Klarinet Archive - Posting 000146.txt from 2009/10

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] New articles published on the web!
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:36:50 -0400

Jonathan wrote:

> No, as I said before the Brymer-cited eyewitness is one piece of evidence=
in
> addition to dozens of other pieces of evidence that I provided in my arti=
cle
> to prove pretty convincingly that Muhlfeld used vibrato and that this was=
a
> striking aspect of his playing.

Yeah, but it's the only one that says anything about vibrato.

>> The truth is, neither you nor I were there to hear Muhlfeld, so we
>> don't really know what his playing was like. =A0Maybe he used "habitual
>> vibrato" as part of his customary performance practice. =A0I don't know.
>> =A0For all I know you could be entirely right.
>
> For the umpteenth time, I never said anything about "habitual" vibrato
> (which is a meaningless term). =A0You seem, however, to be obsessed with =
it.

I know you didn't. I made the term up myself (and only because you
object to my use of conventional music jargon). But I did at least
give you a definition, so you have no reason to call it meaningless.

>> Indeed, there are alternative explanations (such as the theory I just
>> presented) that are consistent with the evidence, but that do not rely
>> on the assumption that Muhlfeld customarily played with vibrato.
>
> You have not presented any evidence to the contrary, and your explanation=
as
> I have shown above doesn't hold water.

No, no, that's not the way this works. YOU made the claim that
vibrato was part of Muhlfeld's personal style to begin with and YOU
provided the evidence, from which you have reached that conclusion. I
have accepted your evidence as being true, for the sake of argument.
However, I claim that YOUR evidence supports more than one possible
conclusion, one of which is my theory about Brahms suggesting a
selective use of vibrato in that one piece. I don't have to provide
my own evidence (even though I did), if all I'm doing is showing that
your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the evidence you've
already provided.

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