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estebanana -> RE: PDL concierto-de-aranjue article (Dec. 6 2024 5:43:41)
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In 2012 I went see the cellist David Finkel and his pianist wife play in San Francisco. I went by myself, and was not excited when I saw the Brahms Cello Sonata no.2 on the program, but I said, well ok, they are performing the Shostakovich sonata so it’s worth the whole sit down. See I wanted like a double Russian program with the Prokofief cello sonata too and some odds and ends, but they were performing Brahms, ok.
The next day I emailed Finkel and said wow you changed my mind on Brahms 2, because I never really got into it before I heard you and your wife perform it. I never really liked the first movement because I said, it reminded me of silent movie music where Snidley Whiplash is tying a woman to train track and it just sounded corny and stupid. But I told him, your playing didn’t feel that way, it changed my perception about how the piece could work.
He says back, wow you’re the only one who emailed us to say thanks and comment on the performance. And then we exchanged a few more emails about how the Brahms went etc. and he said next time we’re in town stop backstage after the concert and say hello. He said it’s good that the audience is engaged whether they felt a breakthrough or they didn’t understand something, he said we need to hear something, and that it’s unfortunate more people don’t send comments.
Some weeks later I was telling this to a professional cellist friend, I said Finkel changed my feeling about Brahms 2, she said “you had a problem with Brahms 2? I really do not like Brahms 1, it’s such a cliched over played mess. “ This is from a touring cellist, having strong opinion about a staple in the cello repertoire. It’s not uncommon. Steven Isserlis the British cellist has spoken at length why he doesn’t like the 1st unaccompanied cello suite by Britten, he says it’s crap and doesn’t perform it, but says that no. 3 is a great work. I can understand his point, although I’m still ok with number 1. But after he said that I looked at no. 3 more carefully and realized that even though still stoked to hear the first Britten suite, it’s not as deep and challenging as -#3.
A lot of my model for thinking about music comes from classical musicians who don’t have restrictive ideas about what’s important and what’s not. Or what feels good and what doesn’t. I think it’s important for instrumentalists to critically consider their own instruments body of work. In the case of classical guitar however there’s a protectiveness I don’t sense with many other instruments that have been standard in classical music. There are probably more viola concerti than guitar concerti and there aren’t many viola concerti, so guitarists don’t have as much to choose from in that genre. Someone can say to a violist “the piano part in the Hindemith viola sonata is really kind of thick with counter point that gets in the way” and a viola player doesn’t get defensive, because that busy aspect of Hindemith’s writing is something everyone has to come to a conclusion about.
My thought on a certain guitar concerto is that so far I like Pepe Romero’s and José María Gallardo del Rey. I like it so so, maybe if David Finkel performed it I’d have a breakthrough and become enlightened, but probably not.
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