Did the first performance you heard influence your perception of a musical work?
Other recent questions on this board have led to answers from myself stating that I find both the Dvorak 7th and the Brahms 3rd symphonies 'dour' and amongst my least favourite of the respective composer's symphonic works. Others have answered stating that in the case of the Dvorak, the 7th is his greatest symphony and that the Brahms 3rd is their favourite. This led me to wonder whether I have a jaundiced view of both works by reason of the first performances of each that I heard. After 50 odd years of listening to classical music I cannot remember what orchestras and conductors were involved - and, perhaps that is significant. I can well remember that the first recording of Brahm's 1st I owned was with the Concertgebouw under Eduard van Beinum. I remember equally well being devastated when the LP fell out of mv hand on the the edge of my equipment and cracked. I could never replace it:( and have been searching, ever since, for a recording to equal it. Do any others have 'blind spots' about acknowledged masterworks and do they attribute that to hearing a bad performance in their younger days?
del_icious_manager2010-02-08T05:52:20Z
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Almost certainly 'yes'. Of course we all heard every piece of music for the first time once (something I tell 'lazy listeners' who stick to the same few pieces over and over again) and surely the performance that you heard first will stay with you forever. I still have some of the vinyl LPs I bought as a boy in the late 1960s/early 1970s and which introduced me to some of the better-known classical works:
A couple of these performances (the ones by Goossens) gave me what I realised was not a well-rounded view of the music, while it was several year before I realised that the Paray version of the Rakhmaninov 2 was savagely cut (as was once quite normal), as was the finale of Tchaik's 5th.
I'm not sure I have been put off any work from a first encounter. Perhaps I have been lucky with my largely ignorant first choices.
I wonder if the link below might help you with your van Beinum problem?
Edit for 8tpprsv: This question was answered in a couple of minutes from my memory banks. I dip in and out of Y!A throughout the day and only answer questions I can do so quickly as I am working. So, this question took as long to answer as typing the words.
For some other questions, I refer to my various lists and databases on music, amassed during my 30 years as a professional manager. Usually I can use my database to search for certain criteria and reproduce them on-screen in a matter of seconds. It's then just a matter of adding any 'extras' I was to add and pasting into the little Y!A box.
And anyway, this particular question is a very personal kind - anyone could answer with very different results to mine.
Yes and here is an oddity. In my youth I heard a recital live of Philippe Entremont and was enamored. Some 30 years later I found 2 CDs of the complete Mozart piano sonatas, same artist, enthusiastically bought it. It was recorded on a Bosendorfer SE reproducing piano system. I lack words to describe the depth of my disappointment.
I can only remember two first performances I've heard; and I've related theses incidents so many times on this forum, I really hesitate to post them again
But to respond to your question explicitly, I would have to say that I'm unable to judge: because my perception of the two has never changed - I loved them when I first heard them, still do(after more than 60 yrs. now)and probably always will.
I can say that my perception of some of the great composers music has changed; which I imagine is fairly commonplace. For many years I could not abide the music of Mozart and the great Bach; and must add that of Jean Sibelius whose music when first heard, left me totally unimpressed; but who eventually became one of my three favorite composers - the third being Tchaikovsky.
More weird still I suppose, is that a turn around came first with Sibelius, then Mozart and finally Bach.
Another idiosyncratic evolution is that even though I've loved Wagner's music all my life - the first two heard referenced above were piano transcriptions of excerpts from the Ring - I disliked/was unable to relate is probably more accurate, to the vocal lines of his operas; sounded all so silly and irrelevant to me when I first begin listening to radio-broadcast of them.
Bottom line I guess, is that it takes a longer time for some of us to come to an appreciation of some artist and their creations, than for others, and we all perceive the world from our own individual vantage/disadvantage, point.
I grew up in Toronto and with the help of that I’ve been uncovered to the variety of large number of diverse cultural backgrounds that it would take some highly heavy media impacts for me to purchase into any racial stereotype. That being stated, earlier I visited the U. S. myself i'd say 70% of what I knew got here from the media and subsequently not all of my perspectives were positive. It wasn’t thoroughly unfounded inspite of the reality that. I did come for the time of a few characters that were sooo useless on (in holding with what i replaced into used to seeing on television) that i ought to’ve sworn they weren’t for actual. trouble-free i attempt to remind myself that those are in basic terms generalizations that do not note to everybody.