Godowsky Swan

[furtwaengler]

Hello all, I was wanting to record Godowsky's transcription of the Swan from Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals as a gift to a friend. I was using my Zoom H2 as is in a hall with a Yamaha C7 and terribly stuffy air vents...nothing too fancy. I'm down to these three takes. Which is the best?

I thought about making a hybrid of 1 and 2, but that may be cheap.

[j_menz]

My vote is actually for No 3. I get a slight hiss, which maybe you could edit out (or which may be just my system), but it seems the superior performance.

Oh, and very nicely done.

[furtwaengler]

Thanks a lot. I was thinking the same, save three notes that bother me. There are 12 complete takes in a 50 minute file, and I've been torturing myself trying to pick one, lol. The process of recording, even if it is for yourself, is a great practice/growth/perfecting experience. I had forgotten this.

[rachfan]

Hi furtwaengler,

Here's my 2 cents worth.  The first recording has slips in it.  I would bet that this was one of your earlier efforts.  The middle recording seems too distant, perhaps relating to recorder placement.  The third entry is the most accurate and beautiful IMO.  The only thing is the hiss, although once the music starts, most listeners would acclimate and listen to the music.  The third candidate exhibits a fine artistry and exudes beauty.  I would go with that one.

Like you, I've often auditioned the "out takes" of my attempts to play a piece up to my standards.  I do it in stages.  If I have 10 or 12 candidates, I first eliminate recordings with blatant errors.  The semi-finals involve no more than 6.  The final round is 3, but sometimes just 2 recordings. But trying to decide between two can still be frustrating.  Sometimes I find that switching out a pair of headphones for a different pair can reveal things that I otherwise missed. 

Some pianists can do wonders with edits.  For example, if the coda gets messy, they can cut that out and drop in a good playing of the coda.  I marvel at that capability, but I believe in doing full takes--always.  Every time I sit in front of those two microphones, I think it would be easier to play for an audience.

David         

[furtwaengler]

Thanks, David. Out of twelve, the first one was the 5th take, the second the 11th take, and the third the 6th take. I don't listen to the recording until I get home and hear everything in bulk, but I have spoken cues after the first here, "Best one yet, I think." And the one both you and j_menz picked, "Almost, almost, almost perfect!" as if in a bit of despair. It is one stretch of a 9th in the right hand before the recap that my little span caught the D-flat with the C. But as for the success of the recordings, it seems something starts to click midway through, and a new plateau is reached, and then for either concentration or some other reason, it unravels and I descend back down the hill. This is an interesting pattern to study.

Alas, there are so many layers in Godowsky's music, and how impossible to grasp them and hold them in balance! 

[ted]

The third sounds easily superior to the first two, as much as the opinion of a naive listener counts. Nice piano piece. Do you people really record things twelve times ? No wonder mine never sound any good.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I definitely wouldn't try cross-editing 1 and 2, sonically they are sufficiently different it would be very obvious what's going on (unless you start really manipulating it). 2 is more accurate I think than 1 (hard to be absolutely certain without the score in front of me). 3 sounds more impassioned in places and clearly the best take: I think it works fine as is, but if there were points you weren't absolutely happy with, maybe cut and paste from 1? I might add I very much like 3 in an artistic sense.

Every time I sit in front of those two microphones, I think it would be easier to play for an audience.          

It's the difference between feeling you're playing for the present and playing for posterity - a completely different challenge.

[rachfan]

Hi fw,

I feel your frustration.  When it comes to artistry at the piano, there is no perfect state.  We can sometimes come very close to perfection, but when we reach out, we cannot quite touch perfection.  The reason is quite simple -- we are mere mortals. If we reach out but cannot quite touch perfection, then that is an unforgettable performance.  In my lifetime to date, I believe that the pianist who came closest was Arturo Michelangeli.  Yet his own playing disappointed him!  

David

[furtwaengler]

Some confusion, the numbers on the files 1 and 2, not the position of the uploads, so I would have been combining the 1st and 3rd uploaded performances. As it is, I'm not doing that, and I've chosen NONE of these recordings, heh. All of you have been very helpful though, and I achieved my goal in sharing.

\It's the difference between feeling you're playing for the present and playing for posterity - a completely different challenge.

One of the tough realities of the technical age is everything we do is for posterity. I don't want to lose that sense of the moment, the spontaneous, collaborative connection between audience and performer....but alas, there's constantly a sense of being controlled by the mic.

[emill]

hi Dave,
First time I heard this Godowsky transcription ... sounds good but seems complicated.
Like most, the "Godowsky Swan 2.mp3"  sounds and feels much better.

emill

[goldentone]

I believe your third take, Dave, is the best both in performance and audio quality.  Your playing of the Swan sounds very natural there.