Klarinet Archive - Posting 000185.txt from 1994/11

From: Lorne G Buick - Music TA <lgbuick@-----.CA>
Subj: Re: Prokovieff Overture
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 19:39:00 -0500

>
> > On Tue, 8 Nov 1994, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
> >
> > > I was just asked to play the Prokovieff "Overture on Hebrew Themes." I
> > > know the work well having first played it in the late 1940s after having
> > > studied it with Dave Weber in NY.
> > >
> > > I always played it like the Brahms quintet; i.e., serious music,
dignified,
> > > dull.
> >
> > Hello? Ummm.... would you care to rephrase that?
>
> Certainly. Whenever I played the work as Mr. Straight-arrow, it was dignified
> and dull. The piece requires a lift and I was beginning to think that
> introducing some elements of Klezmer playing might do that for this work.
>
> But let me go further. I am of the opinion that the Mozart quintet is dull
> when played in too dignified a fashion. It is wonderfully fun music and when
> approached as if it is some kind of an icon, it becomes as dull as dishwater.
>

Thank goodness... for one brief moment I thought you meant either that the
Brahms quintet was dignified and dull, or that serious music in general
was dull. I've never done the Prokofiev so I can't comment specifically,
but I certainly agree in general that performers often present things too
seriously and end up convincing our audiences that classical music is all
very serious and stuffy.

The group with which I've made my living for the last nine years, the
Vancouver Wind Trio has always worked hard to counter this tendency- while
we take music very seriously, we create a very light-hearted atmosphere in
our concerts. (I realize this is straying a bit from the topic of humour
_in_ the music- we certainly take advantage of that too). After all, much
of our chamber music was written for performance among friends, certainly
in much more intimate settings than where we generally hear it these days.