Klarinet Archive - Posting 000514.txt from 1997/08
From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: W. G. Grabner's comments on Stolzmann's recital
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:21:18 -0400
> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.71
> Subj: RE: W. G. Grabner's comments on Stolzmann's recital
> Dan --
>
> Welcome back from Europe!
Thank you for your welcome back.
I have read your note.
I'm taking the first plane back tomorrow morning.
Thank you for motivating me to leave town.
>
> 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]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 1997 9:09 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.us
> 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
> =======================================
>
>
>
>
=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================
