Old Fogey’s Favourites

Following on from my previous, I was intending to post something from the Well Tempered Clavier played by Wilhelm Kempff on the piano. Alas my vinyl recording is worn and hasn’t transfered to digital well. So here, as a more than adequate substitute is Alfred Brendel playing the lovely Andante from the Italian Concerto. Imagine, as you listen, this being played tinnily, plinkety-plink, on the harpsichord and acknowledge how much better and fuller, to our ears, it is, played so well, on the modern piano.   

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I’m pretty much set against authenticity in music - the idea that the only way to play a piece of music is by replicating the conditions under which it was originally played. So we get whinnying valveless trumpets, catgut wailing violins and any keyboard piece before 1780 played on that instrument guaranteed (like a nail across a blackboard) to set my teeth on edge - the harpsichord. The best version of the Well Tempered Clavier is by Wilhelm Kempff, played on the piano.

By the same token the best versions of songs aren’t always by the originals. I think this is particularly so with Lennon and McCartney songs. In many cases the Beatles did them worst - naive top-of-the-voice vocalising, clanging guitars, primitive bass and Ringo’s thumping-headache drums.

Here’s an example of one done better - Maura O’Connell singing I Will. Heaps better than McCartney.

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