Author: vboboe
Date: 2009-02-08 21:53
... it was RealPlayer
i've never seen the score for this piece, and didn't know it belonged to a suite either, thought it was a stand-alone piece -- anyway, only have other recordings and passive listening concert experiences to "compare" it with, so can't comment on the technical achievements necessary to perform this piece
this is atmosphere music, a tone poem, and it's describing a legend ... so IMO this music has to appeal primarily to the creative imagination
when it comes to choosing between technique and musicality, think the odds favour going with musicality, and i found this rendition created a vivid mental movie of a misty dark northern lake, lapping wavelets on pebbly shore and a lonely swan swimming back and forth -- all of which tells me that the musicians are very successful in getting 'atmosphere' across to me
... so even if you feel it was only fair (and yes, the instrumentation on this recording did get in front of you and buried you at times) -- i'd say musically it definitely had something more in it than another live performance i heard not that long ago, which did not evoke mental pictures for me at all ... and i do expect atmospheric music to do that for me
the only thing that seemed most out of place artistically, but that's entirely my own personal taste so don't quote me, was the very even vibrato on some of your long notes, it seemed much too regular for the misty picture i was imagining, even lapping wavelets are naturally a bit irregular ...
with pace in mind, maybe being out of beat or 'time warped' at the beginning actually added something surrealistic, helped slip into twilight zone, so to speak, helped access the imagination more readily ...
most enjoyable performance, 2 thumbs up ... well worth the hassle of downloading another media player ...
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