Klarinet Archive - Posting 000165.txt from 1997/07

From: "Jennifer Hall" <jenhall@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Re Jerry Korten's note on improvisation
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 15:57:22 -0400

O.K. guys...zip 'em [your pants] up...competition's over. Don't we have
better things to discuss than apologies (via the klarinet list)? This list
really isn't about who hurt who's feelings. If someone disagrees with
someone else...who really cares?
I've wasted enough time and effort on this already---let's talk klarinet.

----------
> From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
> To: klarinet@-----.us
> Subject: Re Jerry Korten's note on improvisation
> Date: Saturday, July 05, 1997 12:48 PM
>
> 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
> =======================================