Klarinet Archive - Posting 000030.txt from 1993/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: David Shea's comments on performance
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 14:34:32 -0500

David, thank you for joining the discussion. Your comment are
always thoughtful and helpful to any discussion.

I want to point out that several of your comments open the
kimono on how you really feel about this issue: You say "... a
performer who embellishes a lot and tries to be different is obviously
interest in calling attention to his or her ability to play the
instrument ..."

So when I read your comments, I find myself thinking "Why he perceives
this entire musical philosophy as something akin to playing the
Carnival of Venice variations on a cornet" where the purpose of
the ornamentation is to show the virtuosity of the soloist.

Once again, your prejudice is created by a misunderstanding of
what improvisation should consist of and what role it serves in
a performance of a Mozart work.

Put out of your mind a Sunday band concert in which a trumpet trio
play 50,000,000 notes in 1/2 millisecond. That is a different
era, a different epoch, a different style, a different musical
philosophy, and a completely different objective.

I think both you and Diana have formulated opinions based on
a misunderstanding of what a soloist was expected to do in a
very narrow era of history, and then you chose examples that you
don't personally care for and presume that that is what we are
speaking of here.

I have said nothing about styles of improvisation, quantity or
density of notes in improvisations, or its use as a vehicle to
show the performer's skill. That prejudice has come from within
you (and Diana, who says that she could not agree more with what
you say).

We are not going to get anywhere if we both bring our prejudicial
preconceptions to this discussion. I have been trying to leave
mine at the door so that I could understand your points, but I sense
that you may not be doing the same.

I know that both you and Diana have strong opinions. Why not?
You are both intelligent people and I would admire you less if
you did not have strong opinions. Are you able to, temporarily
at least, put aside your preconceptions and view this matter
from a fresh, new, and unbiased perspective?

Perhaps you will come out the other end of such a discussion
unmoved, unconvinced, and unwilling to further abandon your
views on this matter. So be it. But such a journey should
not be undertaken with the up-front assumption that the trip
is not worth while.

Let me ask a question: in the Mozart concerto, there are three
places in the work (2 in the 1st movement and 1 in the second)
where there is a fermata. There is also one in the last
movement, but leave that one out for the moment. Their
exact positions are: m. 127 and m. 315 in the 1st movement, and
m. 59 in the slow movement. My question is this: what should
you do at these three points? Whatdid Mozart or any 18th
century composer expect you to do at these 3 points? Such
analogous points are also to be found in the quintet, K. 581
and the same questions apply to them also.

One final point: your first sentence says that "the question
of authenticity has a lot to do with the type of clarinet
player ..." I could not agree less. Authenticity is
independent of the player but exists by itself. If I have
to depend on Larry Combs' nature to define authenticity, then
I am in deep trouble, not because Larry is a poor player (God
should have given me his talent!!) but because this issue has
nothing to do with him. And for your information, Larry
improviswhenever he does K. 626.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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