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Re: six-two-two

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-12-04 11:46

Ken Shaw wrote:

>> Do you plan to write up your seminar, or, better yet, was it recorded?>>

No, but it might be worthwhile posting just the summary, so that you see what I was on about:

"What we do in the OAE is by its very nature difficult to do really well. At least a part of it might be thought to be something like: to present our best shot at playing in the context of what the best players of the time aspired to. Notice, not necessarily presenting a version of what we think they did.

"Because, then as now, whatever that is has a lot to do with a blend of conscious and unconscious response. Then as now, I suggest, we admire someone as musical not just because they produce a particular something, but because they have, and demonstrate, an understanding both of the demands of the music and of the demands of the circumstances in which they play -- including what others do. And that understanding need not be (indeed, must not be) a product only of conscious thought, but of a blend of conscious and unconscious response. It's something that happens instinctively, 'on the fly'.

"In the eighteenth century, the unconscious bit was the style that everyone 'swam in', though clearly there were good and bad players then, as now. And for the good players, a style that included, say, representation of bar-structure, would necessarily have included degrees of representation of bar-structure -- different inflections of the bar -- varying through very light application to powerful insistence.

"I claim that we in the twentieth century have no hope of recreating the rich environment that allowed variety of interpretation within the eighteenth century style unless we can reproduce those degrees of representation without thinking -- which means that we have to practise them to the point that their variation may become a part of our UNCONSCIOUS response to the music of the time. Then, mastery of their variation allows us to produce naturally not only very subtly expressive inflections, but also to offer more extreme versions that are shown to be musically justified when they are taken in combination with what happens in other parts -- something that may not always be obvious from within the orchestra.

"To get a sense of that cannot happen in a moment, and is often therefore passed over in rehearsals that are geared to 'get the job done'. So, I want to take two pieces of Mozart -- the clarinet concerto, which I will play, and the G minor symphony, which I will direct -- and investigate what I've called Classical Stylistic Structures (CSSs) within those pieces. The intention is to create the beginnings of a greater awareness of the expressive possibilities of CSSs, and to draw the expressive instincts of the members of the orchestra closer together.

"Note, the intention is NOT to produce a performance."

Tony

Post Edited (2007-12-04 11:49)

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