 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-05-06 09:16
(...right You are when You´re thinking of Derrida´s great book now...)
We had a discussion the other day which went sort of agitated: It all came down to locate the reality of a musical work of art, whether it is in the score written or is it the performance of the score? We agreed that score and performance,considering the New Music- and the avantgarde -praxis, are indeed intertwined in very complex and instabile, ever shifting ways, though they´re never the same, and though there´s just no such thing as "playing without scores" as the Improvised Music is said to do (by admirers and foes alike). So we were left with whether it is more adaequate to take the sound Ereignis at face value, just as it is, as it perturbes the air between our ears and the sound source, or whether hearing means constructing the structure by hearing, of what is heard this very moment. We touched phenomenology, postmodernism,deconstruction, pragmatics, - what illustrates this well is this: There was a piece staged in Donaueschingen, where the sound of the Donau´s well was recorded and transmitted in real time to a concert hall. As I said something like "Puh, why tis fuss, why not just sample this sound and play the Cd?!" (since the actual reverberation etc didn´t matter according to the piece´s score), I earned clamouring protest, concerning the huge difference the realtime transmission would make to the audience etc, the piece would be something completely different if not so etc. One could cheat the audience, couldn´t one,by just saying it was realtime and using the recording still...
As You can imagine,we didn´t come even close to a solution...what do You think of it?
Markus
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-05-06 15:07
If a tree falls in the woods.....is it the tree making the sound, or the woods, or both? And if there's nobody in the audience to hear it, who cares?
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-05-06 18:47
Feine Sache, party conversation, how nice. There´s another: "Who doesn´t think, is fired." (J. Beuys). And, signed by the same author, "Herewith I leave art.". "Peanuts" style might be a solution, humpty-dumpty as it may be.
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Author: Tom J.
Date: 2004-05-06 23:32
To paraphrase Norman Schwartzkopf: A verbal description of music is like "taking an accordion on a deer hunt".
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Author: ned
Date: 2004-05-07 00:19
Ohhhh..........Ehhh.....................well.......... it WAS quite a BIG paragraph, wasn't it?
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Author: Anders
Date: 2004-05-07 20:33
I don't think Markus's views should be mocked necessarily, though they may be antithetical to most musicians who are not theorists. I myself am not in sympathy with them, as I am not a devotee of post-structuralist literary theory, etc. Such mental constructs seem superfluous to many of us, but, obviously, not to those whose minds enjoy playing with these ideas. To some an apple (Mozart) is an apple; to others it is anything but...
That said, they seem to be more in line with the thinking of a Stockhausen when he puts a string quartet in a helicopter (yes, it was recorded, too): a contribution to that genre that stands outside the entire cannon of quartet literature, including the various absurdist "happenings" of the '60s. Indeed, the conception, which destroys the most noble of mediums with loud abandon, goes even farther in its nihilism: what other composer has actually put the lives of his performers at risk?
And yet, the Arditti Quartet, perhaps the most respected champions of the avant garde and wonderful musicians, assented to the stunt. What were their thoughts? Does absolutely any scheme of a world renowned composer merit realization? (And to what extent these days is S renowned for his music as opposed to his ideas?) Did they take their Strads and Guarnieris up there, or cheap Chinese instruments (but what matter if their lives were lost?) Is there a philosophical difference between a quartet risking their lives to go up to perform in a helicopter and that same quartet flying to another place to give a concert?
Stockhausen, by his concept has thus set up a whole range of experiences and reactions, but do they exist in the same realm as those associated with quartets by Brahms or Bartok? Or did Shostakovich perhaps begin the slide when he depicted the bombing of Dresden in his Eighth Quartet (and don't forget Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima). From that is it just a short step to putting the quartet in a helicopter? (And an "Apache Attack" would no doubt be the most desired vehicle...) Why not a B-52 or a Mig?
Have to run now..I just put on Haydn's "Lerchen" Quartet...
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2004-05-08 10:59
No, this is exactly the sort of thing that generates mockery.
And I like 'Peanuts' - it is far more difficult to describe the human condition with likeable characters than with the unsympathetic.
It's simple, really -
you connect with your audience, or they leave.
I don't need to slog through some erudite tome to arrive at the conclusion.
{Feel free to insert classic epithets about the juvenile nature of Yanks}
************
The difference is between Melodious Thunk and Luke Arlington...
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-05-08 19:50
And I thought "we (post)modernists" were the ones inclined to arrogance and/or ignorance, weren´t we? No sir, it´s not that easy at all - this "connection" is nothing but an appeal, a myth, be nearly all western world´s culture based and derived from/on it. Just to repeat this conception of an ominous connection is naive, one doesn´t have to go through 'some erudite' to arrive at this conclusion.
Anders, thank You for Your post - as with cash, it doesn´t solve everything, but it is extremely comforting to be at least partly what You name a theorist. An apple is (sic?) an apple, yes, but why is that so? My point is that I cannot interpret/perform those challening and beautiful compositions and performances of the 20ieth and 21st century without a waggonload of texts, signs, comments, margins, cross-connexes, just to read those scores, to cmprehend what the piece (and not this autocraty signed "author") demands of me. this begins with finding the correct fingerins for exotic multiphonics and ends with consulting contemporary philosophy to establish a relation between the score, the performance and the sound. I don´t play better just because I read some pages before playing, just because of this reflection on what I´m/will be doing - but since I enjoy it immensely to put myself in those 'dangerous" situations (though I never entered a helicopter...must be an experience, really...), in which I
n e a r l y don´t make it.
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Author: Anders
Date: 2004-05-12 22:00
I remembered later that it was four helicopters (one per player)! Let's hope he's not working on a piano quintet...
Perhaps there is "musical thinking" and "thinking about music", two different things? I know a superb musician who has perhaps read three books in her life, but who can solve a musical problem unerringly.
Whatever your mental continuum, if you can play Mozart and/or Berio maybe you're doing something right...Perhaps we could say, if it works for you, do it.
(In the realm of the piano, Glenn Gould had a radically different thought process from Artur Rubinstein; and Rubinstein said that the only book Heifetz ever read was the phone book...)
I read somewhere that Toscanini could quote Rilke from memory, in German. Perhaps the next time one has a chance to play the Reger Quintet it would be interesting to read the Duino Elegies for some context. If you're serious about Mozart, have you read the letters? Recently, Paula Robison (great flutist) published an edition of Frank Martin's Ballade for Flute, in which she recommends reading Francois Villon's poetry in order to connect with Martin's spirit world, as it were.
I take your point, Synonymous, being a jejune Yank myself. It's all good...
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-05-13 05:18
Synonymous Botch
"Like trying to describe a spiral staircase, with your hands in your pockets"
that's an absolutely delightful analogy, can I use it please??
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2004-05-13 18:07
Sure diz, I just wish I had thought of it...
(I can't attribute the quote, maybe it was Oprah?)
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