Klarinet Archive - Posting 000676.txt from 1999/09

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] copland concerto interpretation
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 18:25:41 -0400

On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:33:36 EDT, Androyd973@-----.com said:

> I am just wondering what you people would say, if you were the judge.

The judge of the competition, you mean?

I don't like to, and therefore mostly don't, judge competitions. But
what I would *say* (as opposed to what my judgement in the competition
would be) would depend on so many other things than just the *fact* that
you 'swung' it, that I can't answer just that bit.

Things like, how you got the pianist to play it. Like *how* you 'swung'
it, and how you played the bit that's explicitly written 'swung' after
it, as well as how you changed sound from the fortissimo marcato bit
before it. Like your take on "with humor, relaxed" (what's actually
written). And, over and above all of that, how you made it fit
naturally into (which doesn't necessarily mean, so that it was *the same
as*) the rest of the piece.

And it's a lie to put it this way, even, because all these 'things' add
up to just *one* thing.

It's almost why we're performing musicians (those of us that are): being
a performer allows you to *avoid answering* isolated questions like
yours. Or, to put it another way, to unask them, to smile at them, yet
answer them in a different world.

The phrase "seems to add some life to it" makes me shudder rather, by
the way, and it's a clue to what I'm getting at. I'm not necessarily
saying you actually *do* this, as opposed to just having unfortunately
used the words, but a lot of people try to 'add life' to music, and I
for one am fed up with listening to them doing it, or trying to do it.

Why? Because the music has to be alive to begin with, of course. Our
job is to find and show how it is alive. And a motionless, watchful
gazelle is no less alive than a raging bull.

Try 'adding life' to something in the real world sometime. Start with a
dead cat.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

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