 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2011-07-29 17:19
Thanks for posting the link. It is indeed an interesting read, but it can be read in different ways. It's clear to me that the cult of celebrity bothers him, but it's unclear exactly which parts of this manifesto he means ironically and which parts he means literally.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2011-07-31 18:15
I think I understand his beef. He's irritated because he believes the de facto focus of the festival has shifted from serving musical ends to being a vehicle for personal promotion through the mere association (however brief or impersonal it may be) with famous artists.
It's like when a musician writes on their bio that they've played for so-and-so famous player in a master class. So somebody played for 20 minutes or so in front of Sabine Meyer at a master class....it doesn't mean he's any good or even got that much out of the experience. It certainly doesn't rise to the level that a long-term teacher-student relationship does, yet I see musician bios all the time that list all the famous people they've played for in masterclasses, as if that mattered that much.
And for that matter, who so-and-so studied with matters a lot less than people make it out to be. Who cares who somebody studied with if their playing isn't worth listening to? I sure don't. Conversely, if somebody is a great musician, what does it matter who they studied with? You think Mozart gave a hoot who Stadler studied with or Brahms Muhlfeld? Of course not...if they did, we'd know all about it, wouldn't we?
Kremer touches on another point that is important. Much of the obsession so many have with famous performers is a function of the fame and personality cult associated with those performers, not actually their artistic merits. I think Kremer is fed up with wannabe musicians who worship famous musicians of the past and present without having the slightest idea what was/is good (or not-so-good) about their music.
In general, though, it's about who is working for whom. The divide here is between a performance-centered view of the art of music (where composers write music for "artists," whose performances constitute the art) and a composition-centered view of music (the "artists" compose the music, which is relayed to the listener by the performer, whose role is as an interpreter of the art). Kremer clearly belongs to the latter camp, while the young musicians he takes issue with, by and large, seem to belong to the former.
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