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In 2012, I purchased several 78s purportedly culled from R Crumb's collection including a Viva-Tonal Columbia featuring Carlos Sedano, a Spanish violinist. This is VIVACE. Seems it is way too fast. Comments?

Cliff

The violin sounds very natural to me. The name of the piece is Vivace which means very fast. I think it sounds correct. My 2 cents...

melvind wrote:The violin sounds very natural to me. The name of the piece is Vivace which means very fast. I think it sounds correct. My 2 cents...

Yes I agree with Dan. It sounds right to me.
It is Vivace, not Molto Prestissimo lol

Steven

I cannot imagine that anyone would play Haydn at this speed today. However, this is not Haydn as written but Haydn transcribed in the late nineteenth century by Leopold Auer; arguably it would be just as inauthentic to play this version at a genuine eighteenth-century pace as it would be to play the original at the speed adopted by Sedano.

Yehudi Menuhin's first record (1928), an Allegro by Joseph-Hector Fiocco (1703–41), is another, if less extreme, example of the helter-skelter approach to early classical or (in this instance) baroque tempi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QosO7n7VQU4).

Oliver Mundy.

Menophanes wrote:I cannot imagine that anyone would play Haydn at this speed today. However, this is not Haydn as written but Haydn transcribed in the late nineteenth century by Leopold Auer; arguably it would be just as inauthentic to play this version at a genuine eighteenth-century pace as it would be to play the original at the speed adopted by Sedano.

Yehudi Menuhin's first record (1928), an Allegro by Joseph-Hector Fiocco (1703–41), is another, if less extreme, example of the helter-skelter approach to early classical or (in this instance) baroque tempi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QosO7n7VQU4).

Oliver Mundy.

Musicians from the Romantic period, or trained in the Romantic style, played and sang early music in a very personal and often free manner which is considered unacceptable today. Almost any recording up through the 1920's (and often beyond) of that period of music is going to raise our modern critical eyebrows. Just listen to the rather funereal and lugubrious approach in Pol Plancon's Mozart and in Caruso's recordings of Handel and Lully arias! (Although, there are a lot of things I really enjoy in Caruso's singing of the "Largo".) However, there is still so much to enjoy in these old recordings if we try to listen without imposing modern standards on what, after all, are historical artifacts.

"Vivace" derives from Latin vivere, to live, and in a musical context means "lively." (Compare "vivacious," vivid," also "revive," to live again.) Strictly speaking, vivace is not a tempo indication but rather a stylistic one; in any event, it doesn't mean "fast," though pieces marked "vivace" are usually played fast.

OTOH, the piece in question is by "Hydn-Auer," as opposed to "Haydn-Auer," so anything goes!

Henry wrote:"Vivace" derives from Latin vivere, to live, and in a musical context means "lively." (Compare "vivacious," vivid," also "revive," to live again.) Strictly speaking, vivace is not a tempo indication but rather a stylistic one; in any event, it doesn't mean "fast," though pieces marked "vivace" are usually played fast.

OTOH, the piece in question is by "Hydn-Auer," as opposed to "Haydn-Auer," so anything goes!

Oxford Dictionary description for the word vivace in the context of music:
vivace
[music] : (especially as a direction) in a lively and brisk manner. | a passage or movement marked to be performed in a lively and brisk manner.

In other words, fast...

Here is a photo of a portion of the sleeve that this disc came in, maybe in R Crumb's hand writing, that says "E / Crazy fast / violin / + / piano"

Cliff

melvind wrote:

Henry wrote:"Vivace" derives from Latin vivere, to live, and in a musical context means "lively." (Compare "vivacious," vivid," also "revive," to live again.) Strictly speaking, vivace is not a tempo indication but rather a stylistic one; in any event, it doesn't mean "fast," though pieces marked "vivace" are usually played fast.

OTOH, the piece in question is by "Hydn-Auer," as opposed to "Haydn-Auer," so anything goes!

Oxford Dictionary description for the word vivace in the context of music:
vivace
[music] : (especially as a direction) in a lively and brisk manner. | a passage or movement marked to be performed in a lively and brisk manner.

In other words, fast...

Here's the definition offered in the Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, p. 811:

Vivace (It.). Vivacious, flourishing, full of life; in music up to c1750-1800 it often indicates only a moderate tempo.

This is a piece for a violin virtuoso, rather than a musician... too much technique, not enough music.

Bill