Klarinet Archive - Posting 000344.txt from 2005/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Mozart improvises
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 19:07:13 -0500

No. It is not what you said. You were talking about the
wonderful improvisatory skills of Mozart and Beethoven, and you
waxed eloquently about how well and how splendidly they did it.
The implication you gave was that it was OK for Moz. and Beeth.
to do it, without making the leap to the assertion that what they
did was no different from what everybody was expected to do. In
the note below, you even suggest that it's OK "if you have the
skills and feelings." In fact, if you did not have the skills
and feelings, you were going to be in that business.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Ormondtoby Montoya [mailto:o4rmondtoby@-----.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 2:54 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] Mozart improvises

Dan wrote:

> These men played in a way that was
> uniformly a part of the performing tradition for
> live musicians. It was as important to their
> performances that they improvise as it was
> for them to wear pants. It was what was
> expected of them. [snip] ....every performer
> was expected to do, namely to become part
> of the creative process of music making.
> "You give me a tune, Mozart, and watch me
> run with it." That was the performance
> practice of the time, just like wearing pants.

Perhaps I'm dense, Dan, but this is exactly what I thought I was
commenting about ??? (I hope)

Namely, in the arena of 'formal' music (or 'classical' with a
lower case
'c'), it's easy to forget that expectations are different
nowadays.

I don't have any problem with this; but the issue becomes cloudy
when
"What the composer intended" doesn't include "The composer
intended you
to run with it if you have the skills and the feelings."

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