Different versions of the same work?

[Thor 7,508]

Something that occured to me just now, in a discussion I was having on FSM.

 

Many people like to own multiple versions of the same work (doesn't matter if it's film music, classical or whatever). I've never really had that inclination. Sure, I've been known to check out different versions of the same score, sometimes even own a couple. Especially if they're radically different, like jazz takes on orchestral music. For example, I have both a traditional take on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" as well as Richter's "Vivaldi Recomposed". But most of the time -- when I've found ONE version I'm pleased with, I stick with that if I want to experience THAT particular work.

 

What's your take on this?

[Holko 9,527]

I'm the same way, I like to find a perfect version and stick with that. Deviations when listening to a different recording usually kind of annoy me, "hey this isn't how it goes". I had to dig through a lot of 1812 Overtures with weak or badly mistimed cannons until I found the Doráti version I came to love years and years ago in a random youtube upload!

[Brónach 1,302]

there are no rules. sometimes stick to the perfect take, sometimes two or three, sometimes i have no clear opinion.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

2 minutes ago, Brónach said:

there are no rules. sometimes stick to the perfect take, sometimes two or three, sometimes i have no clear opinion.

This.

 

Sometimes I find the shortened version of a pieces the most perfectly played and recorded one, but still I have a not so perfect recording of the complete work. Depending on what I want to hear at the moment I play the one or the other.

 

[Brónach 1,302]

also people play Bruckner too fast.

 

of course, if one is focused on physical hoarding, one may have to make some choices.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

In case of Bruckner I understand if people wanna get it behind them.

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

I have 6 different (more or less) complete sets of Bruckner symphonies (the Karajan twice, on CD and remstered Blu-ray audio) with one more coming soon, plus several separate (non-set) albums. Of course, in that case it can be argued that different cycles excel at different symphonies, and for some I do have clear favourites - but for others, there are often two or three that I switch between because they each have their strengths in different places.

 

I also have 10 different recordings of The Planets though.

[filmmusic 1,834]

I'm with @Thor on this. I don't want to have multiple versions of the same work.

I'm fine with one that I would be pleased.

(and that's why I don't like re-recordings of film scores. Even if they have better sound)

[Thor 7,508]

2 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

I'm with @Thor on this. I don't want to have multiple versions of the same work.

I'm fine with one that I would be pleased.

(and that's why I don't like re-recordings of film scores. Even if they have better sound)

 

That's interesting. We agree on the basic sentiment, but feel so differently in terms of rerecordings. Of scores of a certain age, I will almost always prefer the rerecording.

[A24 4,338]

I will always prefer the version that I'm used to listening to. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

A good example of different expressions to the same piece of music:

 

Quote

 

ALBERICH:

Swear you this to me, O Hagen, son of mine?

 

HAGEN

To myself I swore it. Calm your concern.

 

ALBERICH:

Be true, Hagen. Son of mine. O cherished hero. Be true. Be true. True...

 

 

The recent Met production, Hagen is aloof, almost speaking to himself. Alberich quite stern:

 

 

In Opera North's version, Hagen is along the same lines, but Alberich is a good deal different:

 

 

In Chereau's, Hagen practically tells Alberich off, and the latter leaves almost bashful:

 

 

In Audi's, Hagen almost kills Alberich (!), who recoils in fear:

 

 

This one, from Stuttgard, feels almost funereal: the most distraught I've ever seen Hagen:

 

 

Five different ways - all completely truthful to the situation - to express the same piece of music, and its just TWO LINES!!

 

And that's just on the level of finding different expressions in sung lines: I'm not even touching issues of timbre. Some days, I'm in the mood for Kurt Moll's gorgeous, legato Karfreitagszauber, sometimes I want something more sprechgesang and ardent a-la Matti Salminen. Sometimes, I want a baritone doing Hans Sachs, sometimes a Bass.

 

So no, I don't have this inclination. I like seeing different versions.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Opera is notoriously difficult for picking one "best" recording anyway. With orchestral pieces, where it just depends on the orchestra and conductor (and the acoustics and maybe their moods on the recording day), it's common enough to have a personal choice for "definitive" recording, or at least narrow it down to two or maybe three. With concertos, chances are also still good.

 

But with opera, you hardly ever get a entirely satisfying cast. Even if the conductor, orchestra, and most of the cast are outstanding, there will usually be at least one singer who drags the whole thing down. For example, I'm still very happy with Anja Silja and Sawallisch's conducting on my old live Bayreuth Der fliegende Holländer (the first version I owned), but I'm not too fond of several of the other singers these days. By contrast, Barenboim's recording is almost entirely satisfying, but Jane Eaglen isn't up to the task (not even if you don't compare her to Silja). Not to mention that there exist different versions of the opera itself - in one act or three, with or without intermissions; I have four different recordings by now and at least three of them are entirely different in parts.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I mean, I'm sure to some, Kurt Rydl's tremolo in the above would be a deal-breaker... They're questions of tastes, to some extent.

 

But I picked opera precisely for those reasons: not just the compromises but the way the text and the musical line lend themselves to many different expressions, different timbres, etc...

[Richard Penna 3,694]

For once Thor, we agree  

 

I have very little classical, but what I do have, I have one version of. In one particular case, Vaughan Williams' Serenade in A Minor, I was actually looking one day for any alternative performances out of curiosity, and I couldn't find a single other one on Spotify. Of course there will be other recordings of it (my one's the RSNO) but at that point I couldn't find one and any others would sound weird now. Same goes for Lark Ascending where the one I have is slow and beautiful, where other recordings tend to rush my favourite bit.

 

A few other random classical tracks, I came across in whatever random way, and latched onto their individual performance, like we all latch onto the sound of a performance of a soundtrack. One example is one of Mozart's Horn Concertos which was used in a Fantastic Mr. Fox audiobook many decades ago, and my younger self went looking for a recording, and the one I found is now my favourite.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

Some other works I intentionally have multiples of:

• Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen - Böhm, Karajan, and van Zweden
• Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie  - Kempe, Karajan, Sinopoli, Thielemann (and none are the one I would like the most - Karajan's live performance from Salzburg)
• Strauss: Rosenkavalier - Kleiber and two Karajans
• Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos - Böhm, Kempe, Sinopoli, Nagano, Thielemann
• Smetana: Ma Vlast - three different Kubeliks, plus two extra Vltavas by Fricsay and Karajan
• Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 - Kubelik (twice), Fricsay, Solti, Alsop
• Beethoven: Symphonies - complete sets by Karajan and Gardiner, plus some extra ones, mainly for the 9th (Szell & Bernstein)
• Mahler: Symphonies - complete sets by Bernstein and Rattle
• Sibelius: Symphonies - complete sets by Karajan, Ashkenazy, and Berglund

Conclusion: It's mostly repertoire works that have numerous recording and that I'm (often) very familiar with and fond of that I tend to get different versions of, because they do exist in very different interpretations and because I know them well enough to appreciate the differences.

[Schilkeman 964]

At one point in my life I had many recordings of the same classical works. When I started rebuilding my music library, I opted to buy only one recording of each work, using streaming to find what I considered the best, and leave it at that. I think I'm more composer centric, and try to find conductors who get to the core of what I think the piece is about. If I don't want to listen to that version, then I probably just don't want to listen to that particular work. There are only a few operas I like well-enough to want to own, and when it comes to period stuff, I'm fairly picky, so there's only so much to choose from.

 

Jazz is different because composition happens in real-time by the performers. The "tune" is somewhat incidental. It's all the stuff that happens after it that is interesting.

 

For soundtracks, I usually want the performance that was used for the film. In cases like JW re-recording material for the OST, like in E.T. or Jaws, or using different takes for performance reasons, like Jurassic Park, I defer to the judgment of the composer.

11 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Mahler: Symphonies - complete sets by Bernstein and Rattle

This might be my one exception, and it would be these two exactly, though I don't know which Bernstein you prefer. I like the later set, but Bernstein never did a satisfactory 8th for me. I've only heard two that I really like, Rattle's most recent one with the BPO, and Kent Nagano.

16 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

In case of Bruckner I understand if people wanna get it behind them.

There are only two composers I more or less dislike, and Bruckner is one of them. To think Wagner and Bruckner led to Mahler, but Mahler was twice the orchestrator of either of them, and he learned his Bach, and became much better for it. 

16 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I also have 10 different recordings of The Planets though.

This piece is stupidly hard to get right all the way through. I've never found one that I like fully, so I default to Gardiner, which I do for for most pieces when applicable.

[blondheim 1,157]

16 hours ago, Holko said:

I'm the same way, I like to find a perfect version and stick with that. Deviations when listening to a different recording usually kind of annoy me, "hey this isn't how it goes". I had to dig through a lot of 1812 Overtures with weak or badly mistimed cannons until I found the Doráti version I came to love years and years ago in a random youtube upload!

Dorati!!!

 

 

I love listening to different versions of the same work. This is what got me into classical music. I wish we got more recordings of film music. I love the Gerhardt Star Wars albums. It can make music sound so crisp and fresh; to hear it played just slightly differently than before.

 

If I want to listen to a version of Beethoven’s Fifth, I can choose a version that supports my vision of the work, even if that vision changes by the hour. Do I want a historically informed performance that follows Beethoven’s metronome markings to the letter, a performance that takes his suggestions but utilizes plenty of rubato, or of course I could listen to a performance that throws the playbook at the window, like the Boulez.

 

I love this. It gets even more interesting when you find works that have choices to be made like Mahler’s Sixth.

 

[mstrox 6,651]

Film scores I tend to “pick” just one version (when multiples are available).  Sometimes it’s the OST, sometimes it’s the expansion - depends on which I find overall more listenable.  I rarely or never prefer a re-recording.  Even something like Conan- things like a messy performance and muddied room tone are kind of what make the score interesting to me.  I don’t think the writing was interesting enough to hold up on the pristine re-recording.

 

For classical/opera/concert stuff, I don’t really care at all.  I have multiple versions of tons of stuff, but it’s usually something I put on while I’m working and don’t engage with critically.

 

Sometimes rock and pop artists re-record stuff and it’s interesting - the new Bob Dylan album this year was pretty good, for instance - because they attempt to take the song and do something different or interesting with it.  Sometimes they re-record it for boring reasons related to record contracts and stuff, and they try to ape the original album tracks so much that it just sucks the life out of the song - things like Jeff Lynne’s recent ELO albums.  Taylor Swift is re-recording her albums and is somewhere in the middle there, mixed success imo.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

On 24/11/2023 at 2:56 PM, Thor said:

Something that occured to me just now, in a discussion I was having on FSM.

 

Many people like to own multiple versions of the same work (doesn't matter if it's film music, classical or whatever). I've never really had that inclination. Sure, I've been known to check out different versions of the same score, sometimes even own a couple. Especially if they're radically different, like jazz takes on orchestral music. For example, I have both a traditional take on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" as well as Richter's "Vivaldi Recomposed". But most of the time -- when I've found ONE version I'm pleased with, I stick with that if I want to experience THAT particular work.

 

What's your take on this?

 

I like to hear different takes on my favourite music, be it a Beethoven symphony, a big band piece or Herrmann's North by Northwest. I do have strong opinions about which interpretations work for me, so I only purchase recordings that tick my boxes.

 

On 24/11/2023 at 8:18 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

Beethoven: Symphonies - complete sets by Karajan and Gardiner, plus some extra ones, mainly for the 9th (Szell & Bernstein)

 

I recommend getting Cluyten's cycle with the Berliners, and Szell's live 5th on Orfeo. His mono studio fifth is also ace.

[blondheim 1,157]

Cluyten’s cycle is indeed great. I’m rather fond of the whole Szell cycle although the 9th is the greatest of his. I also think Bernstein has a decent one. Wyn Morris has a highly underrated one as does Kubelik. Immerseel’s is certainly interesting. HIP but with leeway.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

4 minutes ago, blondheim said:

Cluyten’s cycle is indeed great.

 

Recorded before Karajan's first DG cycle with the same orchestra, but has better sound, better playing, and better interpretations. 

 

4 minutes ago, blondheim said:

Immerseel’s is certainly interesting.

 

I really don't like this cycle. The fast tempos causes loads of timing issues.

[blondheim 1,157]

19 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Recorded before Karajan's first DG cycle with the same orchestra, but has better sound, better playing, and better interpretations. 

 

 

I really don't like this cycle. The fast tempos causes loads of timing issues.

Oh I completely agree about Cluyten v Karajan. Karajan’s wall of sound sometimes impresses me very much I love a lot of his recordings and his Beethoven is fine but I prefer something a little more rugged and cut of the earth than something striving for aural perfection.

 

Re: Immerseel, I don’t think the tempi are ever faster than Beethoven’s written tempi but I could be wrong about that. It’s been a minute since I’ve listened to this cycle. Or do you mean moments where the orchestra is out of time with itself?

[bollemanneke 3,349]

I wish I could stop listening to different recordings of works I really love. Part of me thinks I'm wasting my time if I hear yet another Beethoven's 7th, but then that's the way I discovered Adam Fischer's take. I do try to prioritise recordings/conductors I really love. The trouble is that there's so much new content for me to listen to as well. Basically, I need time. A lot of time.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

8 hours ago, blondheim said:

Or do you mean moments where the orchestra is out of time with itself?

 

This. I don't mind Beethoven's tempi if the orchestra can handle it.

[blondheim 1,157]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

This. I don't mind Beethoven's tempi if the orchestra can handle it.

Hmm. Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve listened to it. I clearly need to spin this set again.