Klarinet Archive - Posting 000175.txt from 1995/06

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Neil Leupold asks difficult questions
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 08:40:45 -0400

Neil asked why I took the position, "If the composer asks something of me,
that is the way I do it."? I am afraid that my answer is going to cause
more grief than it solves, but here it is in any case.

Recognizing that this is a red flag, let me state that it is my belief that
playing the clarinet in the traditional fashion of reading a composer's
fixed music whose form, structure, harmony, and rhythm has been established
by that composer is not a creative act. Yes. That is what I said. Performing
music is not creative.

No matter how beautifully we do it, no matter how elegant our playing, no
matter how musical and sensitive, the creativity was accomplished elsewhere.
Our role as players is reproductive, and we are paid based on our skill to
reproduce in an elegant manner.

I don't suggest that there is something wrong here, only that this environ-
ment of creator on one hand and performer/reproducer on the other has
become erased over the last two centuries. And it is erased to the point
where, when we play well (and I hope that that is all the time) we confuse
our excellent mechanical work with a creative act. We, like surgeons who
deliver a child, should not think of our work as the real miracle, though
there are times that we, like they, have to pull off some heavy-duty
brilliance.

It does not matter if you agree or disagree, or if I am right or wrong. It
is what I believe to be the case so arguing that my perspective is
not right won't get us anywhere. Just presume for a moment that that is
my perspective, even though it is unconventional.

In that case, I presume that the creator of the music is directing me - and
I am little more than hired help - to do many things. Sometimes that
direction is not clear except to someone very well trained (as I like
to think I am) and sometimes, it is very, very and overlyspecific as,
for example, a Mahler symphony.

It is for this reason that I make every possible attempt to play the music
on the clarinet that has been explicitly requested by the composer. I
am not a creator. I am a reproducer and my musical advice as to which
clarinet SHOULD have been employed is not being asked. The composer may
have, in my opinion, made a mistake. He or she should have done something
else. But when noticing a beautiful woman married to an ugly man, I do
not suggest that she should have done something else. I keep my mouth shut
and try to realize what is my business and what is not.

So my perspective on the role of the musician in performance has influence
in many areas. One of them is on the selection of the instrument on which
to execute. Another is on the role of the performer when it was expected
that that person be a creator as well as a performer; i.e., when there
was no difference between the performer as creator, as in the case of
music from classic era. In this case, I depart from the role of performer
and try to be part of the creative process by improvising when playing. I
don't do this because I think it is nice, but because my study of the
classic era tells me that that would have been expected of me at the time.

I don't do this in Brahms because my study of that epoch tells me that
the performer's duties had changed by then.

Only in those arenas where the performer is expected to be a creator
(such as jazz, folk music such klemzer, the classic and baroque eras)
does my view of the performer as other than hired help change.

So, while one can say that this view is crazy, it is the driving force
behind my behavior in using the specific instrument specified by the
composer.

Sorry that it is not a better reason, but it is all I have.

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