Klarinet Archive - Posting 000875.txt from 2002/07

From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sarcasm. You don't say.
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 08:54:42 -0400

<< If you haven't truly experience passion, love or despair and if you can't
express these emotions clearly then perhaps I'd dare say you cannot perform
Wagner's Tristan and Isolde correctly. If you've never felt contentment or
cannot express this in your playing then the second movement of the Mozart
Concerto isn't for you (thanks Fred J. for helping me understand what this
movement was all about.) >>

<< We all are in grave danger of destroying our language, the arts, and
ourselves as we become more and more sarcastic. I believe that it is in all
our best interests to decrease our use of this rhetorical devise. >>

Sarcasm may be inappropriate for Tristan und Isolde, or the Mozart Clarinet
Concerto. But is it inappropriate for, say, the clarinet solos in the last
movement of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique?

Surely sarcasm is a mode of expression like any other - and, like any other,
excessive use destroys its effect; but used appropriately and carefully, and
with the right mix of other expressions, it can be very effective. I don't
think that one can listen to, say, the songs of Randy Newman, or some of
Shostakovich's music, without realising the power of sarcasm as a mode of
expression. Deliberately saying what you do not mean, in the right context,
can actually communicate your real message better, sometimes, than direct
statement.

If popular culture really is becoming more sarcastic (which I think is
debatable), then this is still an expression of something - and rather than
simply saying, "This mode of expression is bad," one should perhaps ask the
question, "Why do artists feel that this is the way in which they want to
express themselves? And what does this say about the surrounding society?"

In all honesty, the Dean's speech sounds more like another attempt to deny
that "popular" culture is as valid a mode of expression as "real" art; that
is, to say that the culture which the Peabody Conservatory produces is
somehow "better" than other culture. As the Dean, he has a direct interest
in creating the impression that one type of art/culture is better than
another - because one type keeps him in a job! I am not suggesting any
directly cynical motives - far from it; but so much artistic criticism seems
to stem fundamentally from self-interested tribes, whose members do not even
recognise the self-interest in their speech.

Needless to say I think this attitude is a very small-minded view of art,
expressiveness and culture. At the least, it's shooting the messenger.

-- Joe

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