Klarinet Archive - Posting 000181.txt from 1995/06

From: Tom Izzo <tji@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Neil Leupold asks difficult questions
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 15:24:11 -0400

On Sun, 11 Jun 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> 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)
> ====================================
>
Very well put, Dan.
>From a composer's viewpoint (and a Trombonist/brass player's viewpoint) I
agree 100%. Could not have said that better, myself.

Tom
tji@-----.edu

   
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