Klarinet Archive - Posting 000928.txt from 1998/07

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Re: [kl] 2nd Movement of Weber's Concerto No. 1
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 06:57:25 -0400

Roger Shilcock wrote, reacting to Craig Countryman's analysis of the Weber
concerto:

>Craig:
>Your countryside story seems to fit the music, bu it says lots about your
>response to it and hardly anything about what the music is like.
>Stravinsky is supposed to have that music was powerless to express
>anything at all; this is not quite to the point, but perhaps it's worth
>bearing in mind.

One of the great mysteries about music, I think, is that while it is
arguably the most abstract of the arts, it evokes emotional responses in
listeners. I once saw Wynton Marsalis being interviewed by a woman who
clearly had little or no training in music. She said she couldn't
understand how Marsalis, or any good musician, managed to switch from being
happy to being sad, or troubled or whatever, in order to play music that
made people feel happy, sad or troubled. Marsalis treated her gently. He
said he didn't have those feelings. He just played the music as well as he
could, and that was what musicians did. The English poet W.H. Auden said
something very similar: "Art, being bartender, is never drunk."

Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.net>

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