Klarinet Archive - Posting 000073.txt from 2001/01

From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Technique and Musicality
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:13:41 -0500

Doug Sears wrote:

> As I was catching up on reading both Klarinet and magazines, the paragraph
> excerpted below jumped out at me. In the Oct. 9 New Yorker, Alex Ross, the
> magazine's music critic, wrote, ...........

Certainly, I don't blame you, because you were only quoting what someone
else had said. However, there are several contentions in this statement
which are not supportable, and represent obviously flawed logic.

> "The American orchestra errs on the side of caution. The house style is:
No mistakes. ...

Which American orchestra? This is certainly characteristic of some
orchestras, and the current system of auditions for orchestra positions has
contributed to the phenomenon, but it is not uniformly true of all American
orchestras.

> String players ... tend to strive for absolute uniformity of rhythm and
correctness of
> pitch. The result is a sound that is technically brilliant but emotionally
distant.

Are we to conclude that in order to enhance the emotional qualities of music
we must strive for inaccuracy in rhythm and intonation? That was an
argument that was advanced in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when
orchestras first began to be conducted. There were some who felt that
having a conductor would rob the music of some of its spontaneity, and that
somehow technically chaotic conditions were preferable. While I'm no
champion of conductors or conducting, I think that viewpoint has pretty much
been refuted by the experience of the past two centuries.

> American orchestral musicians are famous for sneering at conductors who
talk about
> meaning and expression rather than the B-flat three bars before C.

There is a grain of truth here, although the critic obviously understands
neither the reasons for it nor the results if the converse were true.
Musicians want only one thing from a conductor, and that is for the
conductor to make it possible for them to play as well as they are able.
Most accomplished orchestral musicians don't need any lectures from
conductors about the "meaning and expression" of the music. Too many
conductors have adequately demonstrated that they know little about the
meaning of music, and less about its technical aspects. A conductor could
talk about the music until both he/she and all the players were blue in the
face, and none of that theorizing and philosophizing would be discernable in
the performance. On the other hand, the players do want and need to hear
from the conductor about those technical aspects of the music that make a
successful performance possible.

In part, this approach toward performance, in which technical perfection is
the seeming goal, is a result of modern editing techniques in the recording
studio. Generally, no recording will be released today if it contains the
slightest imperfection. A wrong note can be edited out, re-recorded,
overdubbed, or otherwise "repaired." Therefore, audiences are used to
hearing technically perfect renditions of works. As human beings don't work
that way, some technical imperfections will be present in all live
performances, although some of them will be so miniscule as to be
unnoticable by most audience members. However, our best hope is that people
will come to realize and appreciate the qualities of live performance, even
with its potential for technical mishaps. Music is after all a means of
communication between human beings. The fact that humans are not machines
should enhance that communication rather than detracting from it.

> Then they wonder why their audience is made up of sleepy dentists."

Wow. That's quite a jump in logic from what he was saying previously. In
this short sentence, the critic has managed to insult orchestras, musicians,
and their audiences (especially dentists, I suppose). We would have to look
much deeper than the trend to strive for technical perfection in order to
analyze the reasons for the size (or lack of it) of the listening audience.
That's another essay, for another time.

The original message reminded me why I tend to like and respect critics even
less than conductors. This critic in particular has a distorted,
romanticized view of the orchestral world. That's a pity in a magazine that
is in many ways highly respected.

Ed Lacy
EL2@-----.edu

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