Klarinet Archive - Posting 000410.txt from 1997/01

From: Roger Shilcock
Subj: infallibility and intentions (fwd)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 03:53:52 -0500

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 20:08:48 -0500
From: Nichelle A. Crocker <crockena%MAPLE.LEMOYNE.EDU@-----.UK>
Subject: infallibility and intentions

Everybody keeps talking about what a composer wanted and intended. Why not
spend a little time thinking about what the composer wrote?

Some people seem to be suggesting that the measure of a clarinet part's
greatness is how easy it is to play. Are there no other considerations?

Brahms sat down and "thought up", through whatever process, his Third
Symphony. Whether or not the finished product resembled or even did justice
to his original ideas and conceptions, we do not know. Some pieces are
better than others, as well as some parts of those pieces and so on. I fail
to see how this affects the performance of the piece. For better or for
worse, what he actually did write is what we've got.

Nichelle Crocker
crockena@-----.edu

Yes, but ..... We do have a wildly heterogeneous amount of collateral
information. This is how the "authentic music" movement (if there is such
a thing) manages to exist. It's a pity there seems to rather more of such
stuff extant relating to 18th century music than to, say, Weber.
Roger Shilcock