Dear Mr. Claesson,

although I find your attempt quite courageous and - in some way - "innovative" (?), I reckon all this (what I've listened to) sounds rather synthetic and unreal...

Concerning new "tempi", I know a certain Carlos Kleiber who was an extraordinary innovator concerning interpretation of Beethoven's music, a certain Gould concerning Bach's and so on...

Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to watch all the videos, but I'm quite curious, after many "palaver", about the final result, ergo to listen to your very own version.

("What version is this?" "It was my version"...quite easily spottable, I'm afraid...).

Sorry for my abruptness. I'll be an attentive listener of your definitive version.

Thank you.

   Hi everybody,

   first of all, I would like to say I love to see new classical projects in this forum. I listen to all of them very carefully, and I find it extremely useful as I am learning to use these libraries, something that gives me much pleasure. So, I certainly welcome this new Grieg Project, Mats, and would like to encourage further work in that direction.

   Now, that said, I'm afraid I am in that group of listeners mentioned by Beat who find it difficult even to speak about "interpretation" due to the poor "execution". I think we all are in the same boat here: all our efforts with sample performances are focused on mastering the programming part, i.e. "execution", so that we are able to say what we want to say musically, i.e. "interpretation". My point of view is that the whole process is not really different to what we do with "real" instruments at all. You have an idea - you practice - you compare you inner and outer hearing experiences - you keep doing that until there's as little distance between them as possible... or you have enough! (^_^)

  I was also going to point to Beat's rendering of the Prelude (one of my favourite VSL demos, btw.) as a suggestion for you to study, Mats. I've seen he can be quite straight at times in this forum  but, as you can see here, he's always willing to give advice and help and, as finished as you can consider your Grieg-Project, I wouldn't take his words lightly.

  So, Mats, I wouldn't really think twice...

   Best Regards.

 Wow, Mats this sounds great - it is so expressive.  I am inspired by this!  Congratulations and best wishes for your project!

Dear mr Claesen. 

Your quote: "you keep doing that until there's as little distance between them as possible"

and by your conclusion: "This is probably the worst approached ever if you want to make art. To copy without adding anything extra…….."

Is taken from:

"My point of view is that the whole process is not really different to what we do with "real" instruments at all. You have an idea - you practice - you compare your inner and outer hearing experiences - you keep doing that until there's as little distance between them as possible... or you have enough!"

I am not into polemics, but I do think you need to quote more accurately to strengthen your argument. 

After 44 minute of video... plus a rather long commentary, I am now honestly curious about the final., and new interpretation of the Holberg suite, see.

Regards,

Martijn

Can't wait

Hi Mats,

  I'm sorry, but you completely misunderstood me. It may be my fault, since I'm Spanish and sometimes find it difficult to speak in English. But I really don't know how to put it clearer.

  I mean after having studied and anlayzed the piece, you surely have an idea about it... "your own" idea, "your own" interepretation of that piece, the way you understand it and you think it should sound. I am not saying "your idea" should come from any other version or recording. Not at all. Unless you're a monkey, it should primarily come from "your own" analysis, intuition and knowledge about the piece itself, its composer, its cultural context, etc. I mean... simply what a musician usually does when he plays music! (I couldn't see that as an extraordinary achievement; it's just what we do as musicians, don't we?). 

  When I am speaking about the "distance between them" I mean between your "inner ear" (I don't know if this is the correct expression in English, I mean simply the inner sound image you created in your mind when studying the work) and you "outer ear", i.e. what you actually hear when you're performing it (in this case, your computer generated version, in other cases it may be what you hear when you're playing the piece at, say, the piano). By no means meant I the distance between a reference live recording and the virtual mock-up, but I'm afraid that is what you understood. I simply meant you should keep practicing until both experiences, the inner, mental image and the actual performance, are as close as possible, as if you were sculpting. Again, I can't see any mistery in this... I can't imagine how it could be any other way, unless the performer were either brainless or deaf (^_^)

  So, please understand my words in this context, for it's exactly here where I humbly think your attempt fails. Anyway, I really don't know what you mean by a "real artist" or a "super expert". I also don't have a problem at all being with you in the "nerd" side (I don't know what you mean by that also), and I am sure your 4 world leading violinists are, well, "real artists" and "super experts". But I would want you to understand that by saying that

   well, please, forgive me, but you don't give them actually much credibility, even if you trust them blindly. I also can't grasp why you say you're not interested in sounding, if not real, at least "sonically convincing", and at the same time keep making those affirmations. It seems quite incoherent to me and makes difficult for me to understand your claims. Also, you should not be surprised by Beat's point of view and suggestions, when we read all the time in your videos questions like "What version is this? A traditional with live musicians or mine?". Please, believe me, in the present state of your version it's ridiculously evident, and that's what we have kindly tried to tell you so far. Maybe Miki and Beat aren't either "real artists" or "super experts"... but, the only thing I still could tell you is, again, I wouldn't take their words lightly.

  Anyway, if you're satisfied with what you've achieved with your project... well, at least you're satisfied!! Honestly, that would be enough for me, so in that case, congratulations for your satisfaction... And please, excuse my comments if you really didn't want to know our opinion (sorry but I didn't realized you didn't ask for it in your first post) although you should understand this is likely to happen when you're posting in a public forum.

  About being new, and original (sometimes even at the cost of everything else), well, that's another story I will never ever be able to understand, Mats. You already have unique fingerprints, you don't strive for that. It's a given, you are original, whether you like it or not, want it or not; no need to listen to 100 recordings to figure out what hasn't been done yet to come up with anything else. It's a very old tune I've already heard a thousand times, some people even going to the extreme of saying they didn't care about other interpretations; you should, or you couldn't even know there's something "new" or "original" in your version, because all this is nothing but just a comparative judgment. So, even if you want to sound "new", it's not inteligent to disrespect the "old", for without it you would not even know what "new" means. It's like when avant-garde composers disrespect the classical tradition pretending not to use any cliché... I couldn't imagine a more restrictive, stupid cliché than that!! So, similarly, I think when one tries to be systematically "original" (my definition of originality is quite different, but I understand what you mean), as you did in your Grieg, there's every possibillity that you end up with a caricature. And I give you it could be very provocative, that's good, but then we come again to the point: for me it's hard to hear even that supposedly provocative interpretation in what I could hear from your videos. I'm sorry. 

  In any case, as I told you, I welcome you to the forum and I assure you I am grateful for having the chance to listen to classical performances in this forum and will be glad to listen to your future projects.

 If you wish to do an alternative new version of a piece and not interested in it sounding real,  then the VSL library was perhaps the wrong sounds to use, because using such an authentic library, even with your interpretation is still about 90% authentic, and so still sounds nearly real, but not quite.

You seemed proud that some people couldn't tell that it was computer based and not a real orchestra,  but I thought realism is what you were trying to avoid?

If you used totally synthetic sounds, then you would be creating something new, but by using VSL it can only be trying to sound real,  and you have achieved nearly real but not quite, perhaps it should have been less authentic, seeing that you were not trying for an authentic sound.

I thought you had a great project,  but I was a little disappointed that you didn't play any of it, and it all came from a midfile you downloaded off the internet - I reckon it would have been better if you hadn't mentioned that, because that statement for me, made you loose all credibility in what you were doing.

But well done for getting a commercial release on it.

thanks for the comments, absolutely agree about the
small "blips" of music, but it will be published by a record label and I’m not permitted to have whole versions on my site.

It will be on spotify  soon and the recording can be bought from lawo.no

And yes I’m sorry about the blabber I
couldn’t stop it……. Kaufman is all over this site and I really didn’t like his comments about bad playing and mixing and "unhappy translation into the world of VSL", maybe his German to English translator is doing a bad job….its just words....

mats

hi thanks for your long and interesting post servandus

well, please, forgive me, but you don't give them
actually much credibility, even if you trust them blindly. I also can't grasp
why you say you're not interested in sounding, if not real, at least
"sonically convincing", and at the same time keep making those
affirmations. It seems quite incoherent to me and makes difficult for me to understand your claims.

"I Can Do It My Way"

I lke that Mats. So many times one hears classical music, (lets say pre WWI for arguments sake) done over and over again, sounding the same. What is the point of that as an expression? Who cares in the end what the composer really wanted it to sound like, providing no notes are changed and adhering vaguely to appropriate light and shade dynamic markings etc?

As Vaughan Williams once said - 'Once my pieces are written, they have to make their own way out in the big wide world' - or words to that effect.

One of the things I never understand with samples and classical music done with them, is the constant efforts made by people to make it sound like a recording of the same work in a live situation. What is the point of that? 

Many people will never be able to work with a live, professional orchestra. If it's their own composition, they can make sound anyway they want and it either stands up or it doesn't. If it's a performance of a classic work, then the same goes with whatever interpretation is put on it, providing it sounds good.