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Thread: More videos

  1. #1
    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
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    While I'm posting links, here is another one I've just stumbled across. On the home page of Detlef Tewes, there are a number of nice full-length video files. I'm just listening to the Munier piece, which is nice (if Germanic in playing style).

    Incidentally, all the links I've posted today I got from browsing through a nice German-language weblog here.

    Martin

  2. #2
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    I also noticed an interesting link to the overly modest Mr. Kioulaphides's site, whihc lists his many accomplishments. I know Victor for a few years now and I don't recall ever seeing that site.

    Jim
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    Registered User Plamen Ivanov's Avatar
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    I think most of the people attending the board have already seen this files. What I cannot agree with is the understanding that the pieces could sound great, even when they are performed by Germans. I can feel the negative attitude to the German way of playing, instruments etc. since I came here. Just on contrary, I think, that the Germans are the leading mandolin performers nowadays. I know there will be sharp reactions to this statement now, but it`s OK. By the way their CD "Romantic Mandoli Moments" was nominated for Grammy from the Haenssler Edition.

    Good luck!

  4. #4
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    I think what most folks are noting here is not necessarily a dislike of the German style but the fact that it exists in definite contrast to other styles. I enjoy listening to the playing of Gertrud W. I find it interesting to A/B many of the solo pieces on her Piccola Musica CD with those of Alison Stephens (of the British school). They play quite a few of the same pieces and yet their approach is very different.

    In many ways I feel an envy of those who have the discipline to play in the Germanic school. I think that the aesthetic is markedly different tho and in my advanced stages of playing would be difficult to retrace my steps and play in that style.

    BTW for an example of what I am talking about, read Linda's discussion of a Daniel Ahlert workshop here.

    Jim



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  5. #5
    Registered User Plamen Ivanov's Avatar
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    Jim, I agree with what you say, but it`s a little bit different from "which is nice (if Germanic in playing style)". May be it`s my bad understanding of the English language, or the formal logic, that I`m used to follow as a lawyer, but this sounds to me like this: "it`s nice, although it`s played in the German playing style", which presums, that the German style of mandolin playing is not nice in princpile. If I got it wrong, I beg a pardon.

    Martin, don`t take it personal, please!

    Best,
    Plamen

    P.S. Thanks for the link, I already read through Linda`s post. She is also speaking about differencies as you, which I agree with. And yes, she seems to be very excited of the Duo. Martin seems excited too. But the positive assessments regarding the German mandolin playing are often accompanied by some traditional negative statements just for sure...




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    Personally, I am a very big fan of the German school. Producing one very good student is difficult enough, but when one does it consistently, as Prof. Wilden-Husgen does, that is quite another level of accomplishment. In pure musicianship/technique, etc. there is no difference between Gertrud Weyhofen and the highest end of the classical guitar world (eg. John Williams, Odair Assad, David Russell).
    Robert A. Margo

  7. #7
    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
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    Plamen -- my apologies for using a slightly throwaway comment, which in the light of the ensuing discussion I should elaborate on. First off, I am German myself, although not of the "German school" as a mandolin player. I did not mean to be dismissive of Tewes, who is clearly an extremely accomplished and talented mandolin player. I will however readily admit to a personal preference for the Italian style, and for the tone of a vintage Italian bowlback over a modern German one. That's just personal taste, no value judgment intended. That taste is influenced by musical as well as cultural factors -- there is a reason why I'm not living in Germany and a reaction against a certain tendency towards over-rationalisation and seriousness in the German character is one of them. In musical terms, that can lead to technically perfect but somewhat sterile performances (or maybe that's just my personal response coloured by my own personal cultural baggage).

    However, my specific comment was triggered by listing to the Munier piece and it did not arise directly out of any of the above reasoning, nor was it meant to apply to the German school in general, or to Tewes in general. I haven't listened to any other recordings by Tewes yet. My ears are more attuned to listening to pieces in this Italian romantic idiom played in an Italian style, with bright tone and light touch. Tewes doesn't play it like that; his performance is extremely accomplished, but distinctly German as opposed to (but not necessarily inferior to) the default Italian style for this piece. All I intended to convey is that difference in approach. Apologies to Mr Tewes for any unintended slight.

    Martin




  8. #8
    Registered User Neil Gladd's Avatar
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    I agree with Martin, but this really applies to anyone playing music from outside their own culture. Not just Germans playing Italian music, but Americans playing Brazilian music, classical musicians playing jazz, bluegrass musicians playing classical music, and anyone in the 21st century playing anything written in the 18th century. There are so many details about the performance practices for all this music than you absolutely cannot get from the notation alone. It is possible to give a performance that is technically flawless and musical, and still be way off base stylistically.

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    Re: playing outside one's musical culture, Mr. Gladd has a point but being born into a musical culture is no guarantee of success either. There's a lot of very sloppy jazz played by jazz musicians, awful choro/bossa nova played by Brazilians, and, early in the early music movement, absolutely terrible early music. Personally, I am willing to make allowances for stylistic errors if they are accompanied by a high level of technical and music skill.
    Robert A. Margo

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    Having personally little culture to speak of, and coming from a pretty confused background, it may be that I ought to be playing a domra, and leave the mandolin to the more lighthearted Mediterraneans.

    One of the big problems with living cheek by jowl with folks with different ethnicities is the opportunity for finding them tiresome, and easily identifiable. That makes the American mandolin tradition kind of appealing; we don't HAVE a culture - everything is a sort of multicultural sausage, ground up out of what was laying around, spiced with what fell to hand, and even the instruments are totally dofferent from what the rest of the world thinks a mandolin should be.

    It can be liberating, annoying, confusing, and sometimes wonderful, other times wonderfully bad. But the great thing about eclecticism is that it can spark movement in so many different directions, and some of them are worth walking in, for a while anyway.

    And the truly great thing about being a poor mandolin player with no roots is, wherever direction I go, it won't be right. It gives me freedom of movement. And ultimately, no one will care.

  11. #11

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    Great post Bob!
    --Linda

  12. #12

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    [QUOTE]"I know Victor for a few years now and I don't recall ever seeing that site."

    *blush*

    The closest J. S. Bach —the greatest of us all—#ever got to giving an "interview" was when he summed up his life's ENORMOUS work with a telegraphic and astoundingly modest "I've worked hard". And Schumann wrote that "a knowledge of the history of music, the composers and their works that preceded us, is the surest and shortest cure of vanity and self-importance". If nothing else, I DID pay attention during those long Music History lectures.

    Plamen, your use of logic is exemplary; Aristotle himself would be proud of you! # If I may add, by way of anecdote: I once got a hilarious review after the performance of one of my works in South America, written in the usual, hyperbolic, "artsy" Spanish of the genre. The article showers my piece with WILDLY extramusical adjectives (urban, right-wing # geometrical, composite, and blah, and blah, and blah...) and, at the very last sentence, it concludes with a deliciously funny "nevertheless, we liked the music."

    #Mind you, the piece was a Sonatina for Piano, i.e. ehm... hardly a piece that could have been misconstrued in political terms.

    To say nothing else, the German mandolin culture of today is vibrant and organized on a level not found elsewhere. Around the Mediterranean we have always had flash-in-the-pan geniuses from time to time, yet rarely an institutional support of native talent. In the U.S. we have first-rate talent, yet rarely on the spotlight— reserved for others on the basis of "ratings", "box-office draw" etc. Such are the ways of the world...



    It is not man that lives but his work. (Ioannis Kapodistrias)

  13. #13

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    Steering back to the topic of the thread ...

    Mr. Tewes is certainly a stupendous performer: his playing evidences a degree of attention to detail that is truly commendable— if not astounding, especially to those of us who approach the mandolin more, ahm... approximately.

    And it would be unfair to call his performance of the Capriccio Spagnuolo anything BUT fiery! Plamen is right to admire such players, and the schooling they came from.

    I suppose the philosophical doctrine of isonomia (i.e. complementary/compensatory equilibrium) is always at work: as the MGS (my own abbeviation for "Modern German School") instrument is darker in tone, the MGS-PLAYER knows that its upper register requires particularly vigorous picking in order to come out of the texture; as the sustain of the MGS flat-wounds is short, the MGS player resorts to very highly controlled, ergonomically perfect, super-rapid tremolo; as the MGS pick is gummy, the player uses a good deal of forearm-impetus to get the sharpness of attack (s)he needs. And so forth...

    I have no difficulty or reservation admiring the unfamiliar.
    It is not man that lives but his work. (Ioannis Kapodistrias)

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