Klarinet Archive - Posting 000439.txt from 2001/11

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] The worth of things
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 04:30:36 -0500

But you can't *conclude* that the assertion is correct.
Isn't that Dan's point?
Roger S.

In message <20011109.202426.80@-----.org writes:
> 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.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

--
It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always,
with the generality of mankind, have the preference over the accurate
and abstruse...
--- D. Hume ("An enquiry concerning human understanding," I)

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