Klarinet Archive - Posting 000837.txt from 2003/06

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Bad Intonation On Old Recordings (was What is Music about?)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 00:51:55 -0400

The only way most of us can comment at all on playing from that era (let's
say for the sake of specificity the twenty years or so of commercial
recording before 1950) is by listening to recordings. There is no denying
that many of the old Toscanini recordings, as well as others made by
Stokowsky and Furtwangler (to name two whose very early recordings I've
actually listened to) exhibit technical flaws that no major orchestra of the
past 30 or 40 years (or their audiences) would have found acceptable. Some
of the intonation (especially woodwind) on those old recordings is downright
excruciating.

Maybe there are others who know more about early recording techniques who
can find an explanation there. The obvious conclusion absent any such
corruption in the recording process is that orchestral playing, particularly
woodwind playing has in general greatly improved over the past 50 years. So,
the generally accepted wisdom notwithstanding, have instruments, or at least
woodwind instruments, which is where most of the intonation problems I've
noticed appear.

Conductors can insist all they like that their orchestras tune to this pitch
or that, and they can stop to their hearts' content during rehearsals to
adjust intonation problems, but if the players do not play in tune at the
time of the performance, there's not much the conductor can do except find
another player. There was no doubt a lot of that done in the US back then,
too, before the AFM made dismissing a player very difficult.

All of that said, I think (simply an opinion based on my own experiences)
that one of the consequences of the absolutely saturated job market that
exists for orchestral players is that music directors do not have to choose
between technical wizardry and musicality in the players they audition.
There is more than an adequate supply of players of any instrument who offer
both phenomenal technical control and musical excellence to populate the
full-time and even not-so-full-time orchestras that exist at least here in
the US. Therefore, the playing level is just better than it was in the
1930's and 1940's.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Josh [mailto:joshclarinet@-----.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 8:31 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] What is Music about?
>
>
> who are you to creditze toscanni. where you there.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ormandtoby Montoya" <ormondtoby@-----.net>
> To: <klarinet@-----.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 10:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [kl] What is Music about?
>
>
> > David Dow wrote:
> >
> > Unfortunately Toscanni decided never to tune the NBC orchestra and alot
> > of that cycle Beethoven is flawed by awful intonation
> >
> >
> >
> > I don't know the recordings or engineering capabilities in those days.
> > Would someone other than the leaders of this thread care to make a
> > comment? It seems (to me) to be a bit of a stretch to say that a major
> > conductor allowed his orchestra to play out of tune ??? Or are we
> > talking about something more subtle, such as A=440 vs. A=446?

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