| Brought to you this hour by |  | Advertising and Web Hosting on Woodwind.Org! |
Doublereed Archive - Posting 000076.txt from 2003/11
From: Matthew Peaceman <mpeaceman@-----.de>
Subj: [DR-L] Bassons aut of use...
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 17:29:09 -0500
>The simple answer to Roger's question is, "Baroque Bassoons lack the
keys you are looking for, but are no longer in use."<
Just for the record: I have at least 26 names of people in my telephone
book who play those bassoons that 'are no longer in use' every day on a
professional basis. There are hundreds more out there whose names and
numbers I don't happen to have.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to know where we've come from. Wouldn't it be
wonderful to know that what we do today is the culmination of all that
has gone before including all steps forward, sideways and back?
The discussion about composition is equally troublesome. The movement in
the 50s, 60s and 70s of the last century to ban all use of notational
convention ran out of steam quickly but it left its mark. It opened our
eyes to new possibilities. Most of the 20 th C. was dedicated to
deconstructing the establishment. In some areas this proved to be bloody
and evil, in most areas, luckily, only inconsequential and trivial. In
musical areas we have experienced revolutions, some of which changed the
face of the musical world forever and some of which died silent and
irrelevant deaths....and as usual, some which won't be recognized as
important until a future eye and ear can put it into perspective.
The idea of composing something entirely new is easily had but not
easily executed... especially if the composer doesn't have any idea who
has done what already and when. For someone like Bear, Telemann may seem
inconsequential. Anyone who knows much of Telemann's compositions in
context to that which was going on around him back then knows, that
Telemann was most certainly one of the very best of his day. His genious
lay not in the grandiose but in his ability to manipulate the subtle
nuance; his capability of writing in the various styles, both nationally
influenced (French, Italian and German styles) as well as temporally (a
lifetime spanning over 8 decades during the birth of the Age of
Enlightenment). Filtering it today through a historically uninformed
context of Bach is much the same as someone making a judgement between
the Stones and the Beatles 200 years from now without knowing what we do
about them today(musically, socially and politically). It makes the
judgement irrelevant.
Assuming that a development of the past 20 or 30 years will have
everlasting relevance is little more than naive. If the lessons of the
70s said throw out ALL the rules, ANYTHING can be music. Fine. Certainly
there has been music written in this context that has attained a wide
amount of acceptance. If people are now saying tonality is more
important, in fact one should try to write like they did back 250 years
ago, fine. Time will tell. Both points of departure are interesting...
at least to ruminate about. One side trying to claim higher levels of
legitimacy over the other is nothing less that laughable...and quite
lacking in humility. But this is of course only an abstract discourse.
None of us here, myself included, could ever be accused of lacking
humility ;-)
I'm rambling so I'll return to the question about bassoons. It is
natural for a modern bassonist who is historically uninformed to be
amazed to find a bassoon without an octave key on exhibition somewhere.
But his or her amazement is more an expression of his or her level of
knowledge rather than a relevant statement about bassoons. Making
*qualified* statements about these instruments being "obsolete and out
of use" requires a certain small amount of information. There IS a
difference between what one knows and what one THINKS one knows.
Historical perspective is a question of depth and enrichment in terms of
what we do and with what we do it. If one doesn't want to bother with
historical perspective, then perhaps it might simply be better to
refrain from making unqualified statements in these fields of play.
Good night all.
Matthew
--
Email: mpeaceman@-----.com
Web: http://www.mpeaceman.com
