Klarinet Archive - Posting 000062.txt from 2007/10

From: "David Lamb" <dlamb@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: the effect of technology
Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:25:33 -0400


Dan Leeson on repeats:

> That is very consistent with a cellist I played with many years ago. He
> was
> quite aged at the time, and had even played with Brahms himself. I asked
> him about repeats and his response was the same as your statement; i.e.,
> they never took any repeats, though he was speaking about chamber music
> rather than large scale orchestral works.
>
This is what I have suspected all along. In most cases, repeats add nothing
to the structure of a work, and they are there simply because they are
there. My guess is that composers put in the repeat marks because they were
expected -- musical punctuation marks in a sense -- and I also guess that
repeats were often not observed. I believe that they add little to an
understanding of a piece, and I would be happy to do without them. I
further believe that if composers felt a need to review the material, they
should present it again in a different way -- a way that shows some new
aspect or way of thinking. In general, a repeat is the mark of a lazy
composer.

David Lamb in Seattle

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