Klarinet Archive - Posting 000512.txt from 1997/08
From: Gary Young <gyoung@-----.com>
Subj: RE: W. G. Grabner's comments on Stolzmann's recital
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:21:16 -0400
Dan --
Welcome back from Europe!
Once again, it seems to me that your relegation of common terms of
appraisal to mere "subjective opinion" undercuts what you yourself say [see
your posting below]. Given your views about meaning, how can it be "useful
information" or information of ANY kind that someone believes Stoltzman's
vibrato was "very satisfactory"? How could you possibly be interested in
such a meaningless question? Doesn't "very satisfactory" reek of
incommunicable subjectivity?
Or are you just asking whether the vibrato was used with historical
accuracy? If that's all you think we CAN ask about the use of vibrato,
aren't you in effect saying that ALL there is to musical performance is the
replication of (or failure to replicate) known historical performance
practices appropriate to the period and composer of the music performed?
(And then how does the first performer of a piece figure out what to play?
Also, how do we define appropriate performance practice without using
terms like "dark," "bright," etc.? E.g., how do you describe the
difference in sound between "period" instruments and late 20th century
instruments, if not in such terms?)
Or perhaps you are saying that there IS something more to performance of
music than replication of historical performance practices, but that
"something more" cannot be expressed in intersubjectively meaningful terms
-- that "something more" is ineffable and mystical! (From either
approach, it follows that we cannot say anything meaningful about aspects
of performance which are unrelated to any known historical performance
practice -- a big gap.)
If I've got your views wrong, then you should be able to say what could
possibly make a performance better or worse, beyond adherence to
appropriate performance practice. Can you say anything about this in terms
that don't have the same defect you find in "dark," bright," etc.?
My apologies for reading so much into your short posting (but of course
I've read, with enjoyment and profit, many others things you've written,
though you might well think I didn't understand any of it if I can ask the
stupid questions above). I know I've put a very difficult question to you
-- one that
WARNING -- ROAD UNDER CONSTRUCTION; DRIVE CAREFULLY AND WATCH FOR SLOW
MOVING VEHICLES
Kant first posed and tried to answer in his Critique of Judgment. I like
Kant's approach -- if this isn't getting way too weird for this listserv.
As I understand him, he begins by assuming that we can and do make
aesthetic judgments, or judgments which not capable of scientific proof but
which are asserted as more than mere matters of subjective taste, asserted
as having an objective claim on the belief of others. Then Kant asks how
it is possible that we can make such judgments, and on what their claim to
objectivity rests. (I once took an amazing course from Hannah Arendt in
which she used this approach, and Kant's text, to discuss political judg
ments.) Kant does not let the difficulty in explaining HOW we do this
undermine his belief that in fact we DO do it. Is it possible that your
difficulty (a difficulty we all share, once we ask the question) in
explaining HOW we make aesthetic judgments has led you to scepticisim about
the fact that we DO make them, and make them intelligibly, at least often,
though not always?
Yech! Is anyone still with me? I console myself with the thought that
this is no weirder than putting clarinets in the freezer. And yes,
ingesting milk does increase mucus production, as Kant proved in the
Critique of Milk Products. So don't soak your reeds in milk.
Gary Young
Madison, Wisconsin
----------
From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu]
Subject: W. G. Grabner's comments on Stolzmann's recital
Personally, I question the value of one person's subjective opinion
on the playing of another individual, though this one was a fine
and intelligent piece of writing. I enjoyed reading it. I don't
know what these things do except to tell everyone how the writer
feels about something, but I think that there is probably some value
in that as well. The bottom line, is that a person saying that
Stolzmann played well or badly, is not useful information, at least
not generally.
I am curious about one sentence at the end, one that suggested that
Stolzmann's vibrato was very satisfactory under the circumstances
of the Berstein sonata. I doubt if the writer meant much more than
what he said, but it does open the possibility that Stolzmann's
vibrato would not receive such a positive reaction had he been
performing, for example, the Mozart quintet, K. 581. Do I read
that right or am I stirring a pot that doesn't need stirring?
=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================
