David Runnion <[log in to unmask]> wrote, with rightful pride:

>On our site now, the first movement of Ravel's trio Op 44.
>
>http://mp3.com/serafinotrio

I think it was something interesting Dave came up with some days ago.
I listened to the piece carefully, and it almost made me think of parallell
worlds in that sence that I wonder if there really is a "mediterrian
approach" and a "nordic approach" which Alfven once spoke about.  He
had the fortune to work with orchestras in Italy, Spain, etc beside his
work with the Stockholm Philharmonics and the Choirs, and he talked about
temperament, and grade of joyfulness in the attitude towards music.  Alfven
was a sort of a gaydog, and he had sometimes to put restrain on his own
temper when conducting in Sweden, not to drive that Midsummer Vigil all too
fast in a edgy, sharp form.

When he conducted an orchestra in Milano, he found it had a completely
different sound.  And he went on:  "You shall not sound like a little girl"
he said to a clarinettist, "you shall squeak like a very old woman in this
passage".  He could use such likenesses in his own orchestra to PERHAPS get
the musicians in the direction he wanted.  Here the result was, that the
Italian clarinettist pulled the embouchure, bite in it, blew, and created
a very squeaky and squealing sound, that sounded like if that old woman had
swollowed her loose teeth.  And everybody lauged.  At another time he said
harshly to the violins:  "You sound like donkeys!  All of you!" Whereupon
some the violinists imitated in parody the sound of donkeys to the effect
they had had to flee klike Paganini in Mantua.  And everybody laughed.
Alfven noted with great joy that these musicians had the same attitude
to playing as they had to socializing.  The result was an easygoing,
swift playing that, as he wrote in his notebook, sounded "beutifully
transparent".  Not at all like that heavy accentuated playing in his own
orchestra.  Here he saw a difference in temper, a warm mediterian and a
cold nordic.

I think Dave, however not a Spaniard by origin(?), has assimilated the
mediterian atmosphere well, and come, for me, in his recording to represent
a typical "mediterian approach" to the music, what should do well oin this
music, and I think it is a positive.  Perhaps one can still talk about a
difference in approach 70 years later, and I think Daves interpretation
is fruitful, but I wonder if Daves (and others) interpretation would in
general make a good breakthrough in the city where I live, high up in cold
Sweden? There are different worlds these two after all, almost like the
virtual and the real...

Mats Norrman
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