age of 88, his Chinese
> wife returns to Peking with their three children, and above all, after
> a conference in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic (June 4), he holds a
> conference in Switzerland where he praises the merits of the culture of
> the Eastern countries. An unbelievable hysterical campaign develops in
> the Swiss press, a true model of opinion offence and he is obliged to
> give up all his posts. This is the darkest period of his life, which
> will lead him to the brink of suicide. It was also the period when Rolf
> Liebermann introduced him to a young Swiss mathematician of Romanian
> origin, Pia Andronescu.
>
> END OF THE FIRST LIFE of this extraordinary man...
>
> Continued when I had time...
> (supersedes <_mn.8ae17da5b...@free.fr_>)
>
> II - THE SECOND LIFE of HERMANN SCHERCHEN (1950 - 1966)
>
> "/What can I say better than this truth: it is with you, thanks to you
> that my true second life began? My sweet Pia, on May 1, ten years ago,
> you came into my life, when I thought I had to follow my mother.
>
> Scherchen wrote this on June 12, 1958 and February 3, 1960 to the woman
> who became his fifth and last wife and who bore him five children. She
> was his youngest by thirty years and a mathematician, and this was very
> important to him, for he always considered the importance of
> mathematics in their relationship to music. By her side, a new life
> took shape: after the catastrophe of the previous months, happiness
> smiled again. In July, they leave together for Rome where Scherchen is
> to give five concerts. In September, he conducted the St. John Passion
> in L'Aquila (September 3) and Israel in Egypt in Perugia (September
> 23). In mid-October, he made his first recordings for the American firm
> Westminster (London Symphonies and Mass in B) and in November, he was
> in London for three radio concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
>
> In 1951, after two months in Brazil, he premiered Brecht-Dessau's
> Lukullus in East Berlin. On June 5, he conducted the Czech Philharmonic
> in Prague, and then, in July-August, premiered in Darmstadt the Dance
> around the Golden Calf, taken from Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron. After
> a month in Mexico, the year ended with concerts in Rome (the complete
> Christmas Oratorio on December 21). At the same time, he develops an
> important activity at the San Carlo in Naples and in June 1953,
> organizes a seminar in Bayreuth. In December, he buys a huge property
> in Gravesano, in the Swiss Ticino, where he builds his electro-acoustic
> research studio which will become famous and will become the point of
> convergence for many scientists, musicians and artists. The first
> congress is held from August 9 to 14, 1954, on the theme Music and
> Electroacoustics. He married Pia Andronescu in London (September 17)
> and on December 2 he conducted the first performance of Varèse's
> Déserts in Paris, which caused a memorable scandal. In July 1955, the
> first issue of Gravesaner Blätter is published (by the time of
> Scherchen's death, 29 issues will have been published) and the second
> congress ("What is light music?") takes place. After selling his Ars
> Viva Verlag to Schott Söhne, he goes on a very long tour of Scandinavia
> in October-November.
>
> Scherchen continues his career as a guest conductor and his recording
> activity (he will make 100 records for Westminster). In January 1956,
> he conducted three times the Mass in B in Budapest and in October 1957
> recorded the soundtrack of the film Don Jiovanni in Munich, produced by
> the Bavaria company. In 1959, he began his activity with the Herford
> orchestra (Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie). In August, a conference was
> held in Gravesano on the theme "/5 years in Gravesano; synthesis of
> studio experience/", with a presentation of the stereophoner and a
> performance in the gardens of Schoenberg's Erwartung with Helga
> Polarzyk. The most important event of the year was the (very
> controversial) German stage premiere of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron in
> Berlin. These six concerts caused a scandal and Scherchen was even
> threatened by phone with vitriol! (He conducted the work in Vienna,
> Paris, Milan, Rome and Munich).
> In 1960 he began his activity at La Scala in Milan, which lasted until
> 1964 (Doctor Faust, by Busoni...Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni,
> Macbeth, The Marriage of Figaro, Rienzi). In April he conducted three
> stage performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Palermo, one of
> which was filmed and broadcast on Eurovision.
> At the end of 1961, he conducted three performances of Berg's Wozzeck
> at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. A new conference is held in
> Gravesano (/Music and TV, Music and Medicine, Music and Mathematics),
> with the participation of Xénakis.
>
> [@ +]
> By popular demand....
>
> In 1962, Scerchen conducted in Spain (the Creation in Barcelona), gave
> a course in conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (August) and
> conducted an entire concert in Paris dedicated to his student Igor
> Markevitch (December 4). In 1963, he conducted in Sicily (Verdi's
> Requiem in Palermo), toured Uruguay and Chile and began his annual
> activity at the Sagra Umbra in Perugia. In 1964, a project to perform
> Handel's Theodora in the ruins of Pompeii was not realized. On October
> 30, he gave his first concert in North America, in Philadelphia
> (Mahler's 5th), then left for New York to give five concerts, including
> two performances of Mozart's Requiem, in honor of President Kennedy.
> From January to May 1965, he gave the complete Beethoven symphonies in
> Lugano, conducted Mahler's 7th in Toronto (April 22), gave concerts in
> Madrid, Granada, Palermo and then left for Chile. In June, he made his
> last recordings for Westminster (Danzi), which went bankrupt and forced
> him to increase the number of concerts. In December, a second American
> tour took him to Toronto, Minneapolis and New York.
>
> After three performances of Moses and Aaron in Rome (January 1966), he
> returned to the USA for a third tour (Washington, St. Louis, Pittsburg,
> Baltimore). In March, a rehearsal of Bach's Art of the Fugue, in the
> Church of Saint Roch in Paris, was filmed by French television. We see
> a tired man, but in full possession of his intellectual faculties.
> After concerts in Bologna, Palermo, Bremen, Catania and at the Royan
> Festival (premiere of Terretektorh by Xenakis on April 3), he leaves
> for Florence where he is to give three performances of Malipiero's
> Orfeide, thus attempting to give a second life to this work created in
> 1925. On June 7, after the first act, he fell ill, but managed to
> finish the concert. Five days later, he died in his hotel, overcome by
> a heart attack. June 12 was also the birthday of his wife who had
> joined him in Florence. He would have been 75 years old nine days
> later.
>
> The prediction of the American telepath who had told him in 1914 that
> he would die at the age of 84 - and which Scherchen had always
> believed! - did not come true. He is buried in the small cemetery of
> Gravesano, in the setting of the Ticino mountains that he loved so much
> and about which he had spoken in an interview with RTSI on his 70th
> birthday: /"The most important thing is this marvelous nature, this
> beauty that I feel every time I go up the mountain of my little
> property and where, when I was 63 years old, I had the sensation for
> the first time in my life, that it is possible to be happy in this
> existence"/.
>
> Thus ended abruptly a life entirely dedicated to Music. What this man
> was able to achieve was unique and overwhelming: writer, teacher,
> lecturer, philosopher, editor, researcher, composer, conductor, etc. A
> conference was planned in Gravesano, on the theme of Art and the
> Computer, he was to give concerts in Japan in October-November, conduct
> Wozzeck in Bologna, and was among the guest conductors of the Chicago
> Symphony for the 1966-67 season.
>
> In May 1966, Ermanno Briner, the sound engineer of the Swiss Italian
> Radio and Television, visited Scherchen at his home in Gravesano. At
> the end of the conversation, Scherchen spoke of his tireless dedication
> to contemporary music. Quite unexpectedly, he said slowly and
> thoughtfully: /"You know, I don't know if everything I've done in my
> life makes sense. In modern music, I always expect something to happen,
> but only the outer conditioning changes and the inner remains
> constantly the same. For example, I try to get something out of this
> score, but it is very difficult..."/.
>
> To E. Briner, Scherchen - who was averse to intimate confidences - had
> already made this admission: "When I am dead, very soon people will not
> talk about me anymore. This judgment highlights the goal that Scherchen
> has always pursued: to serve a noble cause, for the sole sake of an art
> that is above the fate of everyone. This modesty has no justification,
> for the imprint left by Scherchen is of such importance that his name
> is now indelibly inscribed in the history of musical interpretation.
>
> HERE IS THE END OF THE LIFE OF THIS UNIQUE AND EXTRAORDINARY MAN...
>
> I acquired my first disc of Scherchen at the age of 15 (1960): it was
> the 2nd and 8th of the GS...Which are still currently essential
> references...Especially the 8th!
>
> Jaiparlé©
>
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> HERMANN SCHERCHEN and the PRECLASSIQUE SYMPHONY
>
> [From the excellent booklet written by René Trémine, in the double CD
> Tahra 152/153)
>
> The fact that Scherchen has been systematically catalogued as an ardent
> defender of contemporary music - which he certainly was! - has often
> overshadowed his other activities, especially his dedication to baroque
> and pre-classical music! Indeed, he always affirmed that his mission
> was to make known ALL MUSIC, without exclusion, and he illustrated this
> by conducting mixed programs, alternating works of the 17th century,
> classical and modern!
>
> During the war, Scherchen lived in Switzerland. A study of his diaries
> from this period shows that he assiduously frequented Swiss libraries
> with the dual purpose of researching ancient texts as material for his
> books [Vom Wesen der Musik (1946) - Musik für Jedermann (1950)], and of
> unearthing forgotten scores to play them in concert (and publish them
> in his own Ars Viva Verlag, which he sold to Schott Söhne in 1954). On
> the other hand, from 1945 to 1950, he was Director of Programs at
> Radio-Zürich (I have already mentioned this in my previous opus on this
> great conductor) and, in this capacity, conducted the concerts at the
> Radio-Beromünster transmitter.
> A search in the archives of the Swiss radio allowed us to discover that
> 300 works had been recorded (!) and that, unfortunately, only a tiny
> quantity survived the systematic campaigns of erasure of the tapes,
> realized by the Swiss Radio! (and afterwards, one will be surprised
> that I never liked this country!)...
>
> The study of these programs is also very revealing: he programmed the
> first French opéra bouffe, Platée by Rameau, gave concerts devoted to
> Chinese music, to French pre-classics (Le
> Duc...Barrière...Saint-Georges), Czech (Beck...Stamitz... Richter),
> English (Abel...J.Chr. Bach...Haendel), Italian
> (Sammartini...Nardini...Tartini), South American music
> (Gnattali...Catunda... Vianna...Villa-Lobos), Norwegian (Sparre
> Olsen...Fongsedt...Farstein...Valen), Argentinian etc...WHO SAYS
> BETTER?!!!...I don't even ask the question©...
> He also devoted two programs to the Birth of the Symphony
> (Peurl...Monteverdi...Purcell...Rameau...Lully...Leonardo
> Leo...J.Rousseau...Piccini etc.).
>
> In Winterthur, early music occupied a large part of his programs: thus,
> on February 24, 1940, he devoted an entire concert to Swiss composers
> of the past (Fritz...Fröhlich...Schnyder von Wartensee... Lefèvre); on
> August 12, 1941, to the Masters of the pre-classical period
> (Lully...Corelli...Peurl...Monteverdi...Purcell...Rameau); on May 22,
> 1943, to the unknown Masters of the pre-classical period
> (Wagenseil...Tartini...Gossec...Keller...Beck etc...). On November 21,
> 1943, he celebrated the 300th anniversary of Monteverdi with a
> performance of the Vespers of 1610.
>
> Historically, the symphonic form was born from the opening of the
> Italian opera. As early as 1632, Stefano Landi began his theatrical
> work, Il Sant'Alessio, with an important overture in three parts. It
> was Alessandro Scarlatti who first gave the Overture the name Sinfonia
> and established its structure: three distinct parts, including an
> energetic and brilliantly illustrated allegro, a short andante of
> lyrical character for the strings, and a spirited presto. This type of
> overture was used throughout the 17th century.
> At the same time, another type of overture was developed in France,
> with J.B. Lully, in three linked parts. The symphony resulting from the
> Italian overture will be born when one of these overtures, or sinfonia,
> will be detached from the work of which it constitutes the introduction
> and when it will be carried out like piece of concert. G.Sammartini was
> one of the first to publish overtures, or concert symphonies.
>
> The so-called pre-classical symphony developed in the middle of the
> 18th century, thanks in particular to the two schools of Vienna and
> Mannheim. Their respective contributions were in two different areas:
> the form for Vienna, the style for Mannheim.
> The Viennese (Monn...Wagenseil) fixed the plan of the symphony in three
> movements (allegro, andante, presto), or even four (with a minuet). The
> allegro and presto adopt the sonata form; the tonalities, generally
> major, are varied; the rhythms are jolting, based on syncopations; the
> most common instrumentation groups the string quartet, two flutes, two
> oboes and two horns.
> These innovations were also adopted in Mannheim by Stamitz, Richter,
> Beck, etc. Stamitz introduced a new instrumental style to the symphony,
> characterized by the use of great dynamics (powerful crescendi, sudden
> oppositions of nuances), and a new orchestration (abandonment of the
> continuo, introduction of the clarinet, use of the winds as soloists).
> This school will influence the French symphony of the 18th century,
> mainly represented by Fr.Martin and Fr.Gossec, and whose golden age
> will be between 1778 and 1789.
>
> The Encyclopedia of Music, published by Johann Gottfried Walther in
> 1732 in Leipzig, is the first to give a definition of the word
> symphony: /It means everything that resonates in harmony and
> characterizes a work played only by instruments. In this musical form,
> the composer has total freedom and does not need to adhere to
> particular numbers and proportions, he can use as many as he wants,
> while avoiding creating chaos.
> This definition symbolizes a great diversity, but only in appearance,
> because in those early days of the symphony we did not find any of the
> rules we know today. The term symphony encompassed a variety of musical
> forms, such as instrumental sonatas played as introductions or
> intermissions to vocal works, introductory movements to German
> partitas, and even overtures played in the Italian style
> (fast-slow-fast).
> The decisive event in the development of the classical form of the
> symphony occurred shortly before 1750, when the sonata was adopted as
> an obligatory introductory movement form.
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> *Is there a particular style of performing pre-classical music?
>
> [Text written by SCHERCHEN, necessarily]...
>
> Laugier, a very appreciated author of the 18th century, sums up what a
> good performance of an orchestral work should be like this: "To give a
> good performance of a work, one must first transpose oneself in the
> thoughts of the composer and in the spirit of the work. Then one must
> reproduce the exact value of each note, scrupulously following the
> composer's indications and not making any changes or embellishments on
> one's own initiative. One should be content to add only the soul and
> the fire to the work performed, without which the notes cannot express
> anything. All voices must be played with the same care, in order to
> achieve the maximum effect. On the other hand, the most important
> parts, i.e. the melody and the bass, must govern the whole".
>
> What we call here fire and soul, Rameau already called it expression,
> this expression which must be the only goal of the musician. Further
> on, one can read: "The violin, the oboe and the harpsichord should be
> played with soul; this "playing with soul" will only become audible
> thanks to the opposition between low and high notes, to the increase or
> decrease of the sounds and to a certain modification of the values of
> the notes, a transformation which must absolutely not concern the
> measure. In other words, thanks to a number of procedures that are
> easier to use than to define.
>
> As early as 1552, Josquin des Près said: "To write, the composer must
> be pushed by a force more powerful than himself, so strong that he
> forgets hunger and thirst, and that he will forget all the necessities
> of daily life before having completed his work.
> We know that Handel composed several of his works in the midst of tears
> and sobs. The great flutist Quantz, contemporary of Bach, summarized
> all this in 1752 in a very simple phrase, which Beethoven later used:
> only what comes from the heart goes back to the heart.
>
> There is a widespread opinion that pre-classical music is a learned
> music, which must be played in a special way, which is understood only
> by the initiated, and which is included in concert programs only to
> bore the audience. It has even been said that in interpreting the
> pre-classical authors, one wanted to eliminate - under the pretext of
> science - a large part of what belongs to the sensual experience of
> music. Thus, there would be no place here for crescendo or decrescendo.
> Vibrato was, it seems, unknown to these ancient masters, and their
> tempi must have been much slower than those used today. But, since a
> good and sensitive musician is not so easily influenced by such
> caprices, it was often preferred to entrust such interpretations of
> older works to semi-amateurs, within specific associations, and thus
> effectively managed to make the public believe that, in order to
> understand this music, one had to be organized in a particular way.
>
> Let's take stock of this situation and now try to determine what really
> corresponds to these pretentious claims to "know more".
>
> I'm getting tired now...
> The rest later, oh music lovers and other idiophiles...
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> It is proven that the ancient masters knew about tempo changes, so much
> so that one author wrote: "I believe that in instrumental music, too
> many riatardandi are used. In my opinion, the rigor of tempo should
> only rarely be broken, for too much freedom becomes a flaw if it is
> repeated too frequently. The hypothesis of the use of the ritardendo
> will be to employ it only tastefully and expressively".
> J.J.Rousseau attacks the article Métronome published by the
> Encyclopédie, in the following way: "Our misique has the ambition to
> tyrannize the measure according to the taste of the interpreter, i.e.
> to accelerate it or to slow it down".
>
> The vibrato - an alleged invention of the new violin technique - is
> already mentioned in 1648 by Mersenne (a French theorist who has dealt
> with almost all the fields that are nowadays part of MUSICOLOGY. His
> work remains an inexhaustible source for the knowledge of the music of
> the 16th and 17th centuries: "It is necessary to use vibrato to make
> the sound more pleasant. The composers of the 18th century demanded it
> and often recommended it, to give more life to the notes held in time.
> Lully's contemporaries tell us that he accelerated all the tempi: all
> those who heard Lully himself conduct his operas, when the great master
> could still tell his musicians and singers what cannot be written in
> notes alone, regret today this way of playing which, at the time, had
> enchanted them so much. At the same time, they say that today these
> operas last much longer than in Lully's time, despite the fact that
> nowadays all the violin arias that were played a second time are no
> longer repeated.
>
> A slower tempo for playing pre-classical works could be justified if
> the musicians of the time had not been able to master the technical
> difficulties, as we can today. But we also know that the technical
> handling of the harpsichord was not much worse than that of today, that
> one could not play fast on the organ, in the forte, and that in the
> piano it was as handy as the harpsichord.
> The string technique taught in the violin schools of the 18th century
> was so advanced that the practice of seven positions was the basis
> (until the end of the 18th century, the orchestral writing of the
> violin used only 5 positions; this number increased to 9 with
> Beethoven, then 11 with Wagner. The viola has 7 positions, the cello
> 4). Moreover, mastery of all types of scales and arpeggios was the
> normal condition for virtuoso playing. Double strings were already used
> and even difficulties such as the double trill on two tones of a third
> and the sounds of the flageolet were encountered. It has also been
> shown that the string technique was particularly developed. Because of
> the predominance of dance forms in instrumental music, precise patterns
> for each bow stroke were established for each of these dances, and it
> was not uncommon for dancers to be confused by the orchestra's failure
> to follow these bow strokes, and to lose their ability to follow the
> rhythm. All of this applies to the violins and the entire string
> family. There is also a whole series of very precise instructions for
> the different types of bow strokes, from the very brief staccato to the
> martellato. It was said that the violin bow was the instrument's soul
> and that it allowed it to express all emotions.
>
> Obviously, besides these technical concordances, the musical execution
> of the pre-classics is very different from ours: for example, the
> totally different proportion of the instruments of the orchestra
> between them. In 1719, we find: 14 violins, 6 violas, facing 8 basses
> and 4 bassoons; in 1747, 10 violins and 2 violas facing 7 cellos and 3
> bassoons. The famous orchestra of Popelinière counted only 5 violins, 1
> bassoon, 1 cello and 1 double bass. All these examples show that the
> basses of the time had a much greater importance than today.
>
> It would therefore be a mistake to neglect this proportion of the bass
> to the melody in the performance of pre-classical music. Just as
> important as the strength of the basses in terms of clarity was the
> participation of entire groups of flutes, oboes and possibly trumpets
> in the sound color of the pre-classical orchestra. To see this, one
> need only compare the melancholy sound of the orchestra in Bach's Suite
> in B (with its groups of flutes) with the bright and luminous Suite in
> D major, with its oboes, trumpets and timpani. Nothing can better
> express this difference than a knowledge of the key in 1745: here, the
> Mass in B is said to be melancholic, while the Suite in D is indicated
> as more joyful and very belligerent.
>
> The importance of correct tempo is documented in almost all the
> writings on music of the 17th and 18th centuries: an incorrect tempo
> can render the musical effect artificial and completely change its
> expression. As a result, the French Academy of Sciences presented a
> metronome as early as 1701, which was widely used throughout the 18th
> century, long before Mälzel! Annotations based on this first metronome
> allow us to reconstruct the authentic tempi for the most important
> dances of pre-classical music. Here is a brief overview:
>
> Minuet: 72-80
> Chacone : 120 - 156
> Rigaudon : 116 - 152
> Gavotte : 96 - 152
> Passepied : 84 - 136
> Bourrée : 112 - 120
> Gigue : 112 - 120
> Sarabande : 63 - 84
>
> Uniquely, it should be mentioned that Lully has always played the
> reprise of his Armida Overture faster and faster, right from the
> beginning. Unlike today's orchestral sound, the instruments were tuned
> a semitone or a tone lower than contemporary instruments; on the other
> hand, the sound power of pre-classical instruments was lower than
> today's. The harpsichord and the organ of that time did not have the
> same power as ours, and this is also true for the strings. Suffice it
> to say that to maintain historical fidelity for the sake of fidelity
> alone in our great concert halls with their ever-growing audiences
> would be a real nonsense; the modern concert hall demands the piano as
> much as our much more powerful sounding string instruments of today.
> The same cannot be said for flutes, oboes and bassoons, which have
> undergone only slight modifications since Bach. Only today's trumpets
> are in contrast to the even lighter character of the instruments of
> pre-classical music.
>
> There are no imperative rules for performing the latter: it is music,
> not geometry. Pre-classical music requires more than any other harmonic
> balance, that is to say a harmonious and happy correspondence between
> all the relationships that only good taste can govern, this taste of
> which one of our old authors speaks: "Good taste often determines all
> alone those realities and relationships in music, which cannot be
> explained otherwise than by good taste itself".
>
> Let us specify that this fascinating text was written by Scherchen
> in...1938!...Well before the delusions of the Harnoncourian doxa!...
>
> What do they say?...
> I ask the question©...


Click here to read the complete article
Re: SCHERCHEN...

<62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39814&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39814

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!aioe.org!news.gegeweb.eu!gegeweb.org!usenet-fr.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!cleanfeed3-b.proxad.net!nnrp3-2.free.fr!not-for-mail
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: theom...@free.fr (MELMOTH)
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Organization: MELMOTH
X-Newsreader: MesNews/1.08.06.00
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 23:24:31 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: theomonk@free.fr
X-Plugin-copyright: 2003-AS
X-Plugin-EXIF: http://www.chasta.com/fr/plugin.htm et http://chasta971.free.fr
X-Plugin-info: plugin-XFace
X-Plugin-version: 0.1
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Lines: 6
Message-ID: <62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 May 2022 23:24:32 CEST
NNTP-Posting-Host: 90.32.253.144
X-Trace: 1652649872 news-3.free.fr 22060 90.32.253.144:1594
X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net
 by: MELMOTH - Sun, 15 May 2022 21:24 UTC

Dan Koren a utilisé son clavier pour écrire :
> Too long to read ......

If I had replaced Scherchen by Celibidache, I doubt that you would have
answered the same thing...

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39817&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39817

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
X-Received: by 2002:a05:620a:2683:b0:69c:8c9c:5f80 with SMTP id c3-20020a05620a268300b0069c8c9c5f80mr10368190qkp.367.1652650070826;
Sun, 15 May 2022 14:27:50 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 2002:a05:6902:103:b0:628:3eb4:a6cc with SMTP id
o3-20020a056902010300b006283eb4a6ccmr14491012ybh.4.1652650070531; Sun, 15 May
2022 14:27:50 -0700 (PDT)
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!209.85.160.216.MISMATCH!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 14:27:50 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.247.181.171; posting-account=zoRlLAkAAADnaynpk4ZzIoUiINS0rxoJ
NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.247.181.171
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>
<62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
User-Agent: G2/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: dan.ko...@gmail.com (Dan Koren)
Injection-Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 21:27:50 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
 by: Dan Koren - Sun, 15 May 2022 21:27 UTC

On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 2:24:36 PM UTC-7, MELMOTH wrote:
> Dan Koren a utilisé son clavier pour écrire :
> > Too long to read .....
>
> If I had replaced Scherchen by
> Celibidache, I doubt that you
> would have answered the
> same thing...

I would have replied EXACTLY
the same way. As my friend
Clara liked to say "talking
about music is like dancing
about architecture".

dk

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<4ba8e9a8-906c-40c9-b94e-09c33f504c1bn@googlegroups.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39819&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39819

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
X-Received: by 2002:a37:c44:0:b0:69f:81cb:1d6a with SMTP id 65-20020a370c44000000b0069f81cb1d6amr10440355qkm.494.1652650745119;
Sun, 15 May 2022 14:39:05 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 2002:a5b:743:0:b0:64d:aaa2:b4e with SMTP id s3-20020a5b0743000000b0064daaa20b4emr2414761ybq.530.1652650744750;
Sun, 15 May 2022 14:39:04 -0700 (PDT)
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feed1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 14:39:04 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.247.181.171; posting-account=zoRlLAkAAADnaynpk4ZzIoUiINS0rxoJ
NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.247.181.171
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>
<62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>
User-Agent: G2/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <4ba8e9a8-906c-40c9-b94e-09c33f504c1bn@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: dan.ko...@gmail.com (Dan Koren)
Injection-Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 21:39:05 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Received-Bytes: 1861
 by: Dan Koren - Sun, 15 May 2022 21:39 UTC

On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 2:27:53 PM UTC-7, Dan Koren wrote:
> On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 2:24:36 PM UTC-7, MELMOTH wrote:
> > Dan Koren a utilisé son clavier pour écrire :
> > > Too long to read .....
> >
> > If I had replaced Scherchen by
> > Celibidache, I doubt that you
> > would have answered the
> > same thing...
> I would have replied EXACTLY
> the same way. As my friend
> Clara liked to say "talking
> about music is like dancing
> about architecture".
>

BTW I do like Scherchen.

dk

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<5ee091f9-4ed1-4765-a077-635626ff1c94n@googlegroups.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39822&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39822

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
X-Received: by 2002:a05:622a:1195:b0:2f3:b8bf:46ab with SMTP id m21-20020a05622a119500b002f3b8bf46abmr13164232qtk.190.1652650863203;
Sun, 15 May 2022 14:41:03 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 2002:a25:9a43:0:b0:64a:bc11:3132 with SMTP id
r3-20020a259a43000000b0064abc113132mr14981913ybo.261.1652650862840; Sun, 15
May 2022 14:41:02 -0700 (PDT)
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feed1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 14:41:02 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.247.181.171; posting-account=zoRlLAkAAADnaynpk4ZzIoUiINS0rxoJ
NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.247.181.171
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <761efb2f-30b3-4282-bc7f-f2c8fe600fadn@googlegroups.com>
<62816f90$0$22060$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <960f3ace-ccf1-4b1c-8d82-7992eee46038n@googlegroups.com>
User-Agent: G2/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <5ee091f9-4ed1-4765-a077-635626ff1c94n@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: dan.ko...@gmail.com (Dan Koren)
Injection-Date: Sun, 15 May 2022 21:41:03 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Received-Bytes: 1930
 by: Dan Koren - Sun, 15 May 2022 21:41 UTC

On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 2:27:53 PM UTC-7, Dan Koren wrote:
> On Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 2:24:36 PM UTC-7, MELMOTH wrote:
> > Dan Koren a utilisé son clavier pour écrire :
> > > Too long to read .....
> >
> > If I had replaced Scherchen by
> > Celibidache, I doubt that you
> > would have answered the
> > same thing...
>
> I would have replied EXACTLY
> the same way. As my friend
> Clara liked to say "talking
> about music is like dancing
> about architecture".

In case you didn't notice, my
reaply was about your article,
not about Scherchen.

dk

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<5SogK.3481697$u91.3279163@fx02.ams4>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39829&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39829

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feed1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!peer01.ams4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!fx02.ams4.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: chrisjoh...@mailservice.invalid (Chris J.)
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
User-Agent: Pan/0.145 (Duplicitous mercenary valetism; d7e168a
git.gnome.org/pan2)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Lines: 9
Message-ID: <5SogK.3481697$u91.3279163@fx02.ams4>
X-Complaints-To: http://support.highwinds-media.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 09:31:45 UTC
Organization: Usenet4u
Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 09:31:45 GMT
X-Received-Bytes: 961
 by: Chris J. - Mon, 16 May 2022 09:31 UTC

MELMOTH wrote on 15 May:
> SCHERCHEN...

Now read what Elias Canetti had to say about him in Jeux de Regard (The
Play of the Eyes; original title: Das Augenspiel) and report back,
provided you can keep it succinct.

Chris

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<6aae87be-20f3-4a83-9af0-10f07f433746n@googlegroups.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39830&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39830

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
X-Received: by 2002:ad4:5aaa:0:b0:45a:a137:49d3 with SMTP id u10-20020ad45aaa000000b0045aa13749d3mr14385098qvg.61.1652694163672;
Mon, 16 May 2022 02:42:43 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 2002:a25:385:0:b0:64d:6c52:f1e4 with SMTP id
127-20020a250385000000b0064d6c52f1e4mr8962967ybd.46.1652694163488; Mon, 16
May 2022 02:42:43 -0700 (PDT)
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feed1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!peer03.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 02:42:43 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <5SogK.3481697$u91.3279163@fx02.ams4>
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2a00:23c8:28b:6800:8179:a5dc:6996:9663;
posting-account=8bTzzAoAAAC1gnUKfRTQBi2I3-sblKzz
NNTP-Posting-Host: 2a00:23c8:28b:6800:8179:a5dc:6996:9663
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr> <5SogK.3481697$u91.3279163@fx02.ams4>
User-Agent: G2/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <6aae87be-20f3-4a83-9af0-10f07f433746n@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
From: howie.st...@gmail.com (Mandryka)
Injection-Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 09:42:43 +0000
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Received-Bytes: 1706
 by: Mandryka - Mon, 16 May 2022 09:42 UTC

I actually found myself really enjoying something by Scherchen a couple of weeks ago, Berlioz's Troyens. It's a very good antidote to Colin Davis.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Scherchen because one of my favourite composers -- Luc Ferrari -- talks about how supportive he was (financially supportive, I think he helped Ferrari and others buy equipment, rent studios etc. It's in Jacqueline Caux's book Presque Rien, which I'll dig out later maybe. )

Re: SCHERCHEN...

<117232505.674314636.945542.jicahis.SINBASURA-gmail.com@news-central.giganews.com>

 copy mid

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article-flat.php?id=39833&group=rec.music.classical.recordings#39833

 copy link   Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Path: i2pn2.org!i2pn.org!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!news.misty.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!buffer2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!buffer1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 08:57:19 -0500
User-Agent: NewsTap/5.5 (iPad)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:URdXooJNV+McehhZqyTTiV5KaQ0=
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Message-ID: <117232505.674314636.945542.jicahis.SINBASURA-gmail.com@news-central.giganews.com>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2022 09:57:19 -0400
Subject: Re: SCHERCHEN...
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: jicahis....@gmail.com (Juan I. Cahis)
References: <6280ee7f$0$2975$426a74cc@news.free.fr>
Lines: 701
X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com
X-Trace: sv3-KYfdJqLF9NgfoW0WJrwHxkgLPIzY263D2T3ocA2bwmAjQieGfVHU4xU/0b3sm/2hqjbY8R9Y3/8SuAa!GhXlglgn+fCMnUYUu5vbrhjleJKYeo8PZpEZ4pMvW03bV2fFPHmHWzK6yMRdV62y9A3FXzuegkv1!rNXTX/n2K1uxOCJWn2U8vzAsYSHcC+RB0pmb1KUk7lhB
X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com
X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.40
X-Original-Bytes: 43392
 by: Juan I. Cahis - Mon, 16 May 2022 13:57 UTC

MELMOTH <theomonk@free.fr> wrote:
> Well...
> Those who read Me here know my absolute love of a conductor that I
> consider as one of the 5 or 10 greatest conductors...I named Hermann
> SCHERCHEN...
>
> I am therefore going to tell you (in several episodes) the incredible
> life of this fabulous man !...
>
> My source : the little book of more than 100 pages
> (French/English...With a remarkable iconography) included in an
> extraordinary Tahra box set (5 CDs - TAH 185-189), containing works of
> Bach, Beethoven, Schönberg, Krenek, Berlioz Prokofiev, and
> Kalinnikov...
>
> NB: This conductor is probably, among all the conductors of the XXth
> century, the one who played and recorded the widest repertoire, and was
> in particular, as you will see, an ardent defender of the composers of
> his time, a fact rare enough to underline...
>
> Let's begin !
>
> I - THE FIRST LIFE: 1891-1950
>
> Carl Hans Hermann Scherchen was born in Berlin, from a very modest
> family, on June 21, 1891, at 8 Göbenstrasse, where his parents owned a
> liquor store. His father Carl Hermann Julius (1857-1912) had married
> Jihana Berka Burke (1862-1950) on May 12, 1885, and from this marriage
> was born another son, Alfred (1886-1951).
> The grandparents, Cral Gotlob (1830-1896), a coordinator by trade, and
> his wife Johanna Ranze (1830-1866), came from Striegau in Silesia, as
> did the great-grandfather, the carpenter Christian Scherchen
> (1756-1833), who had married Anna Rosina Langner (1797-1847).
>
> At the age of seven, the child discovered the violin and played it in
> his parents' bistro, where customers came to listen to him. A complete
> self-taught man, Scherchen never attended a conservatory, but thanks to
> his inner listening exercises and concert attendance, he built up an
> impressive repertoire, ranging from Bach to the most contemporary
> composers (Reger, Debussy, Mahler, etc.).
> In 1903, the concerts of the virtuoso Franz von Vecsey, with his
> prodigious technique, made him aware of his limits as a violinist and,
> in a school essay, to the question "What do you want to do?", he
> answered: "At twenty, I will conduct the philharmonic orchestra and be
> a conductor in Berlin" (!).
>
> In 1907, he became violist of the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin
> Philharmonic, where he played under the direction of Arthur Nikisch,
> Oskar Fried, Felix Motl, Felix Weingartner, Richard Strauss, etc. He
> also played in cafés, at the Krolloper, at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches
> Theater, and at the Lunapark in Berlin. In October 1910, he attended
> the concert where Fried conducted Pelléas et Mélisande by Scoenberg
> and, in January 1911, the 7th by Mahler. The performance of Pelléas
> gave him new sensations, unknown until then, and in Mahler's symphony
> he perceived for the first time a new meaning of Art, prefiguring
> Expressionism, which would reveal itself to him in all its acuity with
> the work of Schoenberg.
>
> 1912 is a crucial year in Scherchen's life: it is the year of the
> premiere of Pierrot Lunaire, by Schoenberg, who gives the first
> performance on October 16. The work was then played during a German
> tour shared by the composer and Scherchen, who made his official debut
> as a conductor at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich on November 5,
> 1917. He played the work again in Berlin on December 1.
>
> [Continued in the next issue!]
>
> The following year, he gave the first private performance of
> Schoenberg's Kammersinfonie (May 7, 1913): thanks to this concert, he
> became a friend of Carl Flesch and Arthur Schnabel and, through them,
> met the Jewish banker Franz von Mendelssohn who, with 3,000 marks,
> financed his first concert with a large orchestra.
> Thus, on February 4, 1914, he conducted the Blüthner orchestra in a
> program including Mahler's 5th and Schoenberg's symphony. The following
> month (March 18), he gave his second concert (Haydn's 103rd, Mozart's
> Petits Riens and Bruckner's 9th). In the spring, he was invited, as
> second conductor to Paul Scheinpflug, to conduct the Riga Symphony
> Orchestra in the Russian seaside town of Dubbeln. For more than two
> months, he conducts four times a week a whole repertoire, mostly
> Russian (Dargomyzsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Cui, Liadov, Rimski etc...).
> The last concert takes place on August 11 and is interrupted by the
> arrival of soldiers carrying flags and guns. The next day, the
> announcement is made that Germany has declared war on Russia. The
> German and Austrian musicians of the orchestra have only one way out:
> to flee as far as possible, within the country, with all the risks that
> this represents.
> Scherchen became a civilian prisoner of war and, as such, remained in
> Russia until April 1918.
>
> Faced with this forced captivity, he did not remain inactive but
> learned Russian vocabulary and grammar, managing to read Russian
> literature in its original language, above all Dostoyevsky. He also
> became a clock repairman, composed a quartet and lieder, but also
> experienced hunger and cold, insomnia and deprivation of all kinds. One
> day, he was ordered to go to the town of Wjatka, where he arrived in
> the winter of 1916. They wanted to create an orchestra with a real
> conductor and the name Scherchen was mentioned. The following year he
> became a teacher in a makeshift school, teaching German, history of
> religions and music. The classes included children as young as 4 years
> old as well as illiterate 23 year olds!
>
> 1917 was above all the year of the Russian Revolution. On March 6, St.
> Petersburg fell, the Tsar fled, it was the liberation from all that was
> unbearable. The Bolshevik revolution occurred in October, the first one
> having destroyed only the unbearable predominance of a caste. The
> events of October changed everything because, for the first time, the
> possibility of a return of German prisoners to their country was
> possible. During the exodus, Scherchen met the editor of the Russian
> magazine Melos, Piotr Suvchin, and the electro-acoustician Auraamov in
> Moscow. In his memoirs, he summed up this very long period of 44 months
> in Russia as follows: "Melos and acoustics are the last two gifts I
> received during my captivity, in addition to my string quartet, my
> teaching experience and my conducting practice.
>
> [Continued when I have the courage, My good ones...]
> Filled with new horizons, Scherchen returned to Germany and Berlin in
> April 1918. He creates the Scherchen Quartet with which he gives the
> first performance of his string quartet composed in Russia (December
> 3). He takes over the direction of the Berlin workers' choirs (Schubert
> Choir and Mixed Choir of Greater Berlin), conducts for the first time
> the Berlin Philharmonic (September 12). The following year, he founded
> the Society for New Music (Neue Musikgesellschaft) which gave six
> concerts a year in the Philharmonic Hall and continued his concerts
> with the Berliner Philharmoniker (Mahler's 3rd on November 23). In
> 1920, he was hired at the State College for Music to give courses on
> the problems of the New Music, courses in which Schrecker, Haba,
> Horenstein, Krenek etc. participated. On February 1, the first issue of
> the journal MELOS is published. In September, he toured Silesia with
> the Schubert Choir and on October 10, he conducted the
> Grotrian-Steinweg Orchestra for the first time in Leipzig and met
> Nikisch personally. On June 17, 1921, he married Auguste Maria Jansen,
> who gave him a son, Wulf.
>
> 1922 was an important year in his artistic development and the
> advancement of his career: on March 17, during a concert with the
> Berlin Phikharmonic, he conducted the premiere of Krenek's first
> symphony; from October on, he succeeded Furtwängler as conductor of the
> concerts of the Museumgesellschaft of Frankfurt but above all, he
> became the permanent guest conductor of the Musikolllegium of
> Winterthur with which he remained linked until 1950 (first concert on
> October 25). At the same time, he continued his concerts in Leipzig.
>
> In 1924 (September 13), he gave his first radio concert at the
> Frankfurt transmitter, which immediately made him aware of the problems
> associated with acoustics. This discovery was the beginning of the
> research that he continued until the end of his life (i.e., in his
> studio in Gravesano in 1954): "the acoustic existence of music".
> (Scherchen was an undeniable pioneer of music on the radio, as a recent
> thesis by a young German musicologist, M.Kreikle, proves).
>
> In 1927, he travelled four times to Romania where he conducted a
> complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies. 1928 marked a new stage in
> his career: he was invited by the city of Königsberg as Director of
> Music. Indeed, the Reich Radio wanted to create a symphony orchestra
> with him and base it in Königsberg, as representative of the Ostmark.
> This proposal appealed to Scherchen, who was able to create an
> orchestra from scratch (he conducted it until October 1931). From 1928
> on, Scherchen's radio activity continued to develop, conducting
> numerous operas on the Berlin transmitter, where he was able to carry
> out experiments with spatialization and sound waves. This same year
> marks another important event in his life: he conducts for the first
> time Bach's Art of the Fugue, which had been "recreated" the previous
> year in Leipzig by the cantor Karl Straube. This work never ceased to
> accompany Scherchen, who played it for 38 years, even going so far as
> to write his own instrumentation, which he premiered in Lugano the year
> before his death.
>
> On October 24, 1929, he conducted for the first time the famous Leipzig
> Gewandhaus Orchestra, then went on tour with the Radio-Königsberg
> Orchestra and gave his first concerts with the Paris Symphony Orchestra
> (December NB: created by Mon Maître Pierrot Monteux!). That same year,
> his first and most famous work, the Manual of Conducting, was published
> in Leipzig by Weber. It was translated into many languages and is still
> an authority. In June 1930, he gave his first conducting course in
> Königsberg, an activity that he continued in many other cities (Paris,
> Vienna, Brussels, Budapest, etc.), and, from 1954, in his own studio in
> Gravesano, in the form of congresses that have remained famous.
>
> In 1932 he gave concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and conducted a
> concert of the Deutscher Arbeiter Sängerbund in Braunschweig, the final
> piece of which was a grandiose orchestration of the Internationale.
> From September to November, he worked in Vienna on the formation of a
> youth orchestra, the Studio Orchester. After a last concert in Berlin
> in mid-December (Kaminski's opera Jürg Jenatsch), he left Germany
> because, with the rise of Nazism, his vision of life would not allow
> him to exist. He spends a large part of 1933 in Strasburg, at the
> invitation of Fritz Munch, especially in August, where he organizes a
> big event that he calls "15 years of music", and in October-November,
> where he conducts Tristan and Othello at the Opera. In January-February
> 1935, he conducted Lohengrin and Don Giovanni in Trieste and in June he
> met a young Chinese woman of 30, Xiao Shusien, in Brussels. He fell in
> love with her and left for China in early 1936 to marry her.
> Chronologically, she will be Scherchen's fourth wife, after Paula
> Schramm (Pauline Retting, the mother of the conductor Karl Ristenpart),
> Gustel Jansen, and the theater actress Gerda Müller (1884-1951). Other
> women more or less shared his life: the actress Carola Neher
> (1900-1942), who died of typhus in a Russian concentration camp near
> Kazakstan, a Swiss harpist, etc...
>
> Back in Europe, he left for Barcelona where, on April 19, he premiered
> Berg's Violin Concerto, with Louis Krasner as soloist. In 1937, he went
> to Bucharest, but also to Budapest (conducting courses) and above all
> to Vienna, where he created the famous Musica Viva orchestra, thanks to
> private funds and the support of Alma Mahler-Werfel, with the aim of
> performing all of Mahler's works. At the end of the year, the orchestra
> toured Italy, but on March 10, 1938, the adventure came to an abrupt
> end due to political events (Anschluss). This ensemble, which was
> called Musica Telaviva, was composed mostly of Jewish musicians who had
> fled fascist Germany.
>
> In 1939, he was invited to Palestine to conduct the orchestra whose
> first concerts Toscanini had just given. He stayed there from May to
> July, alternating concerts and conferences that were incredibly
> successful. He spent the war period (1940-45) in Switzerland,
> continuing his concerts in Winterthur and assiduously visiting
> libraries with the double aim of unearthing forgotten scores and
> researching ancient texts to write his books (Vom Wesesn der Musik,
> Muzik für Jedermann). He left Switzerland only twice: in January and
> July 1940 for concerts and conferences in Greece. Every summer, from
> 1941 to 1944, he gave concerts in Gstaad and recorded for His master's
> Voice in Switzerland his first 78 rpm records (46 sides recorded in
> 1941/42, which we will probably reissue).
>
> [Continued when I have the time]...
> From 1945 on, he was in charge of the musical direction of the
> Studio-Orchester Beromüster - that is to say the BBC in Zurich - where
> he had the Swiss Rolf Liebermann as his assistant. In 1946, he began
> touring and giving concerts abroad: Amsterdam (February), Venice
> (July). In 1947, he was called to Ankara to reorganize the Turkish
> musical life (Beethoven festival in May). In June, he left for South
> America for the first time (Chile) and, on his return, made his first
> appearance at the Darmstadt Festival, devoted to contemporary music
> (premiere of Furioso by Liebermann).
>
> In 1948, new concerts in Chile, as well as in Uruguay and Argentina.
> During the summer, he gave a course in orchestral conducting in Venice.
> On November 13, the mayor of Leipzig sends him the following telegram:
> "/We call you to the direction of the Gewadhaus. Saxon and Radio
> authorities are ready to grant you the Conservatory and the artistic
> direction of the symphonic concerts of Radio-Leipzig". The German
> authorities had also offered him the direction of the Berlin
> Philharmonic and the Staatsoper. For various reasons, mainly personal,
> Scherchen gave up all these positions.
>
> In 1949, he conducted again in Germany (Bonn, Munich, Berlin Drede,
> Leipzig), and returned to Uruguay (July). On October 5, he premiered
> Liebermann's first symphony in Winterthur.
> The year 1950 is the year of all disasters: he gives his last concert
> in Winterthur, his mother dies on May 12 at the age of 88, his Chinese
> wife returns to Peking with their three children, and above all, after
> a conference in Prague with the Czech Philharmonic (June 4), he holds a
> conference in Switzerland where he praises the merits of the culture of
> the Eastern countries. An unbelievable hysterical campaign develops in
> the Swiss press, a true model of opinion offence and he is obliged to
> give up all his posts. This is the darkest period of his life, which
> will lead him to the brink of suicide. It was also the period when Rolf
> Liebermann introduced him to a young Swiss mathematician of Romanian
> origin, Pia Andronescu.
>
> END OF THE FIRST LIFE of this extraordinary man...
>
> Continued when I had time...
> (supersedes <_mn.8ae17da5bc9e12ad.12355@free.fr_>)
>
> II - THE SECOND LIFE of HERMANN SCHERCHEN (1950 - 1966)
>
> "/What can I say better than this truth: it is with you, thanks to you
> that my true second life began? My sweet Pia, on May 1, ten years ago,
> you came into my life, when I thought I had to follow my mother.
>
> Scherchen wrote this on June 12, 1958 and February 3, 1960 to the woman
> who became his fifth and last wife and who bore him five children. She
> was his youngest by thirty years and a mathematician, and this was very
> important to him, for he always considered the importance of
> mathematics in their relationship to music. By her side, a new life
> took shape: after the catastrophe of the previous months, happiness
> smiled again. In July, they leave together for Rome where Scherchen is
> to give five concerts. In September, he conducted the St. John Passion
> in L'Aquila (September 3) and Israel in Egypt in Perugia (September
> 23). In mid-October, he made his first recordings for the American firm
> Westminster (London Symphonies and Mass in B) and in November, he was
> in London for three radio concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
>
> In 1951, after two months in Brazil, he premiered Brecht-Dessau's
> Lukullus in East Berlin. On June 5, he conducted the Czech Philharmonic
> in Prague, and then, in July-August, premiered in Darmstadt the Dance
> around the Golden Calf, taken from Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron. After
> a month in Mexico, the year ended with concerts in Rome (the complete
> Christmas Oratorio on December 21). At the same time, he develops an
> important activity at the San Carlo in Naples and in June 1953,
> organizes a seminar in Bayreuth. In December, he buys a huge property
> in Gravesano, in the Swiss Ticino, where he builds his electro-acoustic
> research studio which will become famous and will become the point of
> convergence for many scientists, musicians and artists. The first
> congress is held from August 9 to 14, 1954, on the theme Music and
> Electroacoustics. He married Pia Andronescu in London (September 17)
> and on December 2 he conducted the first performance of Varèse's
> Déserts in Paris, which caused a memorable scandal. In July 1955, the
> first issue of Gravesaner Blätter is published (by the time of
> Scherchen's death, 29 issues will have been published) and the second
> congress ("What is light music?") takes place. After selling his Ars
> Viva Verlag to Schott Söhne, he goes on a very long tour of Scandinavia
> in October-November.
>
> Scherchen continues his career as a guest conductor and his recording
> activity (he will make 100 records for Westminster). In January 1956,
> he conducted three times the Mass in B in Budapest and in October 1957
> recorded the soundtrack of the film Don Jiovanni in Munich, produced by
> the Bavaria company. In 1959, he began his activity with the Herford
> orchestra (Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie). In August, a conference was
> held in Gravesano on the theme "/5 years in Gravesano; synthesis of
> studio experience/", with a presentation of the stereophoner and a
> performance in the gardens of Schoenberg's Erwartung with Helga
> Polarzyk. The most important event of the year was the (very
> controversial) German stage premiere of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron in
> Berlin. These six concerts caused a scandal and Scherchen was even
> threatened by phone with vitriol! (He conducted the work in Vienna,
> Paris, Milan, Rome and Munich).
> In 1960 he began his activity at La Scala in Milan, which lasted until
> 1964 (Doctor Faust, by Busoni...Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni,
> Macbeth, The Marriage of Figaro, Rienzi). In April he conducted three
> stage performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Palermo, one of
> which was filmed and broadcast on Eurovision.
> At the end of 1961, he conducted three performances of Berg's Wozzeck
> at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. A new conference is held in
> Gravesano (/Music and TV, Music and Medicine, Music and Mathematics),
> with the participation of Xénakis.
>
> [@ +]
> By popular demand....
>
> In 1962, Scerchen conducted in Spain (the Creation in Barcelona), gave
> a course in conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (August) and
> conducted an entire concert in Paris dedicated to his student Igor
> Markevitch (December 4). In 1963, he conducted in Sicily (Verdi's
> Requiem in Palermo), toured Uruguay and Chile and began his annual
> activity at the Sagra Umbra in Perugia. In 1964, a project to perform
> Handel's Theodora in the ruins of Pompeii was not realized. On October
> 30, he gave his first concert in North America, in Philadelphia
> (Mahler's 5th), then left for New York to give five concerts, including
> two performances of Mozart's Requiem, in honor of President Kennedy.
> From January to May 1965, he gave the complete Beethoven symphonies in
> Lugano, conducted Mahler's 7th in Toronto (April 22), gave concerts in
> Madrid, Granada, Palermo and then left for Chile. In June, he made his
> last recordings for Westminster (Danzi), which went bankrupt and forced
> him to increase the number of concerts. In December, a second American
> tour took him to Toronto, Minneapolis and New York.
>
> After three performances of Moses and Aaron in Rome (January 1966), he
> returned to the USA for a third tour (Washington, St. Louis, Pittsburg,
> Baltimore). In March, a rehearsal of Bach's Art of the Fugue, in the
> Church of Saint Roch in Paris, was filmed by French television. We see
> a tired man, but in full possession of his intellectual faculties.
> After concerts in Bologna, Palermo, Bremen, Catania and at the Royan
> Festival (premiere of Terretektorh by Xenakis on April 3), he leaves
> for Florence where he is to give three performances of Malipiero's
> Orfeide, thus attempting to give a second life to this work created in
> 1925. On June 7, after the first act, he fell ill, but managed to
> finish the concert. Five days later, he died in his hotel, overcome by
> a heart attack. June 12 was also the birthday of his wife who had
> joined him in Florence. He would have been 75 years old nine days
> later.
>
> The prediction of the American telepath who had told him in 1914 that
> he would die at the age of 84 - and which Scherchen had always
> believed! - did not come true. He is buried in the small cemetery of
> Gravesano, in the setting of the Ticino mountains that he loved so much
> and about which he had spoken in an interview with RTSI on his 70th
> birthday: /"The most important thing is this marvelous nature, this
> beauty that I feel every time I go up the mountain of my little
> property and where, when I was 63 years old, I had the sensation for
> the first time in my life, that it is possible to be happy in this
> existence"/.
>
> Thus ended abruptly a life entirely dedicated to Music. What this man
> was able to achieve was unique and overwhelming: writer, teacher,
> lecturer, philosopher, editor, researcher, composer, conductor, etc. A
> conference was planned in Gravesano, on the theme of Art and the
> Computer, he was to give concerts in Japan in October-November, conduct
> Wozzeck in Bologna, and was among the guest conductors of the Chicago
> Symphony for the 1966-67 season.
>
> In May 1966, Ermanno Briner, the sound engineer of the Swiss Italian
> Radio and Television, visited Scherchen at his home in Gravesano. At
> the end of the conversation, Scherchen spoke of his tireless dedication
> to contemporary music. Quite unexpectedly, he said slowly and
> thoughtfully: /"You know, I don't know if everything I've done in my
> life makes sense. In modern music, I always expect something to happen,
> but only the outer conditioning changes and the inner remains
> constantly the same. For example, I try to get something out of this
> score, but it is very difficult..."/.
>
> To E. Briner, Scherchen - who was averse to intimate confidences - had
> already made this admission: "When I am dead, very soon people will not
> talk about me anymore. This judgment highlights the goal that Scherchen
> has always pursued: to serve a noble cause, for the sole sake of an art
> that is above the fate of everyone. This modesty has no justification,
> for the imprint left by Scherchen is of such importance that his name
> is now indelibly inscribed in the history of musical interpretation.
>
> HERE IS THE END OF THE LIFE OF THIS UNIQUE AND EXTRAORDINARY MAN...
>
> I acquired my first disc of Scherchen at the age of 15 (1960): it was
> the 2nd and 8th of the GS...Which are still currently essential
> references...Especially the 8th!
>
> Jaiparlé©
>
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> HERMANN SCHERCHEN and the PRECLASSIQUE SYMPHONY
>
> [From the excellent booklet written by René Trémine, in the double CD
> Tahra 152/153)
>
> The fact that Scherchen has been systematically catalogued as an ardent
> defender of contemporary music - which he certainly was! - has often
> overshadowed his other activities, especially his dedication to baroque
> and pre-classical music! Indeed, he always affirmed that his mission
> was to make known ALL MUSIC, without exclusion, and he illustrated this
> by conducting mixed programs, alternating works of the 17th century,
> classical and modern!
>
> During the war, Scherchen lived in Switzerland. A study of his diaries
> from this period shows that he assiduously frequented Swiss libraries
> with the dual purpose of researching ancient texts as material for his
> books [Vom Wesen der Musik (1946) - Musik für Jedermann (1950)], and of
> unearthing forgotten scores to play them in concert (and publish them
> in his own Ars Viva Verlag, which he sold to Schott Söhne in 1954). On
> the other hand, from 1945 to 1950, he was Director of Programs at
> Radio-Zürich (I have already mentioned this in my previous opus on this
> great conductor) and, in this capacity, conducted the concerts at the
> Radio-Beromünster transmitter.
> A search in the archives of the Swiss radio allowed us to discover that
> 300 works had been recorded (!) and that, unfortunately, only a tiny
> quantity survived the systematic campaigns of erasure of the tapes,
> realized by the Swiss Radio! (and afterwards, one will be surprised
> that I never liked this country!)...
>
> The study of these programs is also very revealing: he programmed the
> first French opéra bouffe, Platée by Rameau, gave concerts devoted to
> Chinese music, to French pre-classics (Le
> Duc...Barrière...Saint-Georges), Czech (Beck...Stamitz... Richter),
> English (Abel...J.Chr. Bach...Haendel), Italian
> (Sammartini...Nardini...Tartini), South American music
> (Gnattali...Catunda... Vianna...Villa-Lobos), Norwegian (Sparre
> Olsen...Fongsedt...Farstein...Valen), Argentinian etc...WHO SAYS
> BETTER?!!!...I don't even ask the question©...
> He also devoted two programs to the Birth of the Symphony
> (Peurl...Monteverdi...Purcell...Rameau...Lully...Leonardo
> Leo...J.Rousseau...Piccini etc.).
>
> In Winterthur, early music occupied a large part of his programs: thus,
> on February 24, 1940, he devoted an entire concert to Swiss composers
> of the past (Fritz...Fröhlich...Schnyder von Wartensee... Lefèvre); on
> August 12, 1941, to the Masters of the pre-classical period
> (Lully...Corelli...Peurl...Monteverdi...Purcell...Rameau); on May 22,
> 1943, to the unknown Masters of the pre-classical period
> (Wagenseil...Tartini...Gossec...Keller...Beck etc...). On November 21,
> 1943, he celebrated the 300th anniversary of Monteverdi with a
> performance of the Vespers of 1610.
>
> Historically, the symphonic form was born from the opening of the
> Italian opera. As early as 1632, Stefano Landi began his theatrical
> work, Il Sant'Alessio, with an important overture in three parts. It
> was Alessandro Scarlatti who first gave the Overture the name Sinfonia
> and established its structure: three distinct parts, including an
> energetic and brilliantly illustrated allegro, a short andante of
> lyrical character for the strings, and a spirited presto. This type of
> overture was used throughout the 17th century.
> At the same time, another type of overture was developed in France,
> with J.B. Lully, in three linked parts. The symphony resulting from the
> Italian overture will be born when one of these overtures, or sinfonia,
> will be detached from the work of which it constitutes the introduction
> and when it will be carried out like piece of concert. G.Sammartini was
> one of the first to publish overtures, or concert symphonies.
>
> The so-called pre-classical symphony developed in the middle of the
> 18th century, thanks in particular to the two schools of Vienna and
> Mannheim. Their respective contributions were in two different areas:
> the form for Vienna, the style for Mannheim.
> The Viennese (Monn...Wagenseil) fixed the plan of the symphony in three
> movements (allegro, andante, presto), or even four (with a minuet). The
> allegro and presto adopt the sonata form; the tonalities, generally
> major, are varied; the rhythms are jolting, based on syncopations; the
> most common instrumentation groups the string quartet, two flutes, two
> oboes and two horns.
> These innovations were also adopted in Mannheim by Stamitz, Richter,
> Beck, etc. Stamitz introduced a new instrumental style to the symphony,
> characterized by the use of great dynamics (powerful crescendi, sudden
> oppositions of nuances), and a new orchestration (abandonment of the
> continuo, introduction of the clarinet, use of the winds as soloists).
> This school will influence the French symphony of the 18th century,
> mainly represented by Fr.Martin and Fr.Gossec, and whose golden age
> will be between 1778 and 1789.
>
> The Encyclopedia of Music, published by Johann Gottfried Walther in
> 1732 in Leipzig, is the first to give a definition of the word
> symphony: /It means everything that resonates in harmony and
> characterizes a work played only by instruments. In this musical form,
> the composer has total freedom and does not need to adhere to
> particular numbers and proportions, he can use as many as he wants,
> while avoiding creating chaos.
> This definition symbolizes a great diversity, but only in appearance,
> because in those early days of the symphony we did not find any of the
> rules we know today. The term symphony encompassed a variety of musical
> forms, such as instrumental sonatas played as introductions or
> intermissions to vocal works, introductory movements to German
> partitas, and even overtures played in the Italian style
> (fast-slow-fast).
> The decisive event in the development of the classical form of the
> symphony occurred shortly before 1750, when the sonata was adopted as
> an obligatory introductory movement form.
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> *Is there a particular style of performing pre-classical music?
>
> [Text written by SCHERCHEN, necessarily]...
>
> Laugier, a very appreciated author of the 18th century, sums up what a
> good performance of an orchestral work should be like this: "To give a
> good performance of a work, one must first transpose oneself in the
> thoughts of the composer and in the spirit of the work. Then one must
> reproduce the exact value of each note, scrupulously following the
> composer's indications and not making any changes or embellishments on
> one's own initiative. One should be content to add only the soul and
> the fire to the work performed, without which the notes cannot express
> anything. All voices must be played with the same care, in order to
> achieve the maximum effect. On the other hand, the most important
> parts, i.e. the melody and the bass, must govern the whole".
>
> What we call here fire and soul, Rameau already called it expression,
> this expression which must be the only goal of the musician. Further
> on, one can read: "The violin, the oboe and the harpsichord should be
> played with soul; this "playing with soul" will only become audible
> thanks to the opposition between low and high notes, to the increase or
> decrease of the sounds and to a certain modification of the values of
> the notes, a transformation which must absolutely not concern the
> measure. In other words, thanks to a number of procedures that are
> easier to use than to define.
>
> As early as 1552, Josquin des Près said: "To write, the composer must
> be pushed by a force more powerful than himself, so strong that he
> forgets hunger and thirst, and that he will forget all the necessities
> of daily life before having completed his work.
> We know that Handel composed several of his works in the midst of tears
> and sobs. The great flutist Quantz, contemporary of Bach, summarized
> all this in 1752 in a very simple phrase, which Beethoven later used:
> only what comes from the heart goes back to the heart.
>
> There is a widespread opinion that pre-classical music is a learned
> music, which must be played in a special way, which is understood only
> by the initiated, and which is included in concert programs only to
> bore the audience. It has even been said that in interpreting the
> pre-classical authors, one wanted to eliminate - under the pretext of
> science - a large part of what belongs to the sensual experience of
> music. Thus, there would be no place here for crescendo or decrescendo.
> Vibrato was, it seems, unknown to these ancient masters, and their
> tempi must have been much slower than those used today. But, since a
> good and sensitive musician is not so easily influenced by such
> caprices, it was often preferred to entrust such interpretations of
> older works to semi-amateurs, within specific associations, and thus
> effectively managed to make the public believe that, in order to
> understand this music, one had to be organized in a particular way.
>
> Let's take stock of this situation and now try to determine what really
> corresponds to these pretentious claims to "know more".
>
> I'm getting tired now...
> The rest later, oh music lovers and other idiophiles...
> FU2 en.rec.arts.classical.music
>
> It is proven that the ancient masters knew about tempo changes, so much
> so that one author wrote: "I believe that in instrumental music, too
> many riatardandi are used. In my opinion, the rigor of tempo should
> only rarely be broken, for too much freedom becomes a flaw if it is
> repeated too frequently. The hypothesis of the use of the ritardendo
> will be to employ it only tastefully and expressively".
> J.J.Rousseau attacks the article Métronome published by the
> Encyclopédie, in the following way: "Our misique has the ambition to
> tyrannize the measure according to the taste of the interpreter, i.e.
> to accelerate it or to slow it down".
>
> The vibrato - an alleged invention of the new violin technique - is
> already mentioned in 1648 by Mersenne (a French theorist who has dealt
> with almost all the fields that are nowadays part of MUSICOLOGY. His
> work remains an inexhaustible source for the knowledge of the music of
> the 16th and 17th centuries: "It is necessary to use vibrato to make
> the sound more pleasant. The composers of the 18th century demanded it
> and often recommended it, to give more life to the notes held in time.
> Lully's contemporaries tell us that he accelerated all the tempi: all
> those who heard Lully himself conduct his operas, when the great master
> could still tell his musicians and singers what cannot be written in
> notes alone, regret today this way of playing which, at the time, had
> enchanted them so much. At the same time, they say that today these
> operas last much longer than in Lully's time, despite the fact that
> nowadays all the violin arias that were played a second time are no
> longer repeated.
>
> A slower tempo for playing pre-classical works could be justified if
> the musicians of the time had not been able to master the technical
> difficulties, as we can today. But we also know that the technical
> handling of the harpsichord was not much worse than that of today, that
> one could not play fast on the organ, in the forte, and that in the
> piano it was as handy as the harpsichord.
> The string technique taught in the violin schools of the 18th century
> was so advanced that the practice of seven positions was the basis
> (until the end of the 18th century, the orchestral writing of the
> violin used only 5 positions; this number increased to 9 with
> Beethoven, then 11 with Wagner. The viola has 7 positions, the cello
> 4). Moreover, mastery of all types of scales and arpeggios was the
> normal condition for virtuoso playing. Double strings were already used
> and even difficulties such as the double trill on two tones of a third
> and the sounds of the flageolet were encountered. It has also been
> shown that the string technique was particularly developed. Because of
> the predominance of dance forms in instrumental music, precise patterns
> for each bow stroke were established for each of these dances, and it
> was not uncommon for dancers to be confused by the orchestra's failure
> to follow these bow strokes, and to lose their ability to follow the
> rhythm. All of this applies to the violins and the entire string
> family. There is also a whole series of very precise instructions for
> the different types of bow strokes, from the very brief staccato to the
> martellato. It was said that the violin bow was the instrument's soul
> and that it allowed it to express all emotions.
>
> Obviously, besides these technical concordances, the musical execution
> of the pre-classics is very different from ours: for example, the
> totally different proportion of the instruments of the orchestra
> between them. In 1719, we find: 14 violins, 6 violas, facing 8 basses
> and 4 bassoons; in 1747, 10 violins and 2 violas facing 7 cellos and 3
> bassoons. The famous orchestra of Popelinière counted only 5 violins, 1
> bassoon, 1 cello and 1 double bass. All these examples show that the
> basses of the time had a much greater importance than today.
>
> It would therefore be a mistake to neglect this proportion of the bass
> to the melody in the performance of pre-classical music. Just as
> important as the strength of the basses in terms of clarity was the
> participation of entire groups of flutes, oboes and possibly trumpets
> in the sound color of the pre-classical orchestra. To see this, one
> need only compare the melancholy sound of the orchestra in Bach's Suite
> in B (with its groups of flutes) with the bright and luminous Suite in
> D major, with its oboes, trumpets and timpani. Nothing can better
> express this difference than a knowledge of the key in 1745: here, the
> Mass in B is said to be melancholic, while the Suite in D is indicated
> as more joyful and very belligerent.
>
> The importance of correct tempo is documented in almost all the
> writings on music of the 17th and 18th centuries: an incorrect tempo
> can render the musical effect artificial and completely change its
> expression. As a result, the French Academy of Sciences presented a
> metronome as early as 1701, which was widely used throughout the 18th
> century, long before Mälzel! Annotations based on this first metronome
> allow us to reconstruct the authentic tempi for the most important
> dances of pre-classical music. Here is a brief overview:
>
> Minuet: 72-80
> Chacone : 120 - 156
> Rigaudon : 116 - 152
> Gavotte : 96 - 152
> Passepied : 84 - 136
> Bourrée : 112 - 120
> Gigue : 112 - 120
> Sarabande : 63 - 84
>
> Uniquely, it should be mentioned that Lully has always played the
> reprise of his Armida Overture faster and faster, right from the
> beginning. Unlike today's orchestral sound, the instruments were tuned
> a semitone or a tone lower than contemporary instruments; on the other
> hand, the sound power of pre-classical instruments was lower than
> today's. The harpsichord and the organ of that time did not have the
> same power as ours, and this is also true for the strings. Suffice it
> to say that to maintain historical fidelity for the sake of fidelity
> alone in our great concert halls with their ever-growing audiences
> would be a real nonsense; the modern concert hall demands the piano as
> much as our much more powerful sounding string instruments of today.
> The same cannot be said for flutes, oboes and bassoons, which have
> undergone only slight modifications since Bach. Only today's trumpets
> are in contrast to the even lighter character of the instruments of
> pre-classical music.
>
> There are no imperative rules for performing the latter: it is music,
> not geometry. Pre-classical music requires more than any other harmonic
> balance, that is to say a harmonious and happy correspondence between
> all the relationships that only good taste can govern, this taste of
> which one of our old authors speaks: "Good taste often determines all
> alone those realities and relationships in music, which cannot be
> explained otherwise than by good taste itself".
>
> Let us specify that this fascinating text was written by Scherchen
> in...1938!...Well before the delusions of the Harnoncourian doxa!...
>
> What do they say?...
> I ask the question©...
>
>


Click here to read the complete article
1
server_pubkey.txt

rocksolid light 0.9.7
clearnet tor