Klarinet Archive - Posting 000388.txt from 2001/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] The worth of things
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:27:55 -0500

On Fri, 09 Nov 2001 11:31:19 -0800, leeson0@-----.net said:

> Do you remember the discussion we had in San Diego about the infamous
> missing measure in K. 361's fifth movement? Your arguments were that
> in playing the work with some terrific performers, you came to the
> majority conclusion that the removal of that measure was wrong based
> on the fact that you didn't like it that way. That's not surprising.
> You had played it the other way for 30 years so any change without
> explanation would have produced that result.
>
> I then replied with several quite objective arguments based on what the
> manuscript said, and which eliminated personal taste from the dialogue
> at once. I hoped then and I hope today that I convinced you about that
> measure based on hard evidence. That is the way I think people should
> argue complicated issues; i.e., on the facts and not on the basis of
> taste. I would be defenseless if I were to say, "But no, it sound
> 'better' my way." That is because it is a given that your taste, in
> fact almost anyone's taste is probably better than mine.

Well, what's happened with that measure is that we've played it in the
'removal' mode for quite a few years now -- perhaps 10 years?

The assessment of the players now is roughly equally divided about
whether it can be 'made to work'.

I'd say that this 'making it work' is crucial. It's not just a question
of leaving the bar out. It's a question of exactly how you attack the
subsequent bar, to make the elision right *in retrospect*.

How you judge whether you've made it right is an interesting, and I
think important question. In the world you're inhabiting -- I'd say
uncomfortably, given what I know of you -- it looks totally unimportant.
It's just a matter of opinion.

> Tony, your note said the following:
>
> "I don't really understand why you want to dispute this. If someone
> makes an assertion about the worth of something, and their arguments for
> that assertion are inadequate, then you dismiss their arguments. You
> don't want to say that the idea of 'worth' is undermined."
>
> I don't think you meant to say what you said in the second sentence.
> "If someone makes an assertion about the worth of something, and their
> arguments for that assertion are inadequate, then you dismiss their
> arguments."
>
> Did you not mean to end that sentence with "... then you dismiss their
> assertion"?

Well, no, and that's the nub of it.

The assertion might be right, but the arguments wrong. That's what I'd
say about the arguments of your adversary in your original post.

Any sensible theory of music should be able to explain the difference
between Beethoven 9 and the banana song, and account for the fact that
we almost all want to say that the first is better than the second in
some way. (The stuff about popularity and finance doesn't do it, we all
agree.)

The notion of 'better' that such a theory puts forward should be such
that people who know both works find intuitively plausible, without
demeaning whatever is excellent about the banana song.

I don't find it impossible to imagine the existence of such a theory.

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

... The only thing God didn't do to Job was give him a computer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------