Klarinet Archive - Posting 000821.txt from 2001/09

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Bernstein Sonata/Audience & performer (was: Cage knocks)
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 07:39:17 -0400

Virginia,
Are you Leicester-born, like me, or Leicesterian by adoption?
The problem with putting a value on "4'33''" is surely that it is
essentially unique. It can't possibly be done again, because what one
might call its musical language is not transferrable to anything else without
an immediate implication of plagiarism. This is an extreme example of a basic
problem for any avant-garde aesthetics - isn't it?
Roger S.

In message <B7D775A4.B10%assembly1@-----.org writes:
> on 25/9/01 9:15 pm, alevin@-----. Levin) wrote:
>
> > As a student of Nadia Boulanger, I suggest that there is a lot of donkey
> > dung in the foregoing assumption.
>
> Charming.
>
> and on 25/9/01 9:15 pm, Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright) wrote:
>
> > Without meaning any offense, it seems to me that 4'33" is an
> > amusing gag. While it attracts attention, when viewed in the context
> > of 'musical performance' it is somehow dishonest, or perhaps insincere,
> > or perhaps invalid, or perhaps contemptuous of the audience.... I
> > haven't found the perfect description yet....
>
> This reminds me of the cosmetics counter saleswoman on the British comedy
> _The Fast Show_, who would come up to customers and say things like, "This
> product is more suited to women of your age, will hide all those horrid
> blemishes, detract from your enormous hips and make you look as if you're
> not desperate for a man and afraid of dying unloved. No offense!"
>
> More seriously, I will take part in adult, academic debates and discussions,
> not engage in slanging matches. I get villified from both sides for putting
> 4'33" on an equal musical level with the Bernstein Sonata and saying that I
> preferred the former. Rather, I was hoping that this thread would lead into
> the problems and solutions of interpreting the indeterminate elements of a
> lot of experimental and avant-garde music - ones specific to clarinet,
> especially. Allen, rephrase your point without the attack and I'll answer.
> And Bill's mention of audience noise leads directly to the question of
> interpreting accidental sounds in Cardew's Paragraph 6 of _The Great
> Learning_, which is a whole lot more interesting than his repeated claims
> that 4'33" isn't music (it is, Bill, maybe not to you, but to the bulk of
> the musical community). Anyone for a cordial, collegial discussion?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Virginia
> --
> Virginia Anderson
> Leicester, UK
> <vanderson@-----.uk>
> Experimental Music Catalogue: <http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk>
> ...experimental music since 1969....
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

--
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeined score
In crisps of curl off wild winch, whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none's to spill nor spend

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