Klarinet Archive - Posting 000748.txt from 2004/10

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] A confession regarding K622
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 12:31:10 -0400

On 25 Oct, Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com> wrote:

> At 04:12 PM 10/25/2004 +0100, Tony Pay wrote:

> > No -- they're arguing that what is important about Mozart is eradicated
> > by coarsely obliterating it with another style.
> >
> > 'Mozart', after all, is not just the notes of the tunes he wrote.
>
> I never said otherwise, but does this give us a right to declare all
> interpretations that don't meet this criteria sacrilegious? Ban them?
> Insult people who like them or use them?

I don't want to do anything other than say that some of them don't meet with
my approval, and to argue against them.

The arguments are quite detailed, sometimes, and call attention to
structures in the music that are damaged or diminished by the particular
interpretation.

But surely that's what we do when we criticise any interpretation. And
that's not undermined by any degree of shouting: "I'm entitled to my own
opinion, *whatever* it is!!!"

> If you do so, you become part of the taste police. You have spent too much
> of your career fighting against the taste police (and proving them wrong)
> to join them now.

What can I do? I might fail to clap them, or I might fail to write them good
reviews, or I might not give them postgraduate grants.

They'll do whatever they do, regardless.

> > Stravinsky did something different when he recomposed Pergolesi in
> > 'Pulcinella'. The difference is that he knew what he was doing, being a
> > great composer himself. He characterised what he did as 'an act of
> > love'.
> >
> > Most of these other guys are just opportunists.
>
> Yeah, so what? That doesn't answer my question. Where do we draw the line?
> I submit we can not and should not draw the line. Besides, Stravinsky would
> not have gotten very far in the world without opportunists. Not bad or
> good, just the way the world works.

Each of us draws the line for ourselves. I accept some Mozart performances
that aren't to my taste as nevertheless viable in their own terms, and not
traducing what I feel is important about Mozart. Others I reject out of hand
-- like ones that put drumkits underneath.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... H2SO4 : Help, Help! Searing! Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, Ouch

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