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From: DeepBlue <dan.koren@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings
Subject: Re: Sokolov playing Hammerklavier
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2024 19:09:52 +0000
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On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:43:22 +0000, Zionazi wrote:
>
> https://youtu.be/OB6kU36MCB0?si=CCLd8NCiNpwbFuJe
>
> And I want to ask, did Sokolov listen to what he
> plays? Why did he choose to play this unmusical
> work?

He did/does listen, though not through your ears,
and with different expectations. Just as in every
other line of work, professional musicians function
in a different space than their listeners. They hear
the music from the "inside", while listeners hear the
music from "outside". These are different perspectives.

There is a tension, sometimes even a manifest conflict
between rendering scores in a "faithful" way, versus
moving the audience. I brought this up many times in
this ng.

> There is a short moment in the second movement I find
> sort of interesting… the rest is just — I don’t understand…
> Schönberg creates interesting colors… but this… what am I
> supposed to see here? Beautiful form? I don’t understand…
> if the form were beautiful or good the work would be good…
> but this is not good…

"Form" does not create "expression" just by itself.

> I have trouble understanding why people like this…
> what moments people especially like in this piece…

"People" have been conditioned to "like" this piece
by centuries of pedantic brainwashing. If Beethoven
is the greatest composer who ever lived, it must
then follow the biggest longest work he wrote for
the piano must be an absolute masterpiece, and it
does not matter a bit how it sounds in people's
ears. This is the result of analyzing and teaching
music in a circular, self-referential system. Add
to this the fascination with difficulty.

> I don’t understand how people are endlessly fascinated
> by this piece, how people devote so much time studying
> this — I don’t like Chopin, but I can see why people
> would like to play him…. But this?!?!

Humans have always held a fascination for physical
difficulty and for acrobatics. This occurs in music
as well. Paganini's Caprices, Ernst's Last Rose of
Spring, Liszt's Transcendental Etudes, et... all
belong in this bucket. They are admired not only
for their musical ideas, but also for execution
difficulty. The Hammerklavier also falls in the
same bucket -- except without the music.

> Sure probably there are things here no one did
> before… but it sounds like shit…

I would suggest listening to HJ Lim for a reading
that almost makes it sound like music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYT67nV76M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN-oytHPA0U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jOt--GPleU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf2Qlv_711U

Cheers!