Klarinet Archive - Posting 000248.txt from 2007/02
From: "Keith Bowen" <bowenk@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Kell
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:34:27 -0500
Thanks, Tony and Colin. Both illuminating comments. Tony, I recall your
original posts on the concerto and will now go back and reread them. I think
you are both saying that (true) rubato, like anything else, is a tool that
can be used drastically to heighten performance, but that it should be used
with great caution!
The question of "individualised" performances is interesting and
paradoxical. The performer has to project the conviction that comes from the
music, not himself as a show-off. But the paradox is that one cannot
eliminate the personal in performance, since the musical sensibility of each
performer, however skilled, comes from the unique background of listening,
study and ability that they bring. Your interpretation of say K622 is
undoubtedly different from that of anyone elses, which at first sight
contradicts your objection to "individualized" performances. They all are
individual, yours included. But I think you would insist (and I would agree)
that we are listening not to "Tony Pay's Mozart Concerto", but "Mozart's
concerto, projected through the musical sensibility of Tony Pay" - a subtle
but important point. Is it saying that the person must focus on the music
rather than him/herself? "Humility in the face of the score"?
The only possible exceptions to an individual performance are things like
Milton Babbit's electronically-created music. Stravinsky was one of those
who started the "modernist" the-music-is-the-score,
performers-are-in-the-way stuff, but his recorded performances of his own
works are not at all consistent!
Since the concept of the immaculate "Musical Work" is really a nineteenth
century invention (see Lydia Goehr on "The Imaginary Museum of Musical
Works"), every performance of everything before roughly 1800 was necessarily
personal and individual right down to the notes played (which eingangen do
you play - are these not individual?). And of course we can never know what
the intentions of the composer were, or at least "never know that we know"
(Taruskin).
I am trying to understand the paradox between the impossibility of an
impersonal, non-individual performance and the point you are making, with
which I instinctively agree, that the performer should not be seeking to
"individualise" his/her performance.
Keith Bowen
-----Original Message-----
From: klarinet-return-90127-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org
[mailto:klarinet-return-90127-bowenk=compuserve.com@-----.org] On Behalf
Of Tony Pay
Sent: 26 February 2007 17:59
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: RE: [kl] Kell
On 26 Feb, "Keith Bowen" <bowenk@-----.com> wrote:
> Mmmm yes, good points. But there is the evidence that Mozart used it in
> slow movements. So I suppose you are saying that it should be used only
> when one is sure it is appropriate.
I wouldn't want to say what one 'should' do. (Obviously it's important that
one *can* do anything.) It's just that rubato, like any applied expressive
technique, has its consequences; and it's worth while being aware both of
what you are gaining from it and of what you are losing by it.
Sometimes the musical gain of a performance quirk is minimal and the musical
damage maximal, so there is no win in the musical stakes; yet a performer
may
still produce the quirk out of a notion that they need to give an
'individual' performance. For them, just that very individuality counts as
a
plus.
I don't particularly care for performances that work that way, even though
some do.
> And presumably we don't have any way of telling [whether or not it's
> appropriate], other than musical sensibility?
No, we don't have any way other than that. Indeed, one way of
characterising
someone's musical sensibility would be to say that they have a
well-developed
idea of what's appropriate.
That seems circular; but clearly the more able an instrumentalist you are,
the greater chance you have of pulling off a 'risky' interpretative move;
and
the more you know about the possibilities of a particular piece the more
you're aware of what you may be losing by such a move. So musical
sensibility is something you can learn.
We might even be able to learn something by discussing Kell's box set
interpretations *in detail* here, in relation to the possibilities of the
pieces he's playing. But the 'in detail' bit is important. Here's an
example of the sort of detail I mean, in three posts of my own from 1999
about the beginning of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/10/000504.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/10/000542.txt
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/10/000544.txt
Ignore the jokes;-)
Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339
mobile +44(0)7790 532980 tony.p@-----.org
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