Klarinet Archive - Posting 000445.txt from 1996/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Bill F. comments on Goodman and the classics
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 13:33:13 -0500

Bill suggests quite correctly that, in the 30s (and 40s and 50s and 60s, too)
players did not perform the traditional solo works as they are played today.
Well, I can't comment on how they performed Brahms or later, but Bill is
very much on the money when he speaks of Mozart performance by Goodman and
everyone else.

The subject of "performance practice" was not even a gleam in the eye of
very many people in the 1930s-1960s and the general view was that all one
needed to do in playing music of this era, was to play it as nicely as one
could; i.e., there was not even knowledge of, much less denial of, the fact
that Mozart and his contemporaries played music from that era with certain
elements of it dictated by custom of that era. And much of that, being
unknown today (or slowly being understood today) is not done, not out of
dismissal of those things, but out of ignorance of those things.

These include, but are not limited to, performance of trills, stacatti,
and ornaments, practices of improvisation during execution, execution
of dotted rhythms, interpretation of musical terms, and a whole bunch
of things.

So if you give the Mozart concerto to a player who knows nothing about
these things he or she will, of course, play the work very differently
from the way it is executed today to the extent that the player today
takes advantage of contemporary knowledge about classical music.

I heard Bellison as a young boy and, of course, I loved his playing.
Today, I listen toarecording of his K. 581 performance and am shocked
by how much he did not know about that period of music. It is not
that he was ignorant, but rather that that sort of information was
simply not avaialble to him during that era.

Today, there is a lot more known, but many clarinetists remain in
abysmal ignornance of what to do in this style of music. It is as
if I were invited to a dinner at court of King Arthur. I would not
know how to behave, and that, in a nutshell, is the way a lot of
contemporary players play Mozart; i.e., as if they were invited to
dinner at Camelot.

Goodman was not weak in that area alone. Everyone was weak in that
area so he alone cannot be blamed for producing performances that
are subject to contemporary criticism.

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