I am in amazement. Maybe a little too fast for me, but I have ZERO room to criticize. I love the snarling reeds & the effortlessness of your performance. You genuinely inspire me. From Dayton, Ohio.
He is absolutely inspirational, and the use of reeds, and the effortlessness of his performance is truly something. It's the way the music was supposed to go...but something went wrong along the way!....And 99% of the organ playing we hear is also nearly always undertempo - occasionally there are instances of silly overtempo; but that is not the case with Anthony Newman's tempi! - Also, his use of articulation and breath vs. the standard "put the damper pedal down" "sempre legatissimo" that has also affected the organ to become anathema to most "non-organist" people, yet it is de rigeur for 99% of the players and the mainstream of "organ aficionados" In Anthony Newman's book "Bach and the Baroque", on performance practices, he opens up with the sentence: "Biases cause immense problems" - and then he cites some very well-known bits from the literature where things are played in historically completely implausible ways, yet they have been corrupted due to the lack of historical awareness - one of the. examples he cites is the "problem" people have getting used to hearing something played in a different way than they are accustomed to; which he basically says is one of the most difficult problems to overcome - and he observes that if one hears the "Wedding March" played at the tempo in the opera, compared to the usual Church Tempo's, it results in a similar experience for the listener. The tempo is the handwritten tempo into the original score by Franck of MM=100; the problem is that organ playing especially seems to have degraded over the decades (and centuries), especially with respect to slowing d o w n and the smothering legato that arose in the odd French tradition of Dupre, that goes against the traditions of playing all other music on all other instruments! One of the things Newman writes in his book, which is in print again, is a very challenging statement really to most of the organ-playing and listening community - "There was not a separate style of playing the organ that existed that is different than playing other instruments" - (from memory, but that's the basic statement - or really a "Wake Up!!!" injunction, to try to eliminate "The Lugubrious style" of organ playing - back to an actual musically plausible style that resembles "other music" of the same composers, same period, same countries, and so forth. While the book is focused on "Bach and the Baroque", it addresses aspects that continue well through the classical and romantic eras. At the very end of the book, Newman cites a letter by Liszt, in 1854, where Liszt writes into the Conductors Score of "Les Preludes" a footnote saying "DO NOT turn the 8th note rest followed by an 8th note, which is followed by a dotted 8th/16th pair of notes, but give the rest only its 8th note value, and do not shorten the "upbeat" 8th into a 16th.... That is to say, that Liszt, writing over a century after the baroque, is anticipating the performers, and even the conductor would apply the so-called "baroque" performance practicing of sharpening even rhythms into dotted rhythms, (something he COUNTED on in the Ad Nos Fugue, where he doesn't bother dotting the rests in the pedals which are doubled in the LH as being Long-Short Long-Short dotted pairs throughout the theme of the fugue, and the texture that tends to follow it throughout, as certain as a shadow. That people didn't just wake up and say, it's now the year X; we're all going to stop playing the way we did the year before...these practices continued, and Liszts examples support that in both a cautionary way, and a "counting on it" way. And in the Franck, Newman is honoring the composer, and the music, and doesn't try to glue down all the notes together "sempre legato", or slur weak note upbeat 8ths into their respective typically longer, downbeat destinations; a corruption that arose in playing in the late 19th century, thinking that the notion of what belonged together in a phrase, needed to be played glued together in a legato fashion...Look at Beethoven's meticulous articulations, also Haydn's in their sonatas - compared to what less informed late 19th/20th century editors have written, where they in fact, slur the short upbeat notes almost religiously into the downbeats; there are times when composers DO want to go against the beat pattern, but Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, they all wrote those exceptions out - and mostly, slur patterns WERE metrically aligned to articulate the strong beats/strong note subdivisions, rather than to smear into them. Strong beats - especially downbeats - were assumed to be emphasized, unless there was a counter indication (Czerny, in his historically very important "Pianoforte method," Op. 500, 1831, states this unambiguously). In this performance, Newman observes the main theme, which has the upbeat notes slurred into the notes that follow, but there are instances where similar Short=>Long are articulated...it gives much more contour and shape to the music, and shapes the phrasing. But it's subtle; you have to listen to it, and then you hear such a wide and varied, yet coherent and meaningful And in the Franck, Newman is honoring the composer, and the music, and doesn't try to glue down all the notes together "sempre legato", or slur weak note upbeat 8ths into their respective typically longer, downbeat destinations; a corruption that arose in playing in the late 19th century, thinking that the notion of what belonged together in a phrase, needed to be played glued together in a legato fashion...Look at Beethoven's meticulous articulations, also Haydn's in their sonatas - compared to what less informed late 19th/20th century editors have written, where they in fact, slur the short upbeat notes almost religiously into the downbeats; there are times when composers DO want to go against the beat pattern, but Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, they all wrote those exceptions out - and mostly, slur patterns WERE metrically aligned to articulate the strong beats/strong note subdivisions, rather than to smear into them. Strong beats - especially downbeats - were assumed to be emphasized, unless there was a counter indication (Czerny, in his historically very important "Pianoforte method," Op. 500, 1831, states this unambiguously). In this performance, Newman observes the main theme, which has the upbeat notes slurred into the notes that follow, but there are instances where similar Short=>Long are articulated...it gives much more contour and shape to the music, and shapes the phrasing. But it's subtle; you have to listen to it, and then you hear such a wide and varied, yet coherent and meaningful palate of articulations - which makes music on any instrument sink or float - especially instruments without "touch sensitivity" - such as the organ and harpsichord. of articulations - which makes music on any instrument sink or float - especially instruments without "touch sensitivity" - such as the organ and harpsichord. Newman's performance is also so stellar and inspiring because he brings that into the performance - also, necessary at MM 100 - because the faster the playing, the less legato it can actually be; this is also documented by amazing music authorities such as Isador Philipp, who was the head of The Paris Conservatory in his remarkable books of Technical studies - where he explains the obvious. If you want to give a really good "counter-example" which instantly makes this vividly true, play the theme to Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, and slur the upbeat 8ths into their respective "strong" note longer note destinations...it sounds utterly absurd. Yet, there are so many editions of 18th and 19th-century piano music where "editors" added those exact types of slurs against the beat as the norm, and those slurs grew to become longer and longer, as editors began to equate articulation markings with "The Phrasing Slur" - apparently thinking that musicians woke up dumb and couldn't understand or differentiate the phrases. This was such a corruption, but so prevalent, that Heinrich Schenker, one of the great musical minds of the end of the 19th century leading into the 20th century wrote an essay "Let's do away with the phrasing slur", in a very important book of writings by him, for this very reason. And led him to create the FIRST urtext edition of the Beethoven Sonatas - which corrected so many of these issues - and one gleans so much from looking at the slur patterns the composers actually wrote...and honor them! Just a look at the meticulous articulation slurs in the finale of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata (as well as the Trio that precedes it), shows the tendency to articulate the strong beats; which makes the exception actually meaningful and very special. It sounds like you likely know all of this, but I wanted to underscore all of this; it's part of what makes Newman's interpretation so effective; it releases the energy of the music by honoring what the composer intended and expected, much more than when those aspects are lacking, and the energy is "Miniaturized".
Wow. That's quick, but I like it. I owned Anthony Newman harpsichord LPs in college and fell in love with his wide-open style and the "in your face" recordings. I knew his Goldberg before I knew Gould's.
Dunno if anyone gives a damn but if you guys are stoned like me atm then you can stream pretty much all the latest movies on instaflixxer. I've been watching with my brother during the lockdown xD
I agree that the tempo is spot on. It's just that he about as much feeling as a Cyberman. Fox's tempo is just as fast, but at least he's expressive. That's all I care about: understanding the phrase and expression/feeling.
Ralph Fisher I think the other commenters are struggling to understand what you mean by “feeling”. It’s a very expressive performance but not by using excessive legato or dynamic variation. Perhaps it’s the acoustic that your ears don’t like? It would be a shame not to make a recording simply because a large cathedral organ isn’t available. There’s plenty of use of rubato. A persons facial or body movements aren’t relevant to musical expression, unless perhaps it’s a piano recital in front of a live audience but even then that’s simply smoke and mirrors rather than true “expression”. Here’s a simple quote (on a complicated subject) from Wikipedia about musical expression... “Musical expression is the art of playing or singing with a personal response to the music.[1] At a practical level, this means making appropriate use of dynamics, phrasing, timbre and articulation to bring the music to life.[2] Composers may specify these aspects of expression to a greater or lesser extent in the notation of their musical score.” Anyone who knows AN’s recordings well will know this performance is highly characteristic of his style of playing so I would argue that his personal response to the piece is rich. Oh and... the article finishes with a quote from Stravinsky, whom I know Tony is fond of... "Most people like music because it gives them certain emotions such as joy, grief, sadness, and image of nature, a subject for daydreams or - still better - oblivion from “everyday life”. They want a drug - dope -…. Music would not be worth much if it were reduced to such an end. When people have learned to love music for itself, when they listen with other ears, their enjoyment will be of a far higher and more potent order, and they will be able to judge it on a higher plane and realise its intrinsic value." - Igor Stravinsky [13].
come on, Anthony,,, you know Cesar was more romantic than that, lol,,, the purist attack sucks, lol, i love you anyways xo ( i play your ride of the vol, all the time
So since from 1960s, don't you still know how much the tempo marked by Franck is ? BTW, it's already 2020, how can speed still mean no feeling ? So sad that Beethoven symphony 3, 5 9 and Vivaldi La Folia final part have no feeling to you. Come on, imslp and youtube are there. Thanks god that Newman has been such great since from 1960s.
@@AppaLV6 I'm not arguing tempo. I think the tempo is fine. What I'm saying is it's not the only thing. I hear no expressiveness (rubato, phrasing, contrast). It's just fast - and cold. I recommend finding the Virgil Fox recording he made at Boston Symphony Hall: just as fast, but considerably more musical. Moreover, I'm not sure what the Petrucci Project and the other works mentioned have anything to do with the the Franck Bb "Final," outside that they're all available through IMSLP; but, then again so is Vaughan Williams, Vierne, Rangstrom, and a host of others.
I am in amazement. Maybe a little too fast for me, but I have ZERO room to criticize. I love the snarling reeds & the effortlessness of your performance. You genuinely inspire me. From Dayton, Ohio.
He is absolutely inspirational, and the use of reeds, and the effortlessness of his performance is truly something. It's the way the music was supposed to go...but something went wrong along the way!....And 99% of the organ playing we hear is also nearly always undertempo - occasionally there are instances of silly overtempo; but that is not the case with Anthony Newman's tempi! - Also, his use of articulation and breath vs. the standard "put the damper pedal down" "sempre legatissimo" that has also affected the organ to become anathema to most "non-organist" people, yet it is de rigeur for 99% of the players and the mainstream of "organ aficionados"
In Anthony Newman's book "Bach and the Baroque", on performance practices, he opens up with the sentence: "Biases cause immense problems" - and then he cites some very well-known bits from the literature where things are played in historically completely implausible ways, yet they have been corrupted due to the lack of historical awareness - one of the. examples he cites is the "problem" people have getting used to hearing something played in a different way than they are accustomed to; which he basically says is one of the most difficult problems to overcome - and he observes that if one hears the "Wedding March" played at the tempo in the opera, compared to the usual Church Tempo's, it results in a similar experience for the listener. The tempo is the handwritten tempo into the original score by Franck of MM=100; the problem is that organ playing especially seems to have degraded over the decades (and centuries), especially with respect to slowing d o w n and the smothering legato that arose in the odd French tradition of Dupre, that goes against the traditions of playing all other music on all other instruments! One of the things Newman writes in his book, which is in print again, is a very challenging statement really to most of the organ-playing and listening community - "There was not a separate style of playing the organ that existed that is different than playing other instruments" - (from memory, but that's the basic statement - or really a "Wake Up!!!" injunction, to try to eliminate "The Lugubrious style" of organ playing - back to an actual musically plausible style that resembles "other music" of the same composers, same period, same countries, and so forth.
While the book is focused on "Bach and the Baroque", it addresses aspects that continue well through the classical and romantic eras. At the very end of the book, Newman cites a letter by Liszt, in 1854, where Liszt writes into the Conductors Score of "Les Preludes" a footnote saying "DO NOT turn the 8th note rest followed by an 8th note, which is followed by a dotted 8th/16th pair of notes, but give the rest only its 8th note value, and do not shorten the "upbeat" 8th into a 16th....
That is to say, that Liszt, writing over a century after the baroque, is anticipating the performers, and even the conductor would apply the so-called "baroque" performance practicing of sharpening even rhythms into dotted rhythms, (something he COUNTED on in the Ad Nos Fugue, where he doesn't bother dotting the rests in the pedals which are doubled in the LH as being Long-Short Long-Short dotted pairs throughout the theme of the fugue, and the texture that tends to follow it throughout, as certain as a shadow.
That people didn't just wake up and say, it's now the year X; we're all going to stop playing the way we did the year before...these practices continued, and Liszts examples support that in both a cautionary way, and a "counting on it" way.
And in the Franck, Newman is honoring the composer, and the music, and doesn't try to glue down all the notes together "sempre legato", or slur weak note upbeat 8ths into their respective typically longer, downbeat destinations; a corruption that arose in playing in the late 19th century, thinking that the notion of what belonged together in a phrase, needed to be played glued together in a legato fashion...Look at Beethoven's meticulous articulations, also Haydn's in their sonatas - compared to what less informed late 19th/20th century editors have written, where they in fact, slur the short upbeat notes almost religiously into the downbeats; there are times when composers DO want to go against the beat pattern, but Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, they all wrote those exceptions out - and mostly, slur patterns WERE metrically aligned to articulate the strong beats/strong note subdivisions, rather than to smear into them. Strong beats - especially downbeats - were assumed to be emphasized, unless there was a counter indication (Czerny, in his historically very important "Pianoforte method," Op. 500, 1831, states this unambiguously). In this performance, Newman observes the main theme, which has the upbeat notes slurred into the notes that follow, but there are instances where similar Short=>Long are articulated...it gives much more contour and shape to the music, and shapes the phrasing. But it's subtle; you have to listen to it, and then you hear such a wide and varied, yet coherent and meaningful And in the Franck, Newman is honoring the composer, and the music, and doesn't try to glue down all the notes together "sempre legato", or slur weak note upbeat 8ths into their respective typically longer, downbeat destinations; a corruption that arose in playing in the late 19th century, thinking that the notion of what belonged together in a phrase, needed to be played glued together in a legato fashion...Look at Beethoven's meticulous articulations, also Haydn's in their sonatas - compared to what less informed late 19th/20th century editors have written, where they in fact, slur the short upbeat notes almost religiously into the downbeats; there are times when composers DO want to go against the beat pattern, but Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, they all wrote those exceptions out - and mostly, slur patterns WERE metrically aligned to articulate the strong beats/strong note subdivisions, rather than to smear into them. Strong beats - especially downbeats - were assumed to be emphasized, unless there was a counter indication (Czerny, in his historically very important "Pianoforte method," Op. 500, 1831, states this unambiguously).
In this performance, Newman observes the main theme, which has the upbeat notes slurred into the notes that follow, but there are instances where similar Short=>Long are articulated...it gives much more contour and shape to the music, and shapes the phrasing. But it's subtle; you have to listen to it, and then you hear such a wide and varied, yet coherent and meaningful palate of articulations - which makes music on any instrument sink or float - especially instruments without "touch sensitivity" - such as the organ and harpsichord. of articulations - which makes music on any instrument sink or float - especially instruments without "touch sensitivity" - such as the organ and harpsichord.
Newman's performance is also so stellar and inspiring because he brings that into the performance - also, necessary at MM 100 - because the faster the playing, the less legato it can actually be; this is also documented by amazing music authorities such as Isador Philipp, who was the head of The Paris Conservatory in his remarkable books of Technical studies - where he explains the obvious. If you want to give a really good "counter-example" which instantly makes this vividly true, play the theme to Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, and slur the upbeat 8ths into their respective "strong" note longer note destinations...it sounds utterly absurd.
Yet, there are so many editions of 18th and 19th-century piano music where "editors" added those exact types of slurs against the beat as the norm, and those slurs grew to become longer and longer, as editors began to equate articulation markings with "The Phrasing Slur" - apparently thinking that musicians woke up dumb and couldn't understand or differentiate the phrases.
This was such a corruption, but so prevalent, that Heinrich Schenker, one of the great musical minds of the end of the 19th century leading into the 20th century wrote an essay "Let's do away with the phrasing slur", in a very important book of writings by him, for this very reason. And led him to create the FIRST urtext edition of the Beethoven Sonatas - which corrected so many of these issues - and one gleans so much from looking at the slur patterns the composers actually wrote...and honor them! Just a look at the meticulous articulation slurs in the finale of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata (as well as the Trio that precedes it), shows the tendency to articulate the strong beats; which makes the exception actually meaningful and very special.
It sounds like you likely know all of this, but I wanted to underscore all of this; it's part of what makes Newman's interpretation so effective; it releases the energy of the music by honoring what the composer intended and expected, much more than when those aspects are lacking, and the energy is "Miniaturized".
Wow. That's quick, but I like it. I owned Anthony Newman harpsichord LPs in college and fell in love with his wide-open style and the "in your face" recordings. I knew his Goldberg before I knew Gould's.
Dunno if anyone gives a damn but if you guys are stoned like me atm then you can stream pretty much all the latest movies on instaflixxer. I've been watching with my brother during the lockdown xD
@Ahmed Kase Yea, I have been watching on InstaFlixxer for years myself =)
@Ahmed Kase Yup, I have been using InstaFlixxer for months myself :)
Great tempo! As intended!
I agree that the tempo is spot on. It's just that he about as much feeling as a Cyberman. Fox's tempo is just as fast, but at least he's expressive. That's all I care about: understanding the phrase and expression/feeling.
Ralph Fisher I think the other commenters are struggling to understand what you mean by “feeling”. It’s a very expressive performance but not by using excessive legato or dynamic variation. Perhaps it’s the acoustic that your ears don’t like? It would be a shame not to make a recording simply because a large cathedral organ isn’t available. There’s plenty of use of rubato. A persons facial or body movements aren’t relevant to musical expression, unless perhaps it’s a piano recital in front of a live audience but even then that’s simply smoke and mirrors rather than true “expression”. Here’s a simple quote (on a complicated subject) from Wikipedia about musical expression...
“Musical expression is the art of playing or singing with a personal response to the music.[1]
At a practical level, this means making appropriate use of dynamics, phrasing, timbre and articulation to bring the music to life.[2] Composers may specify these aspects of expression to a greater or lesser extent in the notation of their musical score.”
Anyone who knows AN’s recordings well will know this performance is highly characteristic of his style of playing so I would argue that his personal response to the piece is rich.
Oh and... the article finishes with a quote from Stravinsky, whom I know Tony is fond of...
"Most people like music because it gives them certain emotions such as joy, grief, sadness, and image of nature, a subject for daydreams or - still better - oblivion from “everyday life”. They want a drug - dope -…. Music would not be worth much if it were reduced to such an end. When people have learned to love music for itself, when they listen with other ears, their enjoyment will be of a far higher and more potent order, and they will be able to judge it on a higher plane and realise its intrinsic value." - Igor Stravinsky [13].
come on, Anthony,,, you know Cesar was more romantic than that, lol,,, the purist attack sucks, lol, i love you anyways xo ( i play your ride of the vol, all the time
Typical Newman, all speed and no feeling. He hasn't changed or matured since the 60's. His Franck is atrocious. BTW it's a terrible organ.
Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel! 😒
Oh bog off, it’s amazing!
So since from 1960s, don't you still know how much the tempo marked by Franck is ? BTW, it's already 2020, how can speed still mean no feeling ? So sad that Beethoven symphony 3, 5 9 and Vivaldi La Folia final part have no feeling to you. Come on, imslp and youtube are there. Thanks god that Newman has been such great since from 1960s.
@@holmespianotuning Only children say things like that, simply because they're intellectually and emotionally immature, or, in this case, challenged.
@@AppaLV6 I'm not arguing tempo. I think the tempo is fine. What I'm saying is it's not the only thing. I hear no expressiveness (rubato, phrasing, contrast). It's just fast - and cold. I recommend finding the Virgil Fox recording he made at Boston Symphony Hall: just as fast, but considerably more musical. Moreover, I'm not sure what the Petrucci Project and the other works mentioned have anything to do with the the Franck Bb "Final," outside that they're all available through IMSLP; but, then again so is Vaughan Williams, Vierne, Rangstrom, and a host of others.
His pencilled in tempo is 100 ( has to b to the half note)!
This is true: the composer's metronome mark was 100 to the half note... while his devoted student Tournemire gave it as 100 to the quarter note...!?