Disagree with me?

Guess what, art and music are entirely subjective. Just because the classical music establishment has spent two centuries institutionalizing one specific German guy's work doesn't mean it holds some objective monopoly on artistic value.

The reality is that most classical music purists have just deeply imprinted on a specific, highly structured Western style. That conditioning makes you think anyone who doesn't share your exact aesthetic opinions is "objectively wrong".

If my definition of art is about immediate expression, raw sound, and the individual human experience, then my stick-and-porch performance has just as much validity as a 1 hour symphony.

Disagree with me?

Guess what, art and music are entirely subjective. Just because the classical music establishment has spent two centuries institutionalizing one specific German guy's work doesn't mean it holds some objective monopoly on artistic value.

The reality is that most classical purists have just deeply imprinted on a specific, highly structured Western style. That conditioning makes you think anyone who doesn't share your exact aesthetic opinions is "objectively wrong".

If my definition of art is about immediate expression, raw sound, and the individual human experience, then my stick-and-porch performance has just as much validity as a 1 hour symphony.

title.

I am Autistic, and I’m currently trying to understand ADHD better (and wondering if I might have it myself).

I know someone with ADHD who relies heavily on medication to function. By all accounts, he is incredibly successful, as he got into an Ivy League college and apparently even did a TED/TEDx talk about overcoming ADHD.(I still couldn't find the link for some reason)

What I have some difficulty understanding is how we view success when medication is involved. From the outside, it feels like the medications are doing most of the heavy lifting, which makes it hard for me to view the achievement as a result of pure willpower or character.

Realistically, someone like the person I described wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to those milestones without medication, which makes it feel like the medication is the primary reason they are able to focus and be successful. I find myself feeling like I would appreciate someone's success more if it was done entirely on their own, without an outside advantage.

To be completely transparent about my thoughts:

1. It seems like the medication is doing the bulk of the work to allow them to function.
2. I notice that I would instinctively appreciate a success story more if someone did it through willpower and personal endeavour alone, without a biochemical boost through simply the act of taking medication.

Because of this, it feels to me like the achievement is somehow compromised or less "theirs," and more the result of the meds.

I realize this might very well be my own internalized ableism talking, and I want to be entirely clear: I am not judging anyone who takes medication. I am genuinely trying to understand it better and learn how people who take meds view their own achievements.

For people on meds, do the meds make the achievement happen, or does it just clear the path for you to do the work? Do you feel like yourself when you take meds?

So far, 90% of my posts have all been flagged and then had to wait hours before a mod is there to approve them, but then by the time they get approved, the algorithm had already buried them, as they are hours old and completely invisible to anyone sorting by "Hot" or "New."

It’s incredibly frustrating trying to contribute to this community when everything gets instantly caught in a spam filter for no apparent reason. If the AutoMod is going to be this aggressive, we need more active human mods to review the queue, or the it should need to be dialed way back.

Is anyone else dealing with this, or am I just incredibly unlucky?

Astonishing amount of details, as I have heard too many mediocre and boring performances of this piece. This performance and really made me believe there actually substantial craft in this composition, and most performers just didn't know how to realize it.

When I listen to a piece by Brahms for the first time it always repels me, feels very dull until I forced myself to listen to it more then I start to like it and it becomes one of my favourites

I’ve been obsessing over the Finale of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 lately, and it’s driving me crazy how many world-class conductors ignore what Brahms actually wrote in three specific places. It seems like there’s a "traditional" way of playing this movement that involves weird tempo fluctuations that aren't in the score

I’ve put together some examples to show what I mean.

The 3 Main "Blunders"

1. The Horn Call/Introduction Transition Brahms writes a very specific atmosphere here, but many conductors lose the pulse or the balance.

• The Issue: Inconsistent tempo and submerged timpani.
• The Example: Orozco-Estrada/Frankfurt at 30:46. The timpani is practically inaudible, and the tempo feels completely disconnected from the preceding section by being slower.
• The "Correct" way imo: Gielen/SWR at 2:12. Gielen keeps the momentum and the clarity exactly as indicated.

To me it seems quite clear the Brahms had written out the exact tremolos in the timpani to suggest that the \"ritardando\" is measured and not to tamper with the tempo when we get to the piu andante.

2. The Lead-up to the Coda This is where things usually start getting really absurd with the speed in a way that feels indulgent.

• The Example:  Dohnányi/Cleveland at 11:17. There's a weird gear shift in tempo that isn't written.
• The "Correct" way: Gielen/SWR at 11:10. He maintains the structural integrity without the weird gear shifts.

https://preview.redd.it/9f0z2fy8usvg1.png?width=1468&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd34202764496b604c9023ffcd3c7caaaf4b92ae

As we can all see there is no tempo change marked at letter N.

3. The Final Chorale / The "Unwritten" Ritardando This is the big one. Almost everyone slows down for the final statement of the chorale theme, even though Brahms didn't write a ritardando or a Maestoso there.

• The Example: Dohnányi/Cleveland at 15:20. It’s the standard "grand" ending, but it arguably breaks the forward motion Brahms intended.
• The "Correct" way: Gielen/SWR at 15:10. Gielen is one of the only conductors I know who plays this through with the written pulse. It’s leaner, meaner, and arguably much more powerful

No tempo change here marked here either.

The Question: Why has this become the "standard" way to play it? Is it just a case of performance tradition (the "Wagnerian" influence on Brahms) overriding the actual score?

Michael Gielen seems to be the only one who trusts Brahms enough to just play the notes as they are. Does anyone else have recordings where the conductor actually follows the score in these spots, or are we stuck with these "blunders" forever?

Curious to hear what the score-readers and Brahms-heads here think!

It seems only fitting that I am the first to congratulate our Maestro on this devastating performance on this most auspicious day. It is truly an honour and a great joy to hear him play; the bowels of the earth shake with his every note. His tone is as warm as a mother’s kiss, as deep as the ocean abyss, and as powerful as the iceberg that sank the Titanic. The name of Mikhail Bouzine will go down in history as the greatest musician of all time, and his techniques should be taught in every school. The way he plays every note, as if commanding it to do his bidding, is like watching a shooting star bounce off the atmosphere. Mikhail, never stop commanding your HUGE, MAGNIFICENT, UNBELIEVABLE, PERFECT, and FORCEFUL SOUND! We are truly blessed to have such an inspiration in our midst.

If you disagree with me you are disagreeing with Liszt HIMSELF

I’ve been thinking about how the internet and streaming affect the way developing musicians shape their artistic voice.

Musicians of my generation(Gen-Z and younger) has an unprecedented advantage: we have instant, free access to nearly every recording ever made. Decades ago, if you wanted to hear how Richter, or Heifetz, Rostropovich approached a piece, you had to hunt down and buy physical records, and for many pieces very little options exist in the form of a recording. today, a student can compare 20 different interpretations of a Chopin Ballade on YouTube or Spotify in a single afternoon.

Logically, this massive library that is the internet should make modern musicians more creative and informed. Yet, the prevailing critique today seems to be the exact opposite: that modern performances and recordings have become increasingly sterile, mechanical, and uniform.

So I wonder what does having a "definitive" standard version of a piece always a click away effect our own music making? Is it a bad or a good thing? I have heard a lot of people say that students are learning to replicate a polished, homogenized competition-winning style rather than taking artistic risks and developing a highly individual, distinct musical personality.

What are your thoughts? Does the internet cultivate broader horizons, or does it just enforce a mechanical standard and stifle creativity?

I'll go first:

The Final Chorale / The "Unwritten" Ritardando in Brahms's First Symphony: Almost everyone slows down for the final statement of the chorale theme, even though Brahms didn't write a ritardando or a meno mosso. For example, in this recording at 15:20. It’s the standard "grand" ending, but it arguably breaks the forward motion.

I personally think that playing this through the written pulse arguably much more powerful because it keeps the momentum going. like this recording 15:10. So its not a matter of adherence to the score, even though it is more score accurate to play the way I described.

https://preview.redd.it/3jyakllag4ah1.png?width=1420&format=png&auto=webp&s=529d41569e36cd19f3dfceed90b267eb3be83337

I wanted to vent a bit and get your thoughts on something that’s been bothering me about the Historically Informed Performance (HIP) world.

The truth is, I believe is that HIP started as an exciting, experimental movement that showed a lot of new ideas in regards to how we play early music. But somewhere along the way, it became plagued by dogmatism and absolutism. The treatises and inferred traditions have cemented themselves for these musicians and their advocates into something immutable and inexorable, by becoming a literal surrogate for actual artistic meaning in performance, For example, something a long the lines of: “I have to play X way because the treatises say so, I like Y way better but I can’t do that since it’s not what Z composer heard.”

When I was studying music, when I was assigned to learn baroque pieces, the advice that gets passed around that really bothered me was to “sound more like the baroque instrument”. Yeah, if you want to “sound more like the baroque instrument” why don’t you go and play the harpsichord, traverso, viola da gamba, etc, then wear wigs, turn off all electricity, and play the music under candlelight, because if something is historical it must be more authentic and better right?

The rigid idea that you have to recreate exactly what composers heard centuries ago combined with the purists who insist that it is the only valid way to listen to early music (on historical instruments and exactly like how the treatises say) is just so alien, antithetical, and stifling.

Honestly, instruments and performance techniques evolved for a reason. I think it wouldn’t be wrong to play it on modern instruments that have way more dynamic range, more variation of tone colours not to mention of intonation, and I think in a lot cases the overall effect that it creates would be even MORE ideal than something that is so called completely historical.

Take a couple of clear examples:

• Early Flute Concertos: On a Baroque traverso, you are practically forced to strip the orchestra down to one player per part just so the soloist doesn't get drowned out. As a result, the remaining string texture can end up sounding incredibly thin and shrill.
• Bach’s Keyboard Works: Playing Bach on a modern piano allows for nuanced dynamics and a far greater transparency of texture, combined with the "singing tone" that Bach explicitly desired (as he literally wrote in his introduction to the Two-Part Inventions and Sinfonias). Let's not forget that Bach wasn't oblivious to technological evolution, either—he encountered early fortepianos later in life and actively advocated for them.

Brilliantly written, but underrated

No Peter Schickele compositions or PDQ bach things.

When I was still in conservatory, about a year ago, the historical flutes player François Lazarevitch came to give a masterclass. So naturally I was interested and came to listen. During the Q&A, I asked what I thought was a fairly basic question about articulation length in Bach.

His response was, "Have you read Quantz?" When I said no, he asked why not. I explained that I was a modern flutist covering a very broad repertoire and that Baroque performance practice wasn't my main focus at the time.

He then asked how old I was. When I told him I was 21, he replied something along the lines of, "You're 21 years old, you've been playing the flute for 8 years, and you still haven't read Quantz, what the hell are you doing?" He then rattled off a list of treatises that he felt that people have to read and then shushed me off, refusing to anything I asked afterwards and telling me how "you don't read" and then told the manager of the masterclass about how insufferable it is to talk to people like me all in front of the entire audience

What bothered me wasn't being told to read Quantz. That's perfectly reasonable advice. What bothered me was the tone. It felt a lot like he was publicly shaming me for not already knowing what he considered essential. The irony is that I wasn't even arguing against the importance of historical sources.

The whole interaction left such a bad impression on me that it did more to turn me away from the HIP world than any aesthetic disagreement ever could. Almost everything I perform these days is 20th-century or contemporary because that interaction with Lazarevitch essentially ruined early-music/HIP for me as a performer. I still enjoy listening to other musicians play Baroque, but that experience definitely took the joy out of playing it myself for a good while