Klarinet Archive - Posting 000543.txt from 2000/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Performance [was, Peplowski continued]
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 04:22:31 -0500

On Sat, 09 Dec 2000 23:56:31 +0000, I wrote:

> Classical performers bring the written scores of others to life.

and,

> the world of the modern performer has left unavailable certain
> important freedoms that can make the written music live better

and,

> That's because I want a point of beginning that is sufficiently rich,
> but not an interference with my own way of making it come alive. I
> won't change what the composer has written, but I'm capable of
> following that to the letter whilst making it alive in a way that is
> my own.

and,

> the possible freedom, with composers of the past, of making what they
> write live more effectively

and,

> in order to make the music of today 'work', and 'live', better.

I really wish that I had been careful not to use this form of words:
namely, 'making it come alive', and the related variants exemplified
above. Though I knew what I meant myself, I think that talking in this
way gives the false impression that performers need to 'do something' to
the music, such as 'putting feeling into it', or whatever, when they
play.

In fact, a couple of years ago I complained precisely about this way of
talking, satirising its implied attitude to performance by writing:

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

Good performers rather see the music *as* something alive, which is
different. What they 'do', then, allows it to continue to be alive --
if things go well.

Suggestively, "Don't let's do that; that completely kills it", is a
phrase commonly used by musicians in rehearsal.

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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