Performance time of L'Isle Joyeuse

[iumonito]

I am rethinking my interpretation of L'Isle Joyeuse and seemingly I am having an Ivo Pogorelich moment, as I like it at almost 9 minutes.

As I recall Gieseking plays it in about 4'25" and Werner Hass and Horowitz just marginaly slower.

Would you mind posting the timings of any recordings you have of this piece?  I am curious to find out whether there are any commercial recordings longer than 7 minutes.

Thanks.

[arensky]

Just did a search for it on Itunes, they listed 22 recordings, ranging in duration from 4:45 (Alexis Weissenberg) to 6:48 (Bennet Lerner).

Of these recordings only Weissenberg came in under 5 minutes, nine(including Gieseking) played it in 5 to 6 minutes and ten were over that but none longer than Mr. Lerner (whoever he is).

Glenn Gould felt that tempo was irrelevant in an interpretation as long as the piece was well played and the structure was conveyed properly. I agree with him to a point. I listened to the snippets of several of these recordings and the fast ones don't differ noticeably from the "slow ones", except for Weissenberg's, which is very quick. I think the important thing in this piece (and all Debussy) is to communicate the atmosphere of the impression he's conveying to the listener, best done in this instance with a broad singing line and of course the pedal and tonal effects unique to Debussy. But 9 minutes does seem a bit long. I'd be curious to hear what you're doing...

[ramseytheii]

Samson Francois, 6.08 minutes!

Walter Ramsey