Why Do All Modern Violinists Sound the Same?

[l33tplaya]

It's not me. It's Norman Lebrecht! Full article here... https://thecritic.co.uk/a-worthy-heiress-to-princess-ida/ Some trenchant competition criticism, too. 

Sure to ruffle Carl Stross's plummage, eh? lulz.  

More praise for Ida, a diss on Kuschnir and the new Russian school.  I rather like Hahn and Sophie-Mutter though.  Or is he just yearning for the old days? And any number of LA/OC Audiophile active members  can tell you that analog does sound different than most digital. That's another can of worms.  I think it usually depends on how recorded and processed. 

WHY DO VIOLINISTS NOW SOUND THE SAME?

• By Norman Lebrecht
• On September 3, 2020

From my monthly essay in The Critic:

…The loss of character hit me one summer’s day in the 1990s when an ephemeral star was making an arse of himself in a German studio, insisting that analogue recording was “purer” than digital. At close of play, I hit a bar with the audio team and was halfway down a wheat-beer when the Mendelssohn concerto came over the sound system. We tried guess-the-soloist. Not Heifetz, Milstein, Ida, Oistrakh. Not x, y or z, the recent Gramophone covers. Not anyone else we recognised. Who, then?

I asked to see the CD cover. To our horror, the player was the same overrated soloist whose vanities we had endured all day long, his sound as insipid as instant coffee.

The kaleidoscopic art of violin playing had lost its flavour, like chewing-gum, in the pop song, on the bedpost overnight.

[Bill Merkel]

it's lebrecht!

[GeorgeH]

They don’t all sound the same, but the headline is good clickbait.

[Rue]

1. That was entertaining! 

...and...

2. Ouch! 

But yes. So much excellence and so much homogeneity. And not just with music...with everything.

I blame globalization...

[Bill Merkel]

Lebrecht!

[l33tplaya]

So who was the charlatan that Lebrecht was talking about? Any guesses? 

Quote

 

 

[matesic]

Whereas pianists...?

Violinists tend to sound the same because there aren't many ways to sound. Lebrecht means how they play, but only a certain degree of expressive latitude is possible before large sections of the audience get twitchy. AS-M and Pat Kop have gone their individual ways (too far for some people) and those ways are now barred to upcoming players because they'd just be accused of copycattery.

Edit. I'm surprised that Lebrecht brackets AS-M with the homogeneous throng. Nobody else plays Beethoven like her.

Note the absence of value judgements in this post.

[Carl Stross]

9 hours ago, l33tplaya said:

It's not me. It's Norman Lebrecht! Full article here... https://thecritic.co.uk/a-worthy-heiress-to-princess-ida/ Some trenchant competition criticism, too. 

Sure to ruffle Carl Stross's plummage, eh? lulz.  

Nope. He's too much of an absolute nobody. A gossip monger with an agenda, same as many. The Strad magazine as a one man show.

I never read anything of technical substance from him. I wonder when, where and if he actually studied music.

 

 

 

 

[MANFIO]

The dead violinist and dead violin maker myths are stronger than ever!!!

 

[Violadamore]

FWIW, IMHO,

3 hours ago, Carl Stross said:

Nope. He's too much of an absolute nobody. A gossip monger with an agenda, same as many. The Strad magazine as a one man show.

I never read anything of technical substance from him. I wonder when, where and if he actually studied music.

[Emphatic cough!]  Normie-poo has a well-honed ability to hiss in rage about something without proposing any constructive changes to remedy the deficits he seems to see everywhere.  One wonders if he's part of the inspiration for the Lizard journalists that Harry Turtledove limned so exquisitely in Homeward Bound. 

10 hours ago, Bill Merkel said:

Lebrecht doesn't know it but he's really talking about old players' images differing from each other.  He says nary a word about their actual playing.  Anyway, pick some modern players and see if they play a random passage the same as each other.  If you think they did i'll laff my arse off.

Yup.  FWLIW, I use ASM's videos as a standard to examine closely for nuances of playing style, because I like her bowing style, and prefer her particular sound over numerous others (now if my left hand would just scamper over the strings like hers.....  ).

[deans]

We are herd animals,  we tend to be like one another, clothing, writing, speech,  etc. Now with the internet even more so I think. 

[sospiri]

 

Why are music critics so pretentious?

 

[Bill Merkel]

3 hours ago, Violadamore said:

(now if my left hand would just scamper over the strings like hers.....  ).

well, what are you practicing to make that happen?

[gowan]

Availability of modern recordings does tend to homogenize performance.  We all have the sound of almost all classical concerti in our heads thanks to recordings.  Recordings tend to be of middle of the road interpretations because the recording companies don't want to make anything that might not appeal to the largest number of people.  When recordings were scarce people had to go to concerts to hear the music and they wouldn't hear the same thing over and over.

 

[Rue]

I think a critic has to be a bit 'off the wall'.  They exist to entertain.   If they weren't entertaining/controversial, no one would read them.

11 hours ago, matesic said:

...

Violinists tend to sound the same because there aren't many ways to sound. Lebrecht means how they play, but only a certain degree of expressive latitude is possible before large sections of the audience get twitchy. AS-M and Pat Kop have gone their individual ways (too far for some people) and those ways are now barred to upcoming players because they'd just be accused of copycattery.

...

What I see as the issue is - (and I've said it before! ) - globalization.  

People have always traveled and performed, and brought music to new audiences, and brought new music back home.  BUT it's never happened this quickly (the last 20-30 years). 

We no longer have regional styles of music or of playing.  We've tacitly 'agreed' what 'perfection' is and how to get there.  We allow for creativity...but only within a very narrow window.  Anyone who willfully steps out the box - especially if they've been warned not to - gets dissed.  That's why everyone sounds the same.

...and let's not get into modern editing of recordings...that isn't helping.  It's just making it all sound even more the same.

It's not just music - look at younger actors, especially women - they all look the same.  If they don't to begin with - they get plastic surgery to make sure they do.

Any music or playing style that is/has been clearly distinct - ethnically at least, isn't recent.  It's all long been established.  There's nothing new being produced. Now is an awful time to be creative or draw inspiration from anything - you run the risk of being cancelled for appropriation.

And of course - the audience is to blame. Ida Haendel talked quite a bit about physical attractiveness and being a soloist.  (Stick Lara St. John in here too). Men can get away with more variation in appearance (is it because men don't care how other men look, and women are more forgiving of a man's appearance?), but women are still constricted by it (because men want to look at pretty women and women are hypercritical of other women?).  

I'm not immune to it all either  - I don't like Patricia Kopatchinskaja's bare feet.  They distract from her playing.  I'm all for comfort but there are a kazillion comfortable shoes available.  Bare feet strike me as rude...must be a hold-over from Victorian times on my part, but still...

Superficial on my part?  Sure.  But not any more superficial than a lot of other things that are considered to be serious.

[Bill Merkel]

someday she's going to step on a nail that came out of a viola and she'll be sorry

[Carl Stross]

19 minutes ago, Rue said:

I think a critic has to be a bit 'off the wall'.  They exist to entertain.   If they weren't entertaining/controversial, no one would read them.

What I see as the issue is - (and I've said it before! ) - globalization.  

People have always traveled and performed, and brought music to new audiences, and brought new music back home.  BUT it's never happened this quickly (the last 20-30 years). 

We no longer have regional styles of music or of playing.  We've tacitly 'agreed' what 'perfection' is and how to get there.  We allow for creativity...but only within a very narrow window.  Anyone who willfully steps out the box - especially if they've been warned not to - gets dissed.  That's why everyone sounds the same.

...and let's not get into modern editing of recordings...that isn't helping.  It's just making it all sound even more the same.

It's not just music - look at younger actors, especially women - they all look the same.  If they don't to begin with - they get plastic surgery to make sure they do.

Any music or playing style that is/has been clearly distinct - ethnically at least, isn't recent.  It's all long been established.  There's nothing new being produced. Now is an awful time to be creative or draw inspiration from anything - you run the risk of being cancelled for appropriation.

And of course - the audience is to blame. Ida Haendel talked quite a bit about physical attractiveness and being a soloist.  (Stick Lara St. John in here too). Men can get away with more variation in appearance (is it because men don't care how other men look, and women are more forgiving of a man's appearance?), but women are still constricted by it (because men want to look at pretty women and women are hypercritical of other women?).  

I'm not immune to it all either  - I don't like Patricia Kopatchinskaja's bare feet.  They distract from her playing.  I'm all for comfort but there are a kazillion comfortable shoes available.  Bare feet strike me as rude...must be a hold-over from Victorian times on my part, but still...

Superficial on my part?  Sure.  But not any more superficial than a lot of other things that are considered to be serious.

Very nice post - excellent !

[Carl Stross]

6 hours ago, Violadamore said:

FWLIW, I use ASM's videos as a standard to examine closely for nuances of playing style, because I like her bowing style, and prefer her particular sound over numerous others (now if my left hand would just scamper over the strings like hers.....  ).

I have great admiration for artists ( like ASM ) who managed to strike the right balance between uncompromising artistic integrity and accessibility to audience, both in the same time. In the same vein you may like ( or maybe already do )  Kyung-Wha Chung.  Here's a superb rendition of Beethoven's c/to , this time with a first line conductor ( Tennstedt )  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh-rZ23tAt0

 

[William Bradford]

Deleted .  

[Violadamore]

4 minutes ago, JimHoyle said:

Because they’re regurgitating DeLay/Galamian garbage.  

What do you prefer to regurgitate, and why? 

[Violadamore]

3 hours ago, Carl Stross said:

I have great admiration for artists ( like ASM ) who managed to strike the right balance between uncompromising artistic integrity and accessibility to audience, both in the same time. In the same vein you may like ( or maybe already do )  Kyung-Wha Chung.  Here's a superb rendition of Beethoven's c/to , this time with a first line conductor ( Tennstedt )  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh-rZ23tAt0

 

Thanks for posting this!  Yes, I like her too. 

[Rue]

2 hours ago, William Bradford said:

Deleted .  

Now he's William Bradford? 

First JimHoyle, then LeopoldMinute, now William Bradford? 

...and posts are disappearing rapidly! 

[Rue]

Deleted.

[Violadamore]

27 minutes ago, Rue said:

Deleted.

Oh my!! It's spreading!! 

[Rue]

...be careful...must cyber-distance...