Klarinet Archive - Posting 000630.txt from 2002/09

From: "don hatfield" <djwl@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] So many opinions
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 09:57:17 -0400

This is already leading to quite an interesting line of
discussion. I can tend to be 'lazyer' as Annie proposes.
But the whole premise of this reminded me a great and
crazy debate in college in the late seventies.

Giulini recorded 'Pictures at an Exhibition' with the CSO,
as well as "classical Symphony'. Giulini, if I recall it
well enough, decided to conduct the pieces at a noticeably
slower tempo than is common. His idea was that orchestras
often play these old 'warhorse' pieces over and over in
the same fashion, and he wanted to kick it DOWN a notch so
the listener could hear things in the music one might
normally miss when the things are played in 'typical'
fashion. This caused an interesting line of debate among
our music faculty and students over tradition and what the
composer wanted, and what Toscanini did or what Walter
would do, etc. I still have my Deutsche Gramaphon LP and
think it's one of the most powerful and moving
interpretations I've heard of any work. You can hear so
many parts that might be lost when this music is played at
the tempos we usually find, and the effect is memorable.
It just plain sounds RIGHT.

And I agree with Mark...how many composers would have
enjoyed hearing a work played well or in a new light with
a 'wrong' instrument of a different key than the score
called for, as long is was done "out of knowledge rather
than ignorance"?

From: Anne Lenoir [mailto:AnneLenoir@-----.net]
I respect all of
the people involved in these arguments, but I'm getting
tired of it.
Nobody can stop anybody else from playing anything they
want, whether
it's "correct" or "incorrect" or the "right" or "wrong"
instrument.
------
I, for one, think these arguments are just barely getting
off the ground and
are a lot more interesting than the mouthpiece, ligature,
or reed "de jour"
postings. Rational and well-reasoned arguments are
instructive to me, not
only musically but in helping me in the formulation of
similar points in my
"day job".

The point has never been to be an instrumental
"policeman", standing in the
back of the concert hall shout "Stop - that person is not
following the
correct procedure and, egad, has an instrument in the
wrong key!"; but
rather to consider what and why we're doing particular
things. We may be
jumping to conclusions or following "tradition" blindly,
not knowing
anything of historical perspective.

Some people may not care a whit about the history of music
and whether we're
performing it as a composer has intended; I do. I may not
follow the
composer's instructions, but at least I'll do so out of
knowledge rather
than ignorance.

Mark C.

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