Klarinet Archive - Posting 000162.txt from 2001/04

From: alevin@-----. Levin)
Subj: Re: [kl] Evidence to support a performance practice
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 12:52:20 -0400

>From time to time it has occured to me that our generation is just as
guilty of this as prior generations. There have been disagreements among
scholars and performers about many performance practices - from the
accompaniment of medieval secular music to baroque and early classical
ornamentation, vibrato to improvisation and proper rhythmic notation.
We've only begun to scratch the surface of properly notating jazz and
contemporary popular music so that even the next generation can perform it.
To the extent that contemporary art music incorporates current
conventions, our music is going to suffer from the same confusion in the
minds of future generations.

I don't think we can count on contemporary recordings to help forever. All
forms of recordings deteriorate with time. Even digitized performances may
not reproduce on future equipment if it is not constructed to accept
precisely the same standards as now prevail.

Don't misunderstand. We don't have to do anything. But contemporary
performance practices will suffer the same fate as past practices if we don't.

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