This is the final recording of the Brahms Project, in which PhD student Johannes Leertouwer studied nineteenth century performance practices of the orchestral music of Johannes Brahms, leading to a different way of handling tempo modifications, vibrato, and portamento in an orchestral context. Leertouwer demonstrated his research results by directing a "project" orchestra that met for one week in each of four years to record all four Brahms Symphonies and all four Brahms concerti. He successfully defended his dissertation in January 2023 at The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University. Considerable information and all the recordings are at his project site, which CZcams won't let me post.
@@powerguido9870 To see the justification for eveything, look for: PhD defence Re-inventing the Nineteenth-Century Tools of Unprescribed Modifications of Rhythm and Tempo in Performances of Brahms’s Symphonies and Concertos This has the video of Johannes Leertouwer's dissertation defence (almost all in English) and free access to his Ph. D. dissertation (in English) from the Scholarly Publications of Leiden University.
Quite understandable; it is horribly ugly and total nonsense and every musician knows this. Nobody in the 19th century sounded this awful. Listen to early recordings, Mengelberg, Kreisler, Rachmaninof, Joachim (!)… what a waste of subsidies and talent.
@@JonAhlquist is there anywhere I can listen to the other concertos and symphonies? I have found the documents and the studies, but the server cannot be found! Really wanna give them a nice listen 😢
OK, I have read all the comments and now its my turn to add two cents. Long ago, I studied conducting with Dr. Richard Lert who was the god-son of Brahms, listened to Brahms play, was in many group discussions with Brahms (especial at taverns when Lert got older), studied under Brahms and was friends with Richard Strauss, was at one time music director of the Berlin Philharmonic and conductor of other orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic. So, I have it on good authority to say that although I personally prefer the interpretation of others like Heifetz, Brahms was use to the playing of his friend Joachim and preferred it!!! If you listen to the very few recordings of Joachim, you will discover that in fact, the over use of vibrato was indeed frowned upon and was considered an ornamentation and not standard usage during that era! Portamento / sliding into and out of notes was the norm. During that era, over usage vibrato was very much considered in bad taste. However, Brahms did consider his music an extension of the Classical period and was a great admirer of Mozart! Mozart too considered vibrato over usage distasteful and complained about it. HOWEVER, on the other hand, it was noted and considered a high complement, that Brahms playing was, or gave the impression of, a "folk style" of performing; rubato and quasi-improvisational skills being the norm. The Russian school of string playing, or rather the "Slavic style," was the forerunner of vibrato usage and is the foundation of our norm today in modern times; NOT THE GERMANIC STYLE! As a retired professional violist, composer, teacher, cathedral choirmaster and organist, when one performs a piece of music, one should consider the different cultures and styles of performance. I am not saying I am fond of this performance, However, I do understand where it is coming from and what it is trying to achieve. Perhaps it is a little too much maybe considering that some notes and phrases are weak naturally and should be "warmed" in the playing. Please keep in mind that Brahms was a super genius, extremely self critical and of others, except Clara Schumann, destroyed much of his own works in his back yard incinerator and considered himself a Classicist even though he had heavy folk roots and almost gypsy like tendencies. He was a mysterious contradiction then and is today! - Dr. K. L. Knott, BMus, MMus, PhdMus, Founder, Director of the Sarum Society and Monastery and Abbott. Specialist in Men and Boy Choirs, Scholas and Children's Choirs and their training.
Wow! Thank you for sharing this invaluable story - indeed excessive use of vibrato was frowned upon in the German school, Leopold Auer, pupil of Joachim at the time in Hannover before the violin concerto was written(!) also mentions it his book. That being said, I’d personally prefer more of a rhapsodic approach for this concerto, one certainly of Heifetz, himself a pupil of Auer 😊 It’s amazing to see how interconnected things are and how taste develops over time.
Without listening full piece, I see great idea and futurism about this recording! This is probably how in future musicians will try to play in historical way. Sound is great , technique of all instruments in orchestra and soloist on very high level. Recording can be even less technologically supported . Musical point is there, it stays only to listener to like it or not. My questions to commentators would be: if artist doesn’t try alternative way to present idea , how we can reach unknown what attracts us to be artists or close to it? How much we can be different from each others as musicians?What is the point of playing some piece like this violin concerto million times in spirits of current traditions? Music is like other arts admired because of it’s varieties to listen similar sounds played in totally different ways and that is intriguing our imagination. Esthetics? What means beautiful, and how is possible to judge it? Big bravo for courage of performers on this recording, and lot of respect to all opinions in critics.
One final thought, musicians of that era considered that the harmonic and over tome richness of most instruments, like in the clarinet for example, were more than enough and adding over usage vibrato was a redundant act and thus not necessary.
Thank you so much for sharing. What I appreciate about this is that is isn't yet another re-hash of the same established way of playing this music which has been around for decades. Basically everyone plays it the same way. National styles of solo and orchestral playiing have pretty much become subsumed into a very polished, international sameness. Whether I agree with all the details, the whole thing brimmed with life. I thought the solo playing was marvelous.
This makes me realize that Vasa Prihoda (that violinist whom i won't shut up about, though he's not my favotite of all) came from this 19thcent school of violin playing--long flowy phrases, glissando, and a clear and beautiful tone without a bunch of frills on it. (Though he did have a rich vibrato.) Also, a vague carelessness about the intonation ;D.
I found this really interesting. At first perhaps a little plain compared to our modern approach. However, the clarity really does bring a new quality to this. I wonder if a little more vib would still be within the realms of authentic performance and might add the needed colour this is slightly lacking in
the harmonic richness of 19th century instruments is the reason why a 20th century vibrato ( specially Oistrakh-like) is more than redundant and of bad taste. Plain gut strings have a more colourful sound, and their are richer in harmonics. Therefore, as I mentioned previously, overvibrate notes is sign of bad taste
I should add as a COI, that I also play on a baroque violin, and modern violin. I also occasionally play jazz, and while there is some crossover in technique I would not dream of playing Brahms without and vibrato.
I don't know, I quite enjoy this performance and have an extremely high esteem of Sato. Nonetheless, I don't particularly like Brahms in general, but I don't feel like like this is as bad as some people are saying here in the comments.
Очень свежо и интересно! Но... Хотелось бы, чтобы потом люди, занимающиеся "исторически информированным" Брамсом, не стали высокомерны по отношению к "ограниченным" "академистам-консерваторам".(к сожалению, подобное явление нередко) Не скажу, что мне это супер понравилось, но это интересно, логично и довольно органично. Только есть вопрос. Скажите пожалуйста, данный проект претендует на самопровозглашённую "истину в последней инстанции"? С глубоким уважением, Алексей.
read pinned message at top - Recording is a culmination of a 4-year study project on19th century performance practices. Clearly glissandi were all the rage then? :-)
@@piusottovoce Is it also historically informed to play intentionally out of tune? I mean it's true performers back then had awful intonation... not sure if Sato here is emulating that :)
The one thing IMO they didn’t reconstruct (beside the relatively poorer quality of technical execution, which is a good thing because it is not desirable anyway) is the tempo agogics, rubati and general feeling and approach to rhythmic feeling and interpretation aesthetics of those days. Maybe they tried, maybe they didn’t have enough time to work on that for the recording, but the rhythmic feel even of contemporaries of Kreisler and Thibaud was different from what musicians even as gifted as Sato are able to reproduce. So what the HIP are doing is making still a modern adaptation to a historical reconstruction, like they did with pre 19th century music.
Well, of course. The HIP movement is making a modern adaptation of what we think this music *might* have sounded like-there is no way to go back in time and be sure (and there’s no way to encapsulate everything one wants in a singular performance)! The entire HIP movement (at least by this point) inhabits a totally post-modern ideology. We can’t recreate exactly what Brahms or Bach heard, we can just do our best to approximate. HIP just offers an invitation to expand our aural awareness and better develop our own taste. Whether on gut or steel, many keys or few keys, performances of classical music must remain relevant to our modern society. Otherwise, we are just arguing about whether to paint the deck chairs on the Titanic or not.
I love sato’s Playing generally…tremendous talent. But I don’t find the portamentos and slides compelling or authentic. Listen to Elman, Huberman and Kreisler…heck, even Heifetz! The slides at bottoms of the first page were overdone and not Musical.
Those artists, amazing as they are, are two generations removed from Brahms. Heifetz studied with Leopold Auer, who studied with Joseph Joachim, who was Brahms' favourite violinist and the the dedicatee of this concert. We have a handful of recordings of both Joachim and Auer which you can find on CZcams and they both use portamento a lot. Auer complained on his book that his students used too much vibrato. Tastes can change a lot in a short period of time and we are all products of our time and the influences we grew up listening to. It takes great maturity, bravery and skill to challenge those preconceptions and attempt to recreate an old style like this. Wether it's successful for you or not is a matter of your taste, not a definitive judgement of this interpretation
I greatly admire M Sato in his performances of Bach, but this is truly vile and unmusical. The orchestra is pretty mechanical too. As for informed performance practice, we know for a fact that orchestral violinist of Mozart's day used vibrato (too much) because Wolfgang wrote to his father complaining about it.
I’m sure you know more about historical performance than someone who has a Phd and an expert violinist who is fluent in the modern and baroque idiom. What are your qualifications again??
Terrible performance! Everything without vibrato bruhhh! They never played in this unmusical way. Very mediocre orchestra also....😖 Listen to Mengelberg, Kreisler, Stokowski ea
maybe because he is a baroque musician, they did not use vibratos. the same can be said for romantic musicians who play vibratos in baroque music, which as I mentioned was not used.
Incredible bs! It was never written whether or not vibrato was used. There is not one single document of that time or even later that writes that vibrato was forbideen or not used. Assumptions lead to this sort of artificial ugliness… my God it is horrible. Leertouwer is doing this to obtain a doctorate… if he does, the doctorate won’t be in music but in ‘misconceptions & ugliness’. Sorry… no music here!
Sad that such a good violinist is so mislead. No music here, it is plain and ugly. It was not ever written that vibrato was not used in the baroque but it was most certainly used in the 19th century. We still have recordings of Joachim who helped Brahms write it! This is ludicrous nonsense to help Leertouwer obtain a doctorate in… ? In what? Certainly not in music. It is freightfully ugly…
@@bobdamuffingamer7783 this is no barock, but romantic music ! If one wants to play every barock piece in the right style, why not the romantic music should be played also in the right way!
It is just amazing. Not disgusting as you wrote. A different style than what you ever experienced or studied. Not necessarily worse. In my opinion it's way better, fun to listen and correct than mainstream styles. There is place for everybody on earth, remember, not only for what satisfies your taste.
This is the final recording of the Brahms Project, in which PhD student Johannes Leertouwer studied nineteenth century performance practices of the orchestral music of Johannes Brahms, leading to a different way of handling tempo modifications, vibrato, and portamento in an orchestral context. Leertouwer demonstrated his research results by directing a "project" orchestra that met for one week in each of four years to record all four Brahms Symphonies and all four Brahms concerti. He successfully defended his dissertation in January 2023 at The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University. Considerable information and all the recordings are at his project site, which CZcams won't let me post.
maybe the uploader can link it in his description box
since when is brahms baroque?
@@powerguido9870 To see the justification for eveything, look for: PhD defence Re-inventing the Nineteenth-Century Tools of Unprescribed Modifications of Rhythm and Tempo in Performances of Brahms’s Symphonies and Concertos
This has the video of Johannes Leertouwer's dissertation defence (almost all in English) and free access to his Ph. D. dissertation (in English) from the Scholarly Publications of Leiden University.
Quite understandable; it is horribly ugly and total nonsense and every musician knows this. Nobody in the 19th century sounded this awful. Listen to early recordings, Mengelberg, Kreisler, Rachmaninof, Joachim (!)… what a waste of subsidies and talent.
@@JonAhlquist is there anywhere I can listen to the other concertos and symphonies? I have found the documents and the studies, but the server cannot be found! Really wanna give them a nice listen 😢
I was so thrilled when I saw that Shunske Sato had made a Brahms violin concerto recording. It's amazing 😍
I played on this recording...!!! It was a dream come true to be part of this ❤
OK, I have read all the comments and now its my turn to add two cents. Long ago, I studied conducting with Dr. Richard Lert who was the god-son of Brahms, listened to Brahms play, was in many group discussions with Brahms (especial at taverns when Lert got older), studied under Brahms and was friends with Richard Strauss, was at one time music director of the Berlin Philharmonic and conductor of other orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic. So, I have it on good authority to say that although I personally prefer the interpretation of others like Heifetz, Brahms was use to the playing of his friend Joachim and preferred it!!! If you listen to the very few recordings of Joachim, you will discover that in fact, the over use of vibrato was indeed frowned upon and was considered an ornamentation and not standard usage during that era! Portamento / sliding into and out of notes was the norm. During that era, over usage vibrato was very much considered in bad taste. However, Brahms did consider his music an extension of the Classical period and was a great admirer of Mozart! Mozart too considered vibrato over usage distasteful and complained about it. HOWEVER, on the other hand, it was noted and considered a high complement, that Brahms playing was, or gave the impression of, a "folk style" of performing; rubato and quasi-improvisational skills being the norm. The Russian school of string playing, or rather the "Slavic style," was the forerunner of vibrato usage and is the foundation of our norm today in modern times; NOT THE GERMANIC STYLE! As a retired professional violist, composer, teacher, cathedral choirmaster and organist, when one performs a piece of music, one should consider the different cultures and styles of performance. I am not saying I am fond of this performance, However, I do understand where it is coming from and what it is trying to achieve. Perhaps it is a little too much maybe considering that some notes and phrases are weak naturally and should be "warmed" in the playing. Please keep in mind that Brahms was a super genius, extremely self critical and of others, except Clara Schumann, destroyed much of his own works in his back yard incinerator and considered himself a Classicist even though he had heavy folk roots and almost gypsy like tendencies. He was a mysterious contradiction then and is today! - Dr. K. L. Knott, BMus, MMus, PhdMus, Founder, Director of the Sarum Society and Monastery and Abbott. Specialist in Men and Boy Choirs, Scholas and Children's Choirs and their training.
Wow! Thank you for sharing this invaluable story - indeed excessive use of vibrato was frowned upon in the German school, Leopold Auer, pupil of Joachim at the time in Hannover before the violin concerto was written(!) also mentions it his book. That being said, I’d personally prefer more of a rhapsodic approach for this concerto, one certainly of Heifetz, himself a pupil of Auer 😊
It’s amazing to see how interconnected things are and how taste develops over time.
try working on brevity and economy of expression
Without listening full piece, I see great idea and futurism about this recording!
This is probably how in future musicians will try to play in historical way.
Sound is great , technique of all instruments in orchestra and soloist on very high level. Recording can be even less technologically supported .
Musical point is there, it stays only to listener to like it or not. My questions to commentators would be: if artist doesn’t try alternative way to present idea , how we can reach unknown what attracts us to be artists or close to it? How much we can be different from each others as musicians?What is the point of playing some piece like this violin concerto million times in spirits of current traditions?
Music is like other arts admired because of it’s varieties to listen similar sounds played in totally different ways and that is intriguing our imagination.
Esthetics? What means beautiful, and how is possible to judge it?
Big bravo for courage of performers on this recording, and lot of respect to all opinions in critics.
Bravo Gordan! Agree wholeheartedly. Greetings to you and your colleagues in HSO.
Sorry to read some negative comments, I just loved this, it touched my heart and soul.
One final thought, musicians of that era considered that the harmonic and over tome richness of most instruments, like in the clarinet for example, were more than enough and adding over usage vibrato was a redundant act and thus not necessary.
Ivry Gitlis was also underestimated - and yet he had clearly individual phrasing and sound ! Good luck Sato !
Thank you so much for sharing.
What I appreciate about this is that is isn't yet another re-hash of the same established way of playing this music which has been around for decades. Basically everyone plays it the same way. National styles of solo and orchestral playiing have pretty much become subsumed into a very polished, international sameness. Whether I agree with all the details, the whole thing brimmed with life. I thought the solo playing was marvelous.
I was looking forward this a long time!!!! Finally an H.I.P. 🎉
I love this rendition
I actually find this to be quite pleasing to the ear 👂! Well done!
This makes me realize that Vasa Prihoda (that violinist whom i won't shut up about, though he's not my favotite of all) came from this 19thcent school of violin playing--long flowy phrases, glissando, and a clear and beautiful tone without a bunch of frills on it. (Though he did have a rich vibrato.) Also, a vague carelessness about the intonation ;D.
Love the violin!
I found this really interesting. At first perhaps a little plain compared to our modern approach. However, the clarity really does bring a new quality to this. I wonder if a little more vib would still be within the realms of authentic performance and might add the needed colour this is slightly lacking in
the harmonic richness of 19th century instruments is the reason why a 20th century vibrato ( specially Oistrakh-like) is more than redundant and of bad taste. Plain gut strings have a more colourful sound, and their are richer in harmonics. Therefore, as I mentioned previously, overvibrate notes is sign of bad taste
Wonderful
I should add as a COI, that I also play on a baroque violin, and modern violin. I also occasionally play jazz, and while there is some crossover in technique I would not dream of playing Brahms without and vibrato.
Sounds less hysterical, but by far not less beautiful than conventional playing styles of our time. A future perspective
When you post a video it is appropriate to mention the name of the orchestra and the conductor and the date of recording
I don't know, I quite enjoy this performance and have an extremely high esteem of Sato. Nonetheless, I don't particularly like Brahms in general, but I don't feel like like this is as bad as some people are saying here in the comments.
Does anyone know when and where this performance was given?
Which is the orchestra and who is the conductor?
great
사토 슌스케❤❤❤
Indeed very generous with the glissando 😮
Which is btw super correct historically. It's called portamento😍
I'm all for a touch of reverb, but this sounds it was recorded in a giant bathroom.
🗿 🍷
ロマン派時代の演奏をバロック時代の延長線上に置いてみた演奏のように感じました。意欲的な解釈ってことですかね？
Очень свежо и интересно! Но... Хотелось бы, чтобы потом люди, занимающиеся "исторически информированным" Брамсом, не стали высокомерны по отношению к "ограниченным" "академистам-консерваторам".(к сожалению, подобное явление нередко)
Не скажу, что мне это супер понравилось, но это интересно, логично и довольно органично.
Только есть вопрос.
Скажите пожалуйста, данный проект претендует на самопровозглашённую "истину в последней инстанции"?
С глубоким уважением, Алексей.
А пусть «ограниченные» со временем переучиваются. Глядишь, и пропадёт практика Монтеверди и Баха на стайнвеях играть. Дай бог
@@leoviridis
Оу…ясно всё с вами)))
@@hwv232 сочувствую, что вам нечего сказать по существу вопроса
Сказать есть что, но от дискуссии с персонажами, вам подобными, воздержусь
whose cadenza he playing in the 1st movement?
I have no certain, but I think it was composed by himself.
thanks! and thanks upload!
Glissando on almost every measure :P trombone concerto?
read pinned message at top - Recording is a culmination of a 4-year study project on19th century performance practices. Clearly glissandi were all the rage then? :-)
@@piusottovoce Is it also historically informed to play intentionally out of tune? I mean it's true performers back then had awful intonation... not sure if Sato here is emulating that :)
@@anonymousl5150the violin was tuned slightly flat but overall intonation is fine
@@oledkingdom8286 Even the opening few measures have seriously out of tune notes, but it's good if you can't hear it
Its more in tune than normal performances because doesn't use so much vibrato, that.creates the ilussion of playing in tune, and perverts our taste
Is he japanese ?
Yes, he is
The one thing IMO they didn’t reconstruct (beside the relatively poorer quality of technical execution, which is a good thing because it is not desirable anyway) is the tempo agogics, rubati and general feeling and approach to rhythmic feeling and interpretation aesthetics of those days. Maybe they tried, maybe they didn’t have enough time to work on that for the recording, but the rhythmic feel even of contemporaries of Kreisler and Thibaud was different from what musicians even as gifted as Sato are able to reproduce.
So what the HIP are doing is making still a modern adaptation to a historical reconstruction, like they did with pre 19th century music.
Well, of course. The HIP movement is making a modern adaptation of what we think this music *might* have sounded like-there is no way to go back in time and be sure (and there’s no way to encapsulate everything one wants in a singular performance)! The entire HIP movement (at least by this point) inhabits a totally post-modern ideology. We can’t recreate exactly what Brahms or Bach heard, we can just do our best to approximate. HIP just offers an invitation to expand our aural awareness and better develop our own taste. Whether on gut or steel, many keys or few keys, performances of classical music must remain relevant to our modern society. Otherwise, we are just arguing about whether to paint the deck chairs on the Titanic or not.
I love sato’s
Playing generally…tremendous talent. But I don’t find the portamentos and slides compelling or authentic. Listen to Elman, Huberman and Kreisler…heck, even Heifetz! The slides at bottoms of the first page were overdone and not
Musical.
Those artists, amazing as they are, are two generations removed from Brahms. Heifetz studied with Leopold Auer, who studied with Joseph Joachim, who was Brahms' favourite violinist and the the dedicatee of this concert. We have a handful of recordings of both Joachim and Auer which you can find on CZcams and they both use portamento a lot. Auer complained on his book that his students used too much vibrato. Tastes can change a lot in a short period of time and we are all products of our time and the influences we grew up listening to. It takes great maturity, bravery and skill to challenge those preconceptions and attempt to recreate an old style like this. Wether it's successful for you or not is a matter of your taste, not a definitive judgement of this interpretation
I greatly admire M Sato in his performances of Bach, but this is truly vile and unmusical. The orchestra is pretty mechanical too. As for informed performance practice, we know for a fact that orchestral violinist of Mozart's day used vibrato (too much) because Wolfgang wrote to his father complaining about it.
Too much for they, but no so for us. Otherwise, 19th century violinist used less vibrato than in 18th
I’m sure you know more about historical performance than someone who has a Phd and an expert violinist who is fluent in the modern and baroque idiom. What are your qualifications again??
@@cesars8090 We have literally no idea that that's the case (the part about it not being to much for us)
Terrible performance! Everything without vibrato bruhhh! They never played in this unmusical way. Very mediocre orchestra also....😖
Listen to Mengelberg, Kreisler, Stokowski ea
no vibrato, guess he was always a baroque violinist on the inside lmfao
maybe because he is a baroque musician, they did not use vibratos. the same can be said for romantic musicians who play vibratos in baroque music, which as I mentioned was not used.
Incredible bs! It was never written whether or not vibrato was used. There is not one single document of that time or even later that writes that vibrato was forbideen or not used. Assumptions lead to this sort of artificial ugliness… my God it is horrible. Leertouwer is doing this to obtain a doctorate… if he does, the doctorate won’t be in music but in ‘misconceptions & ugliness’. Sorry… no music here!
Sad that such a good violinist is so mislead. No music here, it is plain and ugly. It was not ever written that vibrato was not used in the baroque but it was most certainly used in the 19th century. We still have recordings of Joachim who helped Brahms write it!
This is ludicrous nonsense to help Leertouwer obtain a doctorate in… ? In what? Certainly not in music. It is freightfully ugly…
@@bobdamuffingamer7783 this is no barock, but romantic music ! If one wants to play every barock piece in the right style, why not the romantic music should be played also in the right way!
Absolutely disgusting
Because you don't have good taste
It is just amazing. Not disgusting as you wrote. A different style than what you ever experienced or studied. Not necessarily worse. In my opinion it's way better, fun to listen and correct than mainstream styles. There is place for everybody on earth, remember, not only for what satisfies your taste.
ロマン派時代の演奏をバロック時代の延長線上に置いてみた演奏のように感じました。意欲的な解釈ってことですかね？
これは歴史に基づいたパフォーマンスであると考えられます。
別にバロック時代の延長というのではなく、
１９世紀の演奏スタイルはこういうものだったのだろうという推定による
演奏なのでしょう。