Klarinet Archive - Posting 000801.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Interpreting versus playing
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 17:33:09 -0500

On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 11:31:08 -0800 (PST), Bilwright@-----.net said:

> Tony Pay wrote:

> > If you do 'just what you want' as a student, after a bit, your
> > teacher will throw you out for not being serious, regardless of your
> > arguments that you are providing a 'sincere and genuine response' to
> > the written music. Why exactly is this?
>
> .... I wouldn't want a teacher who told me, "My interpretation is the
> only acceptable interpretation, and I know because I spoke with
> Stravinsky when he was still alive."

Yes, and I'd agree with you. Also, I think that such anecdotal stuff is
mostly not so useful.

> My instructor might know accurately what Stravinsky's preference was,
> and if I was trying to earn my living with music, I might need to play
> it Stravinsky's way in order to survive.

No, I think you'd be unassailable, in that sense, if you could say that
did what Stravinsky actually wrote.

> But when I'm playing for my own pleasure, then it's *my* mind and *my*
> feelings and *my* response! Not Mr. Stravinsky's.

Well, in a sense it's his, if you play what he wrote. It's what he felt
happy about having left us. But there are many ways to play accurately
what's written.

What David Niethamer said addresses that well. He wrote:

> For me this problem is a serious one, both as a performer and a
> concert-goer. As a concert attendee, I often find myself distracted
> from the music by the "performance" or "interpretation" of various
> performers. As a player, I try to provide "a faithful transmission of
> its message" for any music that I play. But that doesn't mean that I
> bring nothing of myself to the music. Everyone has a backlog of
> experience with music in general, and composers and musical styles in
> particular, that informs their performances, usually to a great degree
> on a subconscious level. Those experiences are different for every
> player, so the "faithful transmission" can be at once faithful and
> different from other players.

We can't avoid bringing ourselves to the music, in bringing it to life,
because we all have our own ideas about how it lives. We don't have our
own ideas of how it is on the page, though, because that's fixed.

> I have absolutely no problem with the fact that you want to play (for
> example) Mozart in an historically accurate way.

What's historically accurate is much in doubt. I wouldn't myself say
that I played the Mozart historically accurately.

> Again, I'm not saying that the composer's way (when known) is
> necessarily wrong for me. But I violently object to the thought that
> always creeps into this topic -- namely, that the performer should
> place the composer's intent above all else.

We don't know the composer's intent, really. Often, when you ask them,
they don't know themselves. We can only try to ask, how the music as
it's written can come alive. In a last resort, we might want to change
even things that are on the page. But many performers *start* by
changing what's on the page. Thus they are at the mercy of their
manipulative selves, and rarely do anything deep.

> I truly believe that an audience does not want to hear a canned
> version of any piece of music. They want to hear the artist's
> response to it,

..that's one thing

> they want it to 'live',

...that's another. You can do the second thing (make the piece itself
live) without doing the first thing (give your 'response' to the piece,
ie, do something different from the piece itself).

> and they value their own response as well.
>
> Cheers and praise to the composer for writing music that gives us
> pleasure, regardless of whether we play it or we listen to someone
> else play it.

Yes.

> But you simply cannot eliminate the feelings and emotings of the
> performer from the equation.

That's it exactly, but not in the way you meant it. You couldn't
eliminate them even if you tried, is how it's actually true.

And the feelings and emotings are only a part of what the performer does
in transmitting the living thing. Structure, texture, space, yielding
to others are all involved.

> Would you really want to perform if other people performed exactly the
> same way?

But they never could.

It's really a question of where your attention is when you perform. If
your attention is on *you*, and *your* ideas, then you may screw up. If
your attention is on what you're saying, then you can't get away from
yourself, but you're transparent.

When David wrote above,

> As a concert attendee, I often find myself distracted from the music
> by the "performance" or "interpretation" of various performers.

...he meant, I know, that these performers were obviously concerned with
themselves. Perhaps they were communicating, for example, 'how easy it
all is for me', which is something I absolutely hate in a performer.

"Listen to how quiet I can play!"

<spit>

Performers can sometimes do truly startling things, and still stay
within the notion of 'faithful transmission', if what they do springs
from the living performance rather than their own manipulation of the
situation.

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

... Two most common elements in the universe: Hydrogen & Stupidity.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org