Klarinet Archive - Posting 000154.txt from 1994/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Performance practice
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 10:16:58 -0500

OK. I have waited long enough for everyone who is interested to
get their opinions posted, so now I want to reply to the interesting
comments of Karen Noel-Bentley and Charles Hillen on the subject
of performance of Mozart's music. Don't bug out on me, guys.

I sense two separate issues in Karen's note and it seems to me that
they also represented Charles' view. They were this:

1) how do we know how the music of Mozart's era was
performed during the time of its composition?

2) as 20th century performers growing up with 20th
century sounds, sights, and ideas, feelings about how
to play a work are of far
greater importance that knowledge of how a work might
have been played at the time of its composition.

Well, the first point is a matter of history, while the second is
a matter of musical opinion. Insofar as knowing what was done
in Mozart's era (knowing so that we can emulate it if it seems
desirable), I should mention that there is an entire industry
devoted to little else but understanding how music was played
during this epoch or that. It is true, that no one knows everything,
and in some epochs, no one knows anything. But Mozart's era
is well-documented and needs a great deal more work before we
understand everything, if we ever will.

That's not surprising. Last night I played a Sousa concert and
half of the difficulty in the performance was a lack of understanding
about how his marches were played. And Sousa is a contemporary
musical figure, so it is a lot harder with Mozart whose music is
now in its 3rd century.

But to say we don't know what they did in 1760 - 1800 simply
bespeaks a lack of knowledge of the thousands of articles,
books, lectures, etc. that have devoted themselves to this
subject. Let me mention just one: Neumann's book on
intepretation of Mozart's ornaments.

The guy spends 5 chapters explaining how grace notes were
performed. You might argue with his analysis, but you cannot
ignore it. And if you accept his analysis, you have to come
out of the hole saying that playing certain grace notes in
certain ways was done for sound musical reasons, and those
reasons have not changed in the last 2 centuries. And once
you make that conclusion, then Karen's second argument that
says that a 20th century person has to be true to their own
feelings is shown to be based on a misunderstanding.

And there are hundreds and hundreds of such books out right now
all trying to understand performance of music in the 18th
century. You can ignore it, but you cannot say "... how
can we possibly know how earlier works would have been performed
during the era of their composition?". We don't "know" but
we have a damn good idea for maybe 70% of it, and less than
damn good ideas for the remaining 30%.

Clarinet players may not spend much time reading this stuff
or studying it or even knowing that it exists, but that is not
because it is not there. And since I too am a clarinet
player, it should not be taken as an insult to the community
for me to suggest that we are ignorant about most issues of
performance because we don't think it is very important. Instead
we focus on beauty of playing, skill of execution, etc. These
things are considered more useful than historically consistent
interpretations of music. To which I have to respond that that is
the fastest road to hell. And our technically accurate but
historically absurd performances of Mozart's music confirms that.
I recognize that many will not agree that our performance of
Mozart's music is inadequate, but that is exactly what this topic
is attempting to address. Getting to that point will be half the fun!

That's it for now. I'll write a second note on Karen's
second argument about "being true to [one's own] feelings."
That is a much harder problem because it is not at all
clear to me that what I said in my original note suggested
that one should not be true to their own feelings.

I'm all for being true to one's own feelings. But when those
feeling suggest putting a hoopskirt on the Venus di Milo because
"that's the way I feel, and historical anacronisms be damned"
I get concerned that ignorance and arrogance are getting in the
way of our playing intelligently.

One final point: Charles, in his note, made a particularly
interesting comment. He said "part of our art and the
refinement thereof is trying to get closer to the spirit of
what the composer wrote [more than] trying to abide by the
letter of the law." I'm for that 100% Charles. What did I
say that made you think I thought otherwise?

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