Author: brycon
Date: 2021-10-03 21:31
Quote:
I would simply add that very much is done instinctively without necessarily having much theoretical knowledge.
All very true.
Many expressive decisions occur on a subconscious level. We learn many basic expressive shapes--a taper at the end of a cadence, for instance--by listening to recordings as well as our teachers and colleagues. And an elite-level musician can hear, say, a deceptive cadence, make small changes in his or her oral cavity and core muscles, and alter the tone color without much thought at all because elite-level musicians have strengthened the connections among their minds, ears, and bodies in such a way that the deceptive cadence can happen with not much more effort than it takes to plant your right foot in front of your left when you walk.
Quote:
The scholar Charles Rosen, whom we both admire, was disappointing as a pianist: rather dry and unemotional, and not because he lacked technical prowess.
I don't listen much to Rosen's piano playing (though, in fairness, I find it much more expressive than a lot of "professional" clarinet playing!). But a few years ago, I was at a dinner with Lewis Lockwood, who told me that Charles Rosen was the best performer of the Diabelli variations he'd ever heard. So yeah, everyone likes what they like. Moreover, who am I to argue with Lewis Lockwood!
My friend Ed Klorman, who wrote an absolutely brilliant book on Mozart's chamber music, says that a musical decision made in a rehearsal (e.g. "Hey, I think this section should have a bit more rubato. I want to stretch this high note.") is in fact an an act of analysis not all that different from a theoretical decision made, say, in a voice-leading graph (e.g. "Hey, this high note is the end of the initial ascent and the beginning of the urlinie."). And as someone who comes from a performance and theory background, sure, I too find that my expressive intuition often has some sort of theoretical underpinning, if I sit down and think about it for a moment. For me, then, it's two sides of the same coin rather than two different modes of thinking about music.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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