Klarinet Archive - Posting 001215.txt from 1998/07

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Clarinet Column
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 22:43:02 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Maestro645@-----.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 1998 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinet Column

>...Sad.
>And the only way I spark interest to them in classical playing is if I
spruce
>it up with contemporary stylings (on piano). I'll do glissandos and
whatever
>to get them to listen to me. I really hate to stoop to that level. I can
>imagine that some composers would be rolling in their graves...
>Chris Hoffman
>

I don't want to minimize the financial/marketing trouble symphony orchestras
and chamber groups seem to be in these days. But I can't help thinking with
reference to Chris's post that this is by no means the first time in the
history of Western civilization and its music that performers in one era
have felt the need (or even the urge) to apply contemporary filters to
earlier music (i.e. make "modern" arrangements). In fact, without having
thought too deeply about it, it seems to me that ours may be one of the few
periods during which there was any widespread concern at all about
maintaining fidelity to original performance or compositional practices. Did
Mendelssohn worry about how Bach's choir sounded? Was stylistic purity a
serious concern of Mozart when he arranged Messiah? Most of us know what was
done to the orchestra music of the 18th and 19th century composers during
the first half of this century by leading conductors and other performers.
Haven't performers and even composers themselves been "sprucing up" the
music they present for as far back into the past as we can see? Is it
inaccurate to say that Chris's hating to "stoop" to the level of
"contemporary stylings" is itself a phenomenon of our era perhaps as the
result of vastly improved research techniques and resources that are
themselves products of our technological developments. I'm not at all a
historian, but I suspect that old music has been a hard sell forever into
antiquity, and if there is a difference now, it has to do with the means by
which music performance is now disseminated. How far off base am I?

Karl Krelove

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