Klarinet Archive - Posting 000672.txt from 2000/10

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] And while we are at it ...
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:05:26 -0400

Bill comments on what I wrote by saying, "Phrases such as 'cannot
tolerate that thing if it is put in by a contemporary musician' and 'we
have no business playing that note' imply that something is ethically
wrong."

I am not responsible for Bill's interpretation of what I say so I can't
comment on his sense of ethical wrongness. But the fact is that that is
how he and I and all of us are measured when we play. Do we do things
in a stylistically viable manner? And when we don't (or when our
departure from that style becomes massively abusive), our performances
are not going to be tolerated for very long, and it will be said of us
that we have no business doing that thing.

We have a responsibility to play a work in a way that is consistent with
what the composer would have expected. (And, incidentally, that is why
we should improvise for music from the classic period; i.e., because the
composer would have expected us to do so, not because it is the
contemporary thing to do in order to be with the in crowd. And that is
why we do NOT improvise in the late romantic period because those
composers provide something in which we are expected not to improvise.)

But how does one know if one is within or without those guidelines? In
the absence of clear evidence, it's by precedent, I think. If Mozart
does a thing once, then there is precedent for us to do it. If he never
does a thing, that is a message being given to us over a 200 year
distance and we should be listening for it.

Music is not a free-for-all in which anyone does anything any way they
want to. We are constrained from the instant we take our first lesson.
The nature of that constraint differs from period to period, but every
period has some constraints.

So what's new here?
--
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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