Klarinet Archive - Posting 000155.txt from 1997/07

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Re Jerry Korten's note on improvisation
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 21:32:15 -0400

Jerry, you must forgive me for being unable to address your
very well thought out comments, but I leave for Europe on Monday
morning and my house is a mess of passports, multiple currencies,
half-packed luggage, traveller's checks, international driver's
licences, a multiple-week supply of medications, and lots of
pepto bismal. Plus, Bob Levin and I are finishing up the details
of a paper that has to be submitted to Eighteenth Century Music
or else the Mozart Jahrbuch, we haven't decided.

I don't know if you were aware when you were writing about Bob
that he and I are old friends, have authored several papers in
the past, were roomates at the 1991 Salzburg Bicentennial
Congress, and have a lot of ideas in common about improvisation
and its place in the scheme of things. And he and I argue
with much greater violence than you and I.

I think the guy's a genius and the finest Mozart scholar of this
century, maybe ever. But that's not here or there. When he
disagrees with me, he must be wrong, and he takes the same
stance. I would expect nothing less. After all, these questions
are a matter of life and death.

I can't dwell on your comments except to say three things:

1) if I did not understand you the first time around
and made statements that did not properly reflect
your real intentions, I apologize. It has been a while
since I wrote the note and I have sort of lost track of
what you said to cause what it was I said. It was not
my intent to hold your comments up to ridicule. I don't
do that sort of thing (you didn't say that I did, but I
wanted to clear the air in case you were thinking that).

2) if I understand what you said in your note, you
suggest that it is difficult, perhaps not even possible,
for the contemporary musician to place himself into
an environment which s/he did not personally participate
in. If that was what you said, I would rather buy
swamp land in Florida than accept the idea that I can't
be successful in achieving that goal, or at least trying
it with the hopes that I might be successful. I may
tumble down the mountain, but I'm still going to try
and climb it.

3) you are not a bad person if I disagree with you, nor
am I a bad person if you disagree with me. It is a
mark of your intelligence that you are willing to take
me or anyone else on when it concerns a matter about
which you have strong beliefs. I still do not accept
what you say (if I understand it), but don't feel
insecure about voicing it. I kind of got that
impression, but maybe I was wrong.

Now, with all of that said, we are still friends, I think you are
full of ca-ca on this point of view, you think that I am a radical
revolutionary trying to blow up 200 years of a sacred trust, etc.,
etc., etc. That's OK. It is what makes the music world so very
interesting.

And should I see you on a street someday, I'll say hello, shake
your hand, and then have my dog attack you for arguing against
my point of view.

I log off KLARINET Monday morning, so any spears in my direction
must be flanged before 10 am, Pacific Daylight Savings Time,
July 7.

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