Klarinet Archive - Posting 000019.txt from 2007/03

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] An interesting point of view
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:48:21 -0500

Danyel, your point of view is one that I cannot understand
because I do not believe the underlying technical assumption is
correct. That underlying idea says that the Vienna Philharmonic
has a unique sound, one measureably different from any other
orchestra, and that the sound has something to do with a male
characteristic.

My disagreement has to do with the very idea of a nationalistic
sound. It is one that I have never agreed with either with
individual instruments (a very few exceptions exist such as the
distinctive French bassoon sound), or with orchestras as a whole.

In exactly what way does the VPO sound differently from, say the
Icelandic Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Symphony orchestra, or the
Berlin Philharmonic? And in what way does the fact that the VPO
is entirely male (except for the harpist) cause that phenomenon
to occur?

Some years ago we had a lengthy discussion of the German sound,
French sound, and American sound in clarinet playing; i.e., it
was possible to tell if a player was trained in Germany or France
or anyplace elese, just by listening to them. People believed
that it was possible to tell if the clarinet section was made up
of Germans. I believed then and do now that this is an entirely
fictitious argument, as equally unfounded as the one you
expressed, namely that the VPO sound is unique and special, and
that this special sound is derived from the orchestra's all male
character.

I don't doubt that you believe this, but I couldm't possibly
subscribe to that theory since it has no substantive or even
scientific underpinning to support it. And while I make no
accusations about you personally, to me this theory is not much
different from statements about the abilities of this or that
"race" to make technical or artistic contributions to the world
in general. (I put "race" in quotations because it is a term
that has no real scientific meaning.) The entire idea is closer
to eugenics (which is a disgraced science) than any real
substantive point of view.

Danyel, I have, I hope, offered you no insults, just strong
technical disagreements.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: danyel [mailto:rab@-----.de]
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 7:56 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] An interesting point of view

Thanks for posting this. The point has indeed been made before,
it is
interesting because it reflects the tendency to ignore aesthetic
and
historic peculiarities or maybe eccentricities in favour of a PC
dogma of
rather dubious motivation. People (in particular in the US)
simply expect
other people to adopt their attitudes, like non smokers chasing
smokers out
of public places, or Muslims who think other religions (like
christianity)
are rubbish. There might be very little to be said in favour of
smoking or
christianity, however music is something else. In traditional
cultures it is
considered normal that certain music is played by men, other by
women. They
rarely mix in performance; never, as far as I know, in art or
ritual music
except for vocalists. Why? These cultures are not entirely bad,
let alone
the modern society entirely good. And their music was, generally,
far
superior to our's.
Has anybody asked himself (or herself, of course) why the Vienna
Philharmonic has retained at least some of its unique sound and
aura? I
myself really do like women in all sorts of capacities (most of
my disciples
are female and people with whom I share corporal intimacy are
exclusively
female, no demands by journalists or activists will ever change
that!) yet
it smacks awkward if what might well be the only at least
semi-authentic
19th c. orchestra remaining today as a sort of symphony-museum or
'Mahler-World' or whatever, should comply with demands made by
outsiders who
know nothing about the inner workings of this wonderful
socio-aesthetic
organism (they might as well demand to get rid of the old
fashioned dress
suit and to wear short pants and t-shirts on the podium; but the
dress suit
is another aspect of 19th c. European life style without which
the music
loses its substrate).
Yes, I do insinuate that the V Ph might sound so great because
there are
very few if any women in their ranks. I don't know why that
should be so,
but it is conceivable to me that 19th c. Austro-German music, in
order to be
properly played, requires a specifically male sort of neurotic
character. Of
course this resembles the question whether people of non-African
heritage
can play blues, or goyim can play klezmer. It mostly (very rare
exceptions)
is a mere travesty if they do. Why? because they have different
backgrounds,
different character structures. Until they lose it and fuse with
the
mainstream. In this case we will probably end up, like in Jazz,
with the
original people (African Americans in Jazz, males in
Austro-German 19th c.
music) losing the "feeling" for the music too and nobody remains
to play it
authentically, i.e. with proper 'gusto'. This has happened with
almost all
symphonic organisations as far as I can tell (especially those
mentioned in
the article as examples of flexibility), hence gender doesn't
matter any
more with those. They could hire robots or mp3 players, it
wouldn't make
much of a difference.
As I stated before, I really can't understand (honestly, it's a
mystery to
me!) how people can be so naive to believe it was proper to use a
modern
Oehler or even Boehm clarinet for Mozart or Weber, and to me it
appears as
equally ahistoric, i.e. plain wrong, if women perform in the
Vienna
Philharmonic. Sure, the V. Ph. could change, become up to date
(provided
they'd play modern music), but please, don't! If anything, change
back to
the sound you had under Bruno Walter, but please, please, don't
change to
become just another professional, modern, versatile, amusing,
p.c. and
totally sterile orchestra. We have enough of these.

Dan, I know you are probably either going to respond with insults
or not at
all, but if you would consider to point out what exactly your
view is in
this context, I'd appreciate.

Best wishes,
danyel

www.echoton.de/clar.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: "klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 6:25 PM
Subject: [kl] An interesting point of view

> The following well-written article by Justin Davidson appeared
in
> Newsday quite recently. It may be seen directly using the
> following link: http://tinyurl.com/2hsazt. This topic,
> continuing and ongoing sexism of the Vienna Philharmonic, has
> been discussed on this list several times, but Davidson's
> position pretty much says, "Time's up, fellows. Get moving or
get
> out."
>
> Dan Leeson
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>

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