In my book, Stokowski remains unforgiven for his ham-handed and clumsy orchestration of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for Fantasia. On the other hand, I loved the reinterpretation of "Peter and the Wolf" and "Carnival of Animals" done by Weird Al and Wendy Carlos.Hermit wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:24 amAh. I see what you mean. My attitude is more laissez faire. No fine line between attempts at authenticity and literalism (in so far as those are even possible) on one end of the spectrum and inventive interpolations on the other for me. While I do not like everything I hear, I do enjoy - depending on my mood at the time, Keith Jarrett's note by note rendition of the well tempered klavier, Leopold Stokovski's various transcriptions and re-orchestrations and Hiromi Uehara's mangle of Beethoven sonatas among many other 'impurities'.
I run hot and cold on Glenn Gould. Sometimes I find his humming along to be kind of charming, and sometimes it seems to get in the way.
I wouldn't expect Procol Harum—or Neil Diamond, for that matter—to be doing a straight rendition of either. It'd be like expecting Raymond Scott to have a straightforward take on Mozart. And any of them are certainly preferable to "A Fifth of Beethoven" (holy Bob but I hated disco and all its kin).Hermit wrote: ↑Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:24 amComposers have always stolen from each other and incorporated those stolen bits like alien organisms in their own corpus. Now no less than in the past. It's fun to listen to Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue", even though the song is basically a radically stripped down interpretation of A.W. Mozart's 21st piano concerto. In fact, I like the song because of that. Is Procul Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" unpleasant to listen to because the band ripped off and mangled the Air from Bach's third Orchestral Suite?
So, yeah, some music jars, but not because the performer goes in an unexpected direction.
Also, to the tune of "A Whiter Shade of Pale", you can sing the theme from The Muppet Show. XD
