Mahler conductors who knew Mahler
samir golescu
On 30 Nov 2000, Simon Roberts wrote:
> HenryFogel (henry...@aol.com) wrote:
> : I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that conductors will
> : in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own musical
> : instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility that
> : the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those four is
> : perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his era
> : and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
> : perhaps even encouraged. In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
> : should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of "fidelity to
> : the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
> : mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that different
> : performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no playwright
> : would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> : perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>
> Quite so.
I agree with Mr. Roberts.
regards,
SG
(-:
Ramon Khalona
HenryFogel wrote:
> This is tangential to the Mengelberg/Mahler 4th thread. I have always found it
> interesting that the Mahler recorded performances left by conductors who knew
> and worked with Mahler (Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Fried, and Scherchen)
> are all so different from each other. (I don't count F. Charles Adler because
> although he did know and work with Mahler, he did not have the kind of
> important international conducting career that the others had and may not have
> been as proficient a conductor). Scherchen did not work with Mahler as a
> conductor, but he played, I believe, in an orchestra under Mahler's direction
> (I may be remembering that incorrectly). The other four, Walter, Klemperer,
> Mengelberg and Fried, all worked on Mahler's scores with him in some fashion or
> another, and yet all four differ so much from each other that it is amazing.
>
> I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that conductors will
> in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own musical
> instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility that
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those four is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
> perhaps even encouraged. In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
> should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of "fidelity to
> the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
> mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that different
> performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no playwright
> would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>
As a conductor and musician, I view Mahler as far different from those priests of
objectivism (e.g., Toscanini). I am willing to bet that if we had had the fortune
to obtain recordings of Mahler conducting his symphonies, we would have had
significant differences in different performances of the same pieces, with perhaps
a unifying theme (call it passion, grandeur, or whatever you choose). I agree with
your basic conclusion:
"authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
mind" is a folly.
Ramon Khalona
Frank Berger
HenryFogel wrote:
> Henry Fogel
A question that would seem to relate - How about composers conducting their own
works?. Is there enough evidence to suggest that they tend to perform a given work
pretty consistently? Or do the performances vary as they do across conductors?
If the latter, obvious conclusions can be drawn about "authentic" interpretation!
HenryFogel
Simon Roberts
: I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that conductors will
: in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own musical
: instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility that
: the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those four is
: perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his era
: and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
: perhaps even encouraged. In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
: should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of "fidelity to
: the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
: mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that different
: performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no playwright
: would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
: perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
Quite so.
Simon
MTaboada
I agree with Messrs. Fogel, Roberts and Golescu.
MrT
JRsnfld
objectivism (e.g., Toscanini). I am willing to bet that if we had had the
fortune
to obtain recordings of Mahler conducting his symphonies, we would have had
significant differences in different performances of the same pieces, with
perhaps
a unifying theme (call it passion, grandeur, or whatever you choose)<
Ramon's point here is essential--the objectivism of the mid- to late-20th
century performers is a modernist approach, stemming from Toscanini and others.
Fried, Mengelberg, and Walter represented the end of a tradition inspired by
Wagner's interpretive ideals. Mahler may have been the apex of that movement.
I'm not sure that Klemperer or Scherchen totally fit in one or the other camp,
however.
In a "Text and Act," a very thought-provoking book about the modernist roots of
the HIP movement, the musicologist-performer Richard Taruskin has written
extensively on the questions that Henry Fogel raised here. One of his themes is
that Igor Stravinsky's objectivism set a standard for the entire century.
Stravinsky (a Russian) and Toscanini (an Italian) established the sanctity of
musical "text"--i.e. the score --in this century, in opposition to Furtwangler,
Mengelberg, and others of the Germanic (read: Wagnerian) school (a Romantic
tradition that sought to underline the historic, stylistic roots of the German
symphonic tradition). Mahler may have raised performance standards in his day,
but he did not do it in the name of the score--he did it in the name of
composers' intentions and artistic integrity. Today, his kind of artistic
integrity would be considered blasphemous.
Taruskin suggests that the horrific experiences of the 20th century may have
ushered the complete victory of the modernists. The World Wars tainted Wagner's
ideas of the omnipotence of artists. His argument is mostly geared toward
debunking the notion that HIPsters can ever really get to an "authenticity" in
performance by seeking refuge in texts.
There's a great deal of irony here, however. Listen to any composer (Prokofiev,
Medtner, Rachmaninov, Debussy) perform his own music and you will find
deviations from the score: Taruskin notes that not even Stravinsky seemed able
to settle on one interpetation of his own Rite of Spring--each of his
recordings uses different tempi.
Does anyone else get the feeling that we are due for a new period of
interpretive style, a reaction against objectivism and the sanctity of the
score? I think it may be the answer to revitalizing audience interest in
performance of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries, at least.
--Jeff
sbring
henry...@aol.com (HenryFogel) wrote:
> I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that
conductors will
> in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own
musical
> instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the
possibility that
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in
those four is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers
from his era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted
but
> perhaps even encouraged.
I don't see why this attitude should be the product of the 19th
century. What reasons do we have to think that Mozart och Bach would
have had a different opinion, or a more "objectivistic" attitude? And
anaother thing: think what losses we would have made, especially
concerning Bach's music, if the objectivistic approach hade been
prevailing throughout!
- and the whole concept of "fidelity to
> the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the
composer had in
> mind" is a folly,
and maybe also a very late invention?
Sven
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Matthew Silverstein
> I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that conductors
will
> in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own musical
> instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility
that
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those four
is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his
era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
> perhaps even encouraged.
I suspect so. I remember reading somewhere a story about Brahms, when asked
about tempi by a pianist who was about to play one of his concerti, saying:
"It doesn't matter how fast it is; just make sure it's beautiful."
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> Does anyone else get the feeling that we are due for a new period of
> interpretive style, a reaction against objectivism and the sanctity of the
> score? I think it may be the answer to revitalizing audience interest in
> performance of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries, at least.
This is already happening, at least in the HIP movement, which explains
musicians like Robert Levin and Pieter Wispelwey. They are still HIP in many
important ways, but neither focuses on what we might call objectivism.
Matty
A. Brain
news:3A25DDF5...@dal.frb.org...
>
>
> HenryFogel wrote:
[description of different conductors who knew Mahler and yet performed the
music differently snipped]
> A question that would seem to relate - How about composers conducting
their own
> works?. Is there enough evidence to suggest that they tend to perform a
given work
> pretty consistently? Or do the performances vary as they do across
conductors?
> If the latter, obvious conclusions can be drawn about "authentic"
interpretation!
Like some of the arguments about "historically informed performances" the
suggestion that the intent of the composer should govern overlooks the fact
that the composer is never infallible.
The music might be better not only if it is interpreted in performance
differently from the composer's directions, but even if it is edited,
re-orchestrated, etc.
Mahler himself reorchestrated some of Schumann's works, didn't he? So I
think he
implicitly approved certainly of "free" interpretation.
And even if he did not, his music is not "sacred".
If Tolstoy can be abridged, surely music can at least be interpreted freely
in performance. (And let's not forget that the music of Bach and Handel,
even some of the most popular and profound works, were presented in
"abridged" versions for years.) Going back to literature, some of the great
writers who were and are abridged do not deserve it--and many who are never
abridged should be. But that's another discussion....
Back to music: To go further, it is fallacious to contend that just because
an artist ultimately decided
to complete a work in a given way, that that is the best way or the only
way
it should be performed. Mahler ditched his "Blumine" movement of the first
symphony, yet some people seem to like it. Was he "wrong" to excise it? Is
it "wrong" to include it?
As I recall, Mozart's aria for Don Ottavio "Dalla sua pace" was not in the
original Don
Giovanni.
I think it would be ridiculous to cut that wonderful aria, but I guess it
could be done. And alternatives could be added or subtracted in other
Mozart works.(Figaro is subject to cuts now and then, and I don't see too
many complaints; on the other hand some composers whose music could probably
be improved by cuts, are never cut.) The question is what version is most
effective? And that always will require the performer to make some
judgments.
What about the many versions of the Bruckner symphonies, where the composer,
as I understand it, was advised by others to make various changes, and now
there is argument about whether the changes were intended or not. Who
cares? If the performer thinks that, to take the most obvious example, the
cymbal and percussion parts in the adagio of the 7th make the music more
effective, that should be up to him or her. I suggest that the parts could
be added even if they had no claim to "authenticity".
For that matter, some conductors, even some considered to be "conservative"
made adjustments or even cuts in scores, even relatively concise ones (like
Szell's cut in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra).
At the extreme of this, one could argue that not taking repeats is "wrong".
I applaud performers who have the guts to try to make the music "alive".
Now if someone would just come out with that 2 1/2 hour "Tristan".....
--
A. Brain
Remove "nospam" when replying via email
William A. Dirks
wrote:
>
>As a conductor and musician, I view Mahler as far different from those priests of
>objectivism (e.g., Toscanini). I am willing to bet that if we had had the fortune
>to obtain recordings of Mahler conducting his symphonies, we would have had
>significant differences in different performances of the same pieces, with perhaps
>a unifying theme (call it passion, grandeur, or whatever you choose). I agree with
>your basic conclusion:
>"authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
>mind" is a folly.
Well, here we go again. If we attempt to draw generalized conclusions
based on one composer, then I think a trip back to logic 101 is in
order for a lot of us.
As for Toscanini, on one of the few occasions when he spoke about the
most fundamental aesthetic principles he appreciated in performances
of music, he mentioned unity, clarity, and other factors, but none of
those add up to "objectivism," so as to his being a priest of that
cult, it doesn't add up.
Some composers had views of their own music that changed relatively
much, and some of them encouraged relatively much freedom in its
interpretation. Some had views of their music that changed relatively
little, and some of them discouraged great freedom in its
interpretation.
No performance is likely to ever mirror fully what the composer had in
mind, but in some cases, it would be undoubtedly possible for the
composer to say that one performance did so more fully than
another--and that has in fact happened.
--Bill Dirks
Simon Roberts
: As a conductor and musician, I view Mahler [....]
I didn't realize you were either of those things.
Simon
Simon Roberts
[snip]
: Taruskin suggests that the horrific experiences of the 20th century may have
: ushered the complete victory of the modernists. The World Wars tainted Wagner's
: ideas of the omnipotence of artists. His argument is mostly geared toward
: debunking the notion that HIPsters can ever really get to an "authenticity" in
: performance by seeking refuge in texts.
[snip]
Right, and debunking literalism and ltmsfi generally. Fortunately - and
perhaps in part because of his arguments - HIPsters (the better ones,
anyway) seem to have abandoned literalist talk and realize instead that
the point of what they're doing turns in part on the incompleteness of
texts (all of them, but especially older ones).
Simon
Clovis Lark
> Henry Fogel
From my personal experience, great teachers and mentors invoke a command
of material that frees the student to such a degree that they pursue their
own paths confidently. Such teachers include Janos Starker (no 2 of his
students sound alike, or like him), Josef Gingold (students include Miriam
Fried, William Preucil, Yuval Yaron--each radically different from the
other), Arnold Schoenberg (his students covered every style). I suspect
that Mahler was no different.
Clovis Lark
> HenryFogel wrote:
> A question that would seem to relate - How about composers conducting
their own > works?. Is there enough evidence to suggest that they tend to
perform a given work > pretty consistently? Or do the performances vary
as they do across conductors? > If the latter, obvious conclusions can be
drawn about "authentic" interpretation!
People grow and change. Surely you've accomplished some thing in the past
that you felt was pretty definitive, only to encounter it years later and
see all sort of flaws in it. It's only natural. The eyes and ears become
attuned to different things as time goes by and they have a much larger
corpus of memory to draw on.
Clovis Lark
> "Frank Berger" <frank.d...@dal.frb.org> wrote in message
> news:3A25DDF5...@dal.frb.org...
>>
>>
>> HenryFogel wrote:
> [description of different conductors who knew Mahler and yet performed the
> music differently snipped]
>> > I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that
>> A question that would seem to relate - How about composers conducting
> their own
>> works?. Is there enough evidence to suggest that they tend to perform a
> given work
>> pretty consistently? Or do the performances vary as they do across
> conductors?
>> If the latter, obvious conclusions can be drawn about "authentic"
> interpretation!
> Like some of the arguments about "historically informed performances" the
> suggestion that the intent of the composer should govern overlooks the fact
> that the composer is never infallible.
The composer is dead and has nothing to say. You infer intent from the
score, but that is your personal value judgement.
> The music might be better not only if it is interpreted in performance
> differently from the composer's directions, but even if it is edited,
> re-orchestrated, etc.
Might be, might not be. One never knows...
Clovis Lark
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 22:11:18 -0800, Ramon Khalona <rkha...@adnc.com>
>>
>>As a conductor and musician, I view Mahler as far different from those priests of
>>objectivism (e.g., Toscanini). I am willing to bet that if we had had the fortune
>>to obtain recordings of Mahler conducting his symphonies, we would have had
>>significant differences in different performances of the same pieces, with perhaps
>>a unifying theme (call it passion, grandeur, or whatever you choose). I agree with
>>your basic conclusion:
>>"authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
>>mind" is a folly.
> Well, here we go again. If we attempt to draw generalized conclusions
> based on one composer, then I think a trip back to logic 101 is in
> order for a lot of us.
> As for Toscanini, on one of the few occasions when he spoke about the
> most fundamental aesthetic principles he appreciated in performances
> of music, he mentioned unity, clarity, and other factors, but none of
> those add up to "objectivism," so as to his being a priest of that
> cult, it doesn't add up.
And this discussion ignores the battle of performing aesthetics between
Wagner and Brahms. Wagner was a promoter of variable free tempi while
Brahms insisted on rather strict observance of tempi. Yet most here would
lump them as part of the "Austro-Germanic subjectivists."
MTaboada
<<I suspect so. I remember reading somewhere a story about Brahms, when
asked about tempi by a pianist who was about to play one of his
concerti, saying: "It doesn't matter how fast it is; just make sure it's
beautiful.">>
If I read history correctly, before the 20th century, a composer
expected the performers to be able to understand his music by
themselves, with a lot of freedom involved as long as the result pleased
the listeners. In other words, a hedonistic approach. I like it. You can
hear this in the recordings of guys like Kreisler, Bauer, Rosenthal,
etc.
Regards,
MrT
John Grabowski
John
--
To tell you the truth, if Oliver Stone had wanted Pat Nixon to wear a
G-String and swing from a chandelier, I would have played it that way.
-Actress Joan Allen
Spammers: I don't need a work-at-home business, a ground-floor
investment opportunity or Viagra, thank you.
vaneyes
performance that mirrors what the composer had in mind' is a folly,
because one thing the composer had in mind was that different
performers would play his music differently."
Yes, the keystone to interpretation, and evidenced by Mahler's
own "changes" of scores, usually subtle adjustments in
dynamics...coloring, some said.
Regards
paulgo...@my-deja.com
always found it
> interesting that the Mahler recorded performances left by conductors
who knew
> and worked with Mahler (Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Fried, and
Scherchen)
> are all so different from each other. (I don't count F. Charles
Adler because
> although he did know and work with Mahler, he did not have the kind of
> important international conducting career that the others had and may
not have
> been as proficient a conductor). Scherchen did not work with Mahler
as a
> conductor, but he played, I believe, in an orchestra under Mahler's
direction
The notes in the Millennium Classics issue of Scherchen's VSOO
performance of Mahler's 7th state that Scherchen played viola in what I
believe (I don't have the disc in front of me right now) was the
premiere of the piece. If it wasn't the premiere, it was an early
performance led by Mahler. The experience is said to have rocked young
Hermann's world.
--
Paul Goldstein
Matthew B. Tepper
<20001130022630...@ng-fv1.aol.com>:
>Does anyone else get the feeling that we are due for a new period of
>interpretive style, a reaction against objectivism and the sanctity of
>the score? I think it may be the answer to revitalizing audience interest
>in performance of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries, at least.
Unfortunately, there *is* now a "new period of interpretive style"; it's
called "dumbing down," and includes but it not limited to:
"Baby Loves Berwald," "Prokofiev for the Potty," and that kind of stuff;
the sort of "big label" marketing which insists that even a homogeneous CD
collection of similar works all by the same composer requires a TITLE;
the disturbing rise of "mockera" acts such as Bocelli, Church, Giordano,
and whatever horrors may be next;
the usurpation, in the most visible public venues, of classical music
performances by pop megastars (c.f. televised Grammy Awards a couple years
back with Aretha Franklin whoa-yeahing and whoop-whooing through "Nessun
dorma" because Pavarotti was allegedly sick).
the marketing of classical music performers for their bodies (especially
the females) rather than their musicianship, if any;
and most especially, the strident and well-publicized "defense" of all of
the foregoing atrocities, and probably more, against the true lovers and
defenders of our preferred music, abetted by the scornful and prejudicial
terms "snob," "purist," and other slanderous labels.
Discuss.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
"Compassionate Conservatism?" * "Tight Slacks?" * "Jumbo Shrimp?"
Richard Sauer
In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
> > should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of
"fidelity to
> > the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer
had in
> > mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that
different
> > performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no
playwright
> > would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first
performed,
> > perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>
> > Henry Fogel
It is interesting that Mr. Fogel chooses the playwright. The liberties taken
with theater classics far exceed those taken with musical masterpieces.
Hamlet is routinely performed with cuts-often big cuts, but Mahler's 9th is
performed complete. Scherchen recorded Mahler's 5th with cuts and the
reaction of most listeners is outrage. King Lear is cut and most people
accept it. When a director edits a play or a conductor edits a symphony it
is usually for interpretative reasons (money would be the other reason),
which raises the question of the limits of interpretation. While many
listeners accept Barbirolli's or Karajan's Mahler 5th , different as they
are, they stop short of Scherchen's because he's gone too far. Apparently
there are limits...
R.Sauer
K. Howson-Jan
securely first. I agree with this, but ... What I hear of the moralist Walter and
the immoral Klemperer in their recorded performances usually date 40 years or later
from Mahler's death. I would take it as a given that each of these conductor's
performance would have undergone at least subtle change (and I think some of the
differences between them is subtle) over that time period. Call this musical
evolution, in the sense that the DNA of the musical conception passed from mentor
to pupil probably has undergone mutation over time, and the product we hear is a
reflection of that process.
So, to make Henry's case stronger, I would ask "Is there evidence from Walter's or
Klemperer's memoirs wherein the pupil states that he plays this passage or that
symphony in his way because Mahler had coached or taught him to do it this way or
that (and similarly, the other pupil was instructed differently for the same
piece)?" If there is such evidence, then to my mind, Henry's point is not open to
argument.
BTW, I was somewhat surprised at those Welte-Mignon piano roll recordings of Mahler
playing Mahler. Leaving aside the mechanical doubts and questions, the tempi that
Mahler played his music at the piano should make us rethink how we listen to those
particular movements.
Kang
Brendan R. Wehrung
> This is tangential to the Mengelberg/Mahler 4th thread. I have always found it
> interesting that the Mahler recorded performances left by conductors who knew
> and worked with Mahler (Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Fried, and Scherchen)
> are all so different from each other. (I don't count F. Charles Adler because
> although he did know and work with Mahler, he did not have the kind of
> important international conducting career that the others had and may not have
> been as proficient a conductor). Scherchen did not work with Mahler as a
Hold on a moment. I hold no torch for F. Charles Adler but, especially
in the days of 78's, proficiency or fame were not always the criteria for
getting recorded. Pierro Coppola could have had a larger career had he
chosen to assert himself on the international stage, and I'm sure many
readers here will have a favorite who recorded little but well. This
doesn't bear exctly on the topic, but to single out only Scherchen
over Adler because he had the good luck to achieve a number of recordings
is to apply a false standard. By this logic Fried should be ranked below
Adler. I ask, rather, what insights, however filtered through personality
and ability to realize the vision in front of an orchestra (to put it
bluntly, could he make them do what he wanted--even play beyond the
ensembles perceived limits, the mark of almost all "great" conductors) can
be garnered from the any musican's recorded legacy. I'll throw the ball
back in your court: does one transcendent recording raise Fried above Adler?
Brendan
rkha...@adnc.com
ra...@my-deja.com
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in
those four is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers
from his era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted
but
> perhaps even encouraged.
It implies nothing of the kind, Henry, and you should know better. In
the first place, there's no logical reason to generalize and apply to
an era a selective, specific observation based on a single composer's
works and performances of a few of his "disciples." Second, all you are
doing is stating a truism: that musical notation itself contains
inherent ambiguities; that composers accepted (indeed celebrated) these
ambiguities in their works; and that any composer with the slightest
ambition to be performed knew perfectly well that his works would be
subject to "interpretation." Big deal. And your assigning this sense of
interpretive "freedom" to the 19th century is simply wrong-headed. The
circumstances of performance and local variation from place to place of
18th century music (and before) make the 19th century look like a model
of historical rectitude. In fact, historically speaking, the 19th
century was a period of unprecidented notational precision and
scholarly propriety compared to what had gone before. Nothing that
Wagner, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, or Liszt ever did or sanctioned compares,
for example, to taking the slow movement of Beethoven's Seventh and
inserting it into the Eighth; or eliminating wholesale wind or trumpet
and drum parts from Haydn's symphonies; or inserting arias either
specially composed or from other people's operas into whatever was
being performed that evening. Monteverdi didn't even score his operas
because he had no idea what resources a local theater had. Wagner built
a theater to his own specifications specifically to insure proper
performance of his works "according to his intentions." Nor do I see a
lot of today's conductors running around with a score in hand
saying "It's all in the score. I just follow the score." No one does
that; the HIP people don't do it. Toscanini didn't do it. Similarly, I
don't know any conductor either today or from the past who would deny
that the authority to do what he does arises from the score.
In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
> should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept
of "fidelity to
> the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the
composer had in
> mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that
different
> performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no
playwright
> would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first
performed,
> perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the
inflections!
Wrong again, Henry. The fact that a composer knows that his music will
be interpreted does not in any way invalidate the performer's
obligation first, to study the printed text, and second, to use his
creative gift to devine what the performer believes to the the
composer's true intentions to the extent possible. The fact that the
result of this process may result in widely differing performances from
one performer to the next is irrelevant. That argument is nothing but a
red-herring, unless you deny that different interpretations can result
in visions of the work which are equally valid, equally sanctioned by
the text, and to that extent equally "what the composer had in mind."
To say that the concept of "fidelity to the score" is "folly" insults
the intelligence of performers everywhere. What matters is that the
performer is able to bring his whole being to the performance of the
work in question. Some performers view themselves as co-creators and
place themselves on the same level as the composer, justifying their
interpretive preferences by virtue of their own ability and insight.
Others feel they need to derive authority for their interpretations
from scholarly authorities, reference to the score, studies of
historical circumstances of initial performance, etc. Neither way
is "more valid" than the other, and what matters, in the final
analysis, is what the performance sounds like, not the theory or
justification that the performers use to arrive at their interpretation.
Dave Hurwitz
Brendan R. Wehrung
necessity--the music, new at the time, would never be played if not for
its creator on the podium.
Query: if the conductor was really good (Mahler, in this case) was he more
(or less) tolerant of variations from his "norm"?
Brendan
William A. Dirks (dirk...@ms14.hinet.net) writes:
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 22:11:18 -0800, Ramon Khalona <rkha...@adnc.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>As a conductor and musician, I view Mahler as far different from those priests of
>>objectivism (e.g., Toscanini). I am willing to bet that if we had had the fortune
>>to obtain recordings of Mahler conducting his symphonies, we would have had
>>significant differences in different performances of the same pieces, with perhaps
>>a unifying theme (call it passion, grandeur, or whatever you choose). I agree with
>>your basic conclusion:
>>"authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
>>mind" is a folly.
>
> Well, here we go again. If we attempt to draw generalized conclusions
> based on one composer, then I think a trip back to logic 101 is in
> order for a lot of us.
>
> As for Toscanini, on one of the few occasions when he spoke about the
> most fundamental aesthetic principles he appreciated in performances
> of music, he mentioned unity, clarity, and other factors, but none of
> those add up to "objectivism," so as to his being a priest of that
> cult, it doesn't add up.
>
rkha...@adnc.com
ck...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Brendan R. Wehrung) wrote:
>
> Query: if the conductor was really good (Mahler, in this case) was he
more
> (or less) tolerant of variations from his "norm"?
>
I think personality probably has more to do with this than whether the
composer was a performer or not.
RK
Clovis Lark
> Some composers were also conductors of their own works out of
> necessity--the music, new at the time, would never be played if not for
> its creator on the podium.
> Query: if the conductor was really good (Mahler, in this case) was he more
> (or less) tolerant of variations from his "norm"?
From whom? The players under him? Other conductors?
Simon Roberts
: But moreso, does it not imply the possibility that
: > the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in
: those four is
: > perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers
: from his era
: > and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted
: but
: > perhaps even encouraged.
: It implies nothing of the kind, Henry, and you should know better. In
: the first place, there's no logical reason to generalize and apply to
: an era a selective, specific observation based on a single composer's
: works and performances of a few of his "disciples."
He merely said that it implies "the possibility" that this is the case.
And since this was an era which wasn't literalist, and given the wide
range of interpretations sanctioned by other composers (and provided by
composers themselves), the possibility in question seems quite reasonable.
There's no reason to suppose that the attitude Henry attributes to Mahler
was unique, is there?
Second, all you are
: doing is stating a truism: that musical notation itself contains
: inherent ambiguities; that composers accepted (indeed celebrated) these
: ambiguities in their works; and that any composer with the slightest
: ambition to be performed knew perfectly well that his works would be
: subject to "interpretation." Big deal.
Perhaps; but if it's a truism, why are you purporting to disagree with it?
And your assigning this sense of
: interpretive "freedom" to the 19th century is simply wrong-headed. The
: circumstances of performance and local variation from place to place of
: 18th century music (and before) make the 19th century look like a model
: of historical rectitude.
Right; but it hardly follows that nineteeth century scores weren't
ambiguous - they may be more detailed, but they're still imprecise. Henry
made no comment at all about earlier periods. So what did Henry say that
is "simply wrong-headed"?
: Nor do I see a
: lot of today's conductors running around with a score in hand
: saying "It's all in the score. I just follow the score." No one does
: that; the HIP people don't do it. Toscanini didn't do it.
No, but he said he did it, and lots of early HIPsters - and others - said
they did it too.
: In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
: > should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept
: of "fidelity to
: > the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the
: composer had in
: > mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that
: different
: > performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no
: playwright
: > would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first
: performed,
: > perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the
: inflections!
: Wrong again, Henry. The fact that a composer knows that his music will
: be interpreted does not in any way invalidate the performer's
: obligation first, to study the printed text, and second, to use his
: creative gift to devine what the performer believes to the the
: composer's true intentions to the extent possible. The fact that the
: result of this process may result in widely differing performances from
: one performer to the next is irrelevant.
It would be if one accepted the truth of literalism. But the Henry's
point is that literalism isn't true. Thus to merely assert literalism
(which you just did above), rather than to justify it, begs the question.
Whence arises this obligation?
: To say that the concept of "fidelity to the score" is "folly" insults
: the intelligence of performers everywhere. What matters is that the
: performer is able to bring his whole being to the performance of the
: work in question.
Perhaps; but the score isn't "the work in question," merely a blue-print
for its realization. Why does it insult performers' intelligence to
suggest that there's more to making music than adhering to the letter of
the score and that composers didn't expect uniform adherence? One may
disagree with this understanding of what music is, but why is this
understanding insulting? (If it insults anyone, it's surely composers, not
musicians.)
Some performers view themselves as co-creators and
: place themselves on the same level as the composer, justifying their
: interpretive preferences by virtue of their own ability and insight.
: Others feel they need to derive authority for their interpretations
: from scholarly authorities, reference to the score, studies of
: historical circumstances of initial performance, etc. Neither way
: is "more valid" than the other, and what matters, in the final
analysis, is what the performance sounds like, not the theory or
: justification that the performers use to arrive at their interpretation.
I think I agree with that last sentence, but I'm surprised you do, given
the literalism you espouse.
: Dave Hurwitz
Welcome back!
Simon
Craig Wallace
such posthumous fame etc.
Because in the often extremely varied interpretations he could give at
different times (1950/52 "Eroica"s for example) perhaps we see a perfect
argument for the universality of both great music and great musicianship.
Craig
Sydney
* in relation to Henry's original posting and points.
sbring <sven....@svekom.se> wrote in message
news:904vfd$fcc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Raymond Hall
news:20001129234104...@ng-ff1.aol.com...
> This is tangential to the Mengelberg/Mahler 4th thread. I have always
found it
> interesting that the Mahler recorded performances left by conductors who
knew
> and worked with Mahler (Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Fried, and
Scherchen)
> are all so different from each other. (I don't count F. Charles Adler
because
> although he did know and work with Mahler, he did not have the kind of
> important international conducting career that the others had and may not
have
> been as proficient a conductor). Scherchen did not work with Mahler as a
direction
> (I may be remembering that incorrectly). The other four, Walter,
Klemperer,
> Mengelberg and Fried, all worked on Mahler's scores with him in some
fashion or
> another, and yet all four differ so much from each other that it is
amazing.
>
will
> in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own
musical
> instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility
that
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those
four is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his
era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
and
> should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of "fidelity
to
> the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer
had in
> mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that
different
> performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no
playwright
> would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>
different conductor's viewpoint of a score (which doesn't convey a fraction
of the different nuances that can be exercised), that even the composer (or
many) knew exactly how their scores should ideally sound or be interpreted.
There is the well-known anecdote of RVW listening to a rehearsal of his 4th
symphony, where he said something like, " .. I am not sure I like it, but is
almost what I meant ...". Basically, even he, wasn't that sure.
I am sure the same applies to many other composers. They attempt to realise
something, but in the end, finish the work to commence on a new one, or in
Mahler's case a new season of conducting engagements. My opinion is, that
too many people think that the composer *achieves* a work he has created, as
closely and as he would have really *intended*.
My 2c worth.
Regards,
# Classical Music WebSite Links (mostly RMCR) :
http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/tassiedevil2.htm
# Main Page, To Conductors, Jazz Songstresses :
http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
Ray, Sydney
paulgo...@my-deja.com
ra...@my-deja.com wrote:
Rave-at-one? Ravel misspelled?
--
Paul Goldstein
Tony Duggan
Richard Sauer <chon...@home.com> wrote in message
news:s3wV5.97608$U46.3...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
> It is interesting that Mr. Fogel chooses the playwright. The liberties
taken
> with theater classics far exceed those taken with musical masterpieces.
> Hamlet is routinely performed with cuts-often big cuts, but Mahler's 9th
is
> performed complete. Scherchen recorded Mahler's 5th with cuts and the
> reaction of most listeners is outrage. King Lear is cut and most people
> accept it. When a director edits a play or a conductor edits a symphony
it
> is usually for interpretative reasons (money would be the other reason),
> which raises the question of the limits of interpretation. While many
> listeners accept Barbirolli's or Karajan's Mahler 5th , different as they
> are, they stop short of Scherchen's because he's gone too far. Apparently
> there are limits...
Remember Scherchen also recorded Mahler 5 complete. Ever the awkward squad,
old Hermann !
Tony Duggan,
England
Tony Duggan
<paulgo...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:905v84$8hu$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> The notes in the Millennium Classics issue of Scherchen's VSOO
> performance of Mahler's 7th state that Scherchen played viola in what I
> believe (I don't have the disc in front of me right now) was the
> premiere of the piece. If it wasn't the premiere, it was an early
> performance led by Mahler. The experience is said to have rocked young
> Hermann's world.
No, it was the first Berlin performance in 1911 and it was conducted by
Oskar Fried. Scherchen was only 13 when the Fifth was premiered.
Scherchen never knew Mahler at all.
Tony Duggan,
England.
Tony Duggan
news:20001129234104...@ng-ff1.aol.com...
> Scherchen did not work with Mahler as a
> conductor, but he played, I believe, in an orchestra under Mahler's
direction
> (I may be remembering that incorrectly).
No, I think you are thinking of Scherchen playing in the first Berlin
performance of the Fifth under Oskar Fried in 1911. Scherchen never knew
Mahler.
--
Tony Duggan, England.
tony....@ukgateway.net
Mahler recordings survey:
http://www.musicweb.uk.net/Mahler/index.html
Alain Dagher
> I am certain that no playwright
> would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
Interesting analogy: a written play is like a musical score in that it needs
interpretation. A line can be said in many ways, each of which conveys different
emotional meanings.
The self-evident fact that the artist's precise intentions are not contained in the
score doesn't alter the fact that the artists had intentions.
If I put on a production of "Miss Julie" as a bedroom farce, is that a valid
interpretation? That the play is itself ambiguous does not mean that all
interpretations are valid.
And some playwrights do expect tremendous fidelity. Samuel Beckett was famous for
trying to prevent performances of his plays that violated his explicit directions.
In opera more than in symphonic music, interpretation is often controversial. In
fact, I don't think I've ever seen Peter Sellars' name without the adjective
"controversial". I bet many of the respondents to this thread dislike productions
that turn Violetta into a dominatrix or portray Don Giovanni as a TV game show host
or whatever. So there are "limits" to interpretation.
I think an interpretation becomes egregious when it clearly violates the basic
intention of the artist.
To take another example of interpretation: suppose two people decide to translate a
poem from Russian to English. Now suppose that both peope were friends of the poet,
and both poets themselves. One might think that their translations would have some
sort of "authority" (in the same way that Klemperer, Walter and Mengelberg are
assumed to be Mahlerian authorities). Suppose further that the two translations
were different, not just in the details, but in fact in their emotional tone (which
is very possible). Does that mean, as you suggest, that there is no single "truth".
That our poet friend wouldn't care one way or another which translation one read,
as you seem to say with Mahler? That if the poem can be translated as either
wistfully sad or ironic, the poet didn't really intend to have the poem say
anything in particular - as long as it sounded good? As long as people liked it (as
someone else suggested)? When the poor guy probably struggled over every word!
cheers,
Alain
ra...@my-deja.com
There's no reason to assume that Mahler had any attitude at all based
on what a few conductors who may have known him (or played under him)
did (on recorded evidence) decades after his death, and there's even
less reason to assume that this quality (whatever it is) was typical of
an entire era. My point is simply that what Fried, Walter, Mengelberg
et al may or may not have done says nothing about Mahler's own attitude
towards performances of his music; it certainly says a great deal less
than the printed score, which we know comes direct from the composer,
without intermediary.
>
> Second, all you are
> : doing is stating a truism: that musical notation itself contains
> : inherent ambiguities; that composers accepted (indeed celebrated)
these
> : ambiguities in their works; and that any composer with the slightest
> : ambition to be performed knew perfectly well that his works would be
> : subject to "interpretation." Big deal.
>
> Perhaps; but if it's a truism, why are you purporting to disagree
with it?
I disagree with the nature of the argument as Henry frames it; the
logic which leads from his observation of what some conductors did to
what a composer may have thought, or sanctioned, and from that to what
other composers or artists of the same era may have thought or
sanctioned, is missing.
>
> And your assigning this sense of
> : interpretive "freedom" to the 19th century is simply wrong-headed.
The
> : circumstances of performance and local variation from place to
place of
> : 18th century music (and before) make the 19th century look like a
model
> : of historical rectitude.
>
> Right; but it hardly follows that nineteeth century scores weren't
> ambiguous - they may be more detailed, but they're still imprecise.
Henry
> made no comment at all about earlier periods. So what did Henry say
that
> is "simply wrong-headed"?
I never said they weren't ambiguous. What I said was that the trend
throughout the 19th century is towards ever greater precision, and
given this fact (which I should think is pretty much beyond dispute),
might we not construe the composer's intentions, especially one as
painstaking as Mahler, away from greater interpretive latitude? And
yes, I know he said that "If anything after my death doesn't sound
right, change it," or words to that effect. This of course says nothing
about what "sounding right" means, or under what circumstances
such "changes" would meet with Mahler's approval.
But beyond that, there's still the question of just how different the
performances Henry cites really are, and how much
interpretive "freedom" is on offer. Unlike Henry, I am not especially
struck by the range of interpretations. As usual, there is a tendency
here to read huge significance into variations in tempo and (to a
lesser extent) phrasing or inflexion. Making allowances for such
factors as the limitations of recording technology over the period in
question, local performance standards, individual musical contributions
of the various orchestral musicians, each conductor's depth of
acquaintance with Mahler himself, and with Mahler's own interpretations
or vision of the specific work, number of rehearsals leading up to each
recording, the consequent extent to which every unique feature of the
recording represents the conductors' personal vision of the piece
(something which we cannot know unless we were there with the specific
purpose of noting such details), and the numerous imponderables that
can influence a performance from one day to the next, I would contend
that (a) the "differences" between these various performances aren't in
fact all that significant; and that (b) they change nothing about the
effect or "meaning" of the work itself in any case, and (c) to lay all
of these differences at the conductor's door in any respect save with
regard to tempo and ensemble cohesion is to vastly overestimate what
most conductors do and give them far too much credit for the results
they obtain. After all, the notes are the same, the order of movements
is the same, the dynamics, phrasing and balances are largely the same.
The music isn't reorchestrated, transposed, cut, or otherwise altered
in any significant way (save perhaps by Scherchen, whose eccentricities
in this regard extended well beyond what he did to Mahler, so there's
nothing directly related to his "Mahler experience" going on there).
Henry is "wrong-headed" because he is attributing solely to the
conductor, and to no one else or no other factors, the sum total of
what one hears, and generalizing from this non-fact. Remember that a
conductor is a collaborative artist, not a soloist, and that in the
case of recordings, not just the orchestra, but the recording producer
and technical factors also form a significant part of the musical
experience. To infer anything about a composer's state of mind, not to
mention the interpretive stance of an entire era, from such
documentary "evidence" seems to me much more of a "folly" than to
postulate the concept of fidelity to the score as the basis for musical
performance.
>
> : Nor do I see a
> : lot of today's conductors running around with a score in hand
> : saying "It's all in the score. I just follow the score." No one does
> : that; the HIP people don't do it. Toscanini didn't do it.
>
> No, but he said he did it, and lots of early HIPsters - and others -
said
> they did it too.
This is a gross oversimplification; you know it, Henry knows it. The
proof is in the performances themselves, and Toscanini was as quick as
anyone to diddle a score to secure the effects he was looking for (more
so, in fact, than Furtwangler, who seems to me to treat the letter of
score textually speaking with much more respect than most conductors of
his era, however free his tempos and phrasing). HIPsters do the same,
whatever justification they claim for it. As I said, this is nothing
but a straw man setting forth the argument in terms of extremes (total
fidelity to the score vs. comparative "freedom") that no real world,
practicing musician would recognize, whatever they may say when being
badgered into justifying their interpretive choices or philosophy.
The above is not "an assertion of literalism." The second half of my
description of a performer's obligation is, in fact, just the opposite.
We all accept that notation contains ambiguities; given this
fact, "literalism," as you state, is impossible, and therefore so is
Henry's apparent contention that there are conductors or other
musicians running around waving their scores in the air and saying that
there is no such thing as interpretation as long as you play the
score "literally." Don't you think these people are smart enough to
figure this out? Really, guys, I would have though this argument died
with Stravinsky. All I have done above is describe what musicians
really do when they learn a piece of music. I don't think that any
practicing musician asks himself if literalism is true or not before
learning a work. What he does is this: he takes the score and studies
the hell out of it. Where it's ambiguous, he makes interpretive
decisions, based either on impulse, intuition, further study,
historical criteria, or some mixture of all of these. I leave the
philosophical implications of this fact, as well as the question of
whether he is "obliged" to do this (and what the performance would
sound like absent this obligation), to you and Henry.
>
> : To say that the concept of "fidelity to the score" is "folly"
insults
> : the intelligence of performers everywhere. What matters is that the
> : performer is able to bring his whole being to the performance of the
> : work in question.
>
> Perhaps; but the score isn't "the work in question," merely a blue-
print
> for its realization. Why does it insult performers' intelligence to
> suggest that there's more to making music than adhering to the letter
of
> the score and that composers didn't expect uniform adherence? One may
> disagree with this understanding of what music is, but why is this
> understanding insulting? (If it insults anyone, it's surely
composers, not
> musicians.)
>
Yes, the score is the work in question, or at least more of it than any
one performance. What varies is the individual's ability to realize the
work directly from the printed page. I don't have this ability, and I
suspect that most of us, even many professional musicians, don't, but I
also don't pretend that such a thing doesn't exist. In any case, the
score is more than just a blueprint, since it contains within its
inherently ambiguous notation all of the possibilities of every
performance that ever was or will be, and is thus more "complete" than
any single performance. It is the performance which is simply one
viewpoint, or snapshot, of the work itself. Obviously, if the work is
subject to performance from a number of interpretive angles or
approaches, then "the work" itself must be the sum total of all
performances it has ever had, and our personal understanding of what
the work is becomes the sum total of our individual experiences of it.
But we digress. Again, we must return to what Henry said: "the whole
concept of "fidelity to the score" and an "authentic performance that
mirrors what the composer had in mind" is folly..." I have never seen
any respectable musician formulate the problem of interpretation in
such a fashion. All musicians know that their perspective matters; that
composers expect performers to "interpret," and that the issue of
fidelity to the score as the justification for certain performance
choices does not alter the fact that these are ultimately personal
choices. The question is one of degree, and to state the matter in this
absolute form has absolutely nothing to do with the real-world practice
of making music. Whether this is insulting or not I leave to each
musician to decide for himself. You get the point.
> Some performers view themselves as co-creators and
> : place themselves on the same level as the composer, justifying their
> : interpretive preferences by virtue of their own ability and insight.
> : Others feel they need to derive authority for their interpretations
> : from scholarly authorities, reference to the score, studies of
> : historical circumstances of initial performance, etc. Neither way
> : is "more valid" than the other, and what matters, in the final
> analysis, is what the performance sounds like, not the theory or
> : justification that the performers use to arrive at their
interpretation.
> I think I agree with that last sentence, but I'm surprised you do,
given
> the literalism you espouse.
Who said anything about espousing literalism? That's you putting words
in my mouth. I say no such thing. Remember, one of my favorite
conductors is Stokowski! My whole point is that it's a matter of fine
shades and degrees, rather than absolutes, which is how Henry frames
his argument. The opposition between literalism and freedom is a false
one. Scores are not "literal" in the sense that they limit, constrict,
or restrain. When I follow a performance with a score in hand, I'm
always struck by how much more is there, compared to what I'm actually
hearing at any one time. Nothing is more "literal" than a recording: a
totally fixed, unalterable, identically repeatable experience. A score
represents options, possibilities, potential, the reason to experience
the work again and again, and there really is no such thing as
a "literal" interpretation (meaning limited only to what's "in the
score"). In fact, when we use the term, we usually mean
either "boring," or just the opposite of "literal": i.e. a failure to
realize what's really in the score, as evidenced by other performances
that do so realize what's there.
Take a topical example: Mengelberg, for instance, usually makes
everyone's "freedom" list. And yet his conductor's scores (and I've
seen several) are probably the most detailed of all. Every single stop,
start, distortion, and mannerism is meticulously notated in various
colored inks and clearly based on some observation he makes relative to
the basic text. There isn't a single spontaneous bar in any of his
later peformances. It was all carefully planned in advance. Is this
literal, or is it free? And you may recall our discussion of his cuts
in the finale of Tchaikovsky's Fifth, the result of which was a
fascinating attempt to justify them on the basis of what the composer
himself did, what his brother told Mengelberg to do, justifying same
with the composer's own SCORES that Mengelberg saw in Russia. Is this
scholarly pedantry, or interpretive license? In the final analysis,
everyone accepts that, absent a living composer unambiguously stating
his intentions in plain language, it is the score (and whatever other
relevant contemporary performance or biographical circumstances
pertain) that governs the fundamentals of interpretation. I do not view
this as "literalism." I call it the basics of what professional
musicians do, and no one understands this more than Henry.
A performer may believe that he is the literal incarnation of the
composer himself, or he may spend years of study of historical sources
before playing a note; he may take his inspiration from God, or from
Barenreiter. My point, Simon, is that in the real world it simply
doesn't matter. Performers perform, and they justify what they do in
various ways. If the result sounds great, then who are we to say that
their approach is inherently wrong or untrue?
>
> : Dave Hurwitz
>
> Welcome back!
Thanks. I saw this thread and the discussion seemed very interesting.
It's been fun.
Dave
>
> Simon
Simon Roberts
[snip]
: In opera more than in symphonic music, interpretation is often controversial. In
: fact, I don't think I've ever seen Peter Sellars' name without the adjective
: "controversial". I bet many of the respondents to this thread dislike productions
: that turn Violetta into a dominatrix or portray Don Giovanni as a TV game show host
: or whatever. So there are "limits" to interpretation.
I doubt that anyone disagrees with that. The disagreement lies over which
interpretations (don't) work, what the criteria are, and who sets them -
one of the answers of course being:
: I think an interpretation becomes egregious when it clearly violates the basic
: intention of the artist.
Simon
Brendan R. Wehrung
> Brendan R. Wehrung <ck...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>> Some composers were also conductors of their own works out of
>> necessity--the music, new at the time, would never be played if not for
>> its creator on the podium.
>
>> Query: if the conductor was really good (Mahler, in this case) was he more
>> (or less) tolerant of variations from his "norm"?
>
> From whom? The players under him? Other conductors?
>
Other conductors. As I recall, Mahler didn't lead all his first
performances, a clever bit of strategy if he hoped that his
carefully-prepared disciples would take their new-found knowledge on the
road and offer the music elsewhere. But what of performances by the
non-elect? If Weingartner took up a Mahler symphony (I don't know if he
did or not) and Mahler attended, would he have been tolerant of an
interpretation not like his own? What was the line of Brahms (?) after a
performance of one of his piano concertos, something like "so, it can be
played like that too" (in a dubious tone, I would imagine). Composers, as
a rule seem to have been happy to have *any* performances, but in the
special case where the composer was a skilled conductor, did the
imperative to be performed override the desire for a certain type of
interpretation?
Brendan
JRsnfld
>All I have done above is describe what musicians
really do when they learn a piece of music. I don't think that any
practicing musician asks himself if literalism is true or not before
learning a work. What he does is this: he takes the score and studies
the hell out of it....Where it's ambiguous, he makes interpretive
decisions, based either on impulse, intuition, further study,
historical criteria, or some mixture of all of these.<
Like Simon, I'm happy to see you contribute to the newsgroup again.
David, to me this paragraph seems to me is a perfectly good description of the
way today's musicians work, but I think it is demonstrably *not* the way
musicians worked prior to Stravinsky. I'm not saying there is a perfect break
in history, or that everyone worked one way or another. But I think you are
wrong to assert that Henry's point is based on nonfacts or on
oversimplification. There is documentary evidence that musicians in Mahler's
time, and Beethoven's too, did not work in the way you assert.
Take those Mengelberg scores you've looked at: they are full of (very colorful)
markings that have nothing to do with filling in ambiguities. They are
*additions* to Mahler's copious instructions (and we can all agree that Mahler
was a pathbreaking composer in the level of detail he included in his scores).
Mahler's score doesn't imply a need for tempo fluctuations. In our modernist,
20th century view, all the necessary fluctuations are printed in the score.
Additions or deletions from these markings in performances are routinely
subjected to critical derision today. But apparently Mengelberg didn't think
all the necessary fluctuations were in the score.
This isn't simply a matter of degree. Mengelberg's methods, spontaneous or
planned, are born of a different mental process of musical interpretation than
what you describe. At the very least, it is obvious that he could see
ambiguities where no modern musician would see ambiguities. I've never seen any
of Fried's scores, but his Mahler 2 recording is ample evidence, to me, that
his approach on these issues was far closer to Mengelberg's than to Abbado's.
I agree that we can't say for sure what Mahler would have done, based on what
we know about Walter, Mengelberg, et al. But we *can* say something based on
the piano rolls: they verify, on the issue of tempi, that Mahler's ideas about
interpretation were much more like Fried's or Mengelberg's than anyone active
on the podium today. His comments about Mengelberg's work and his own practices
imply that on other issues, like dynamics, instrumentation, balances, etc., he
was similarly acting in ways unimaginable today.
There were cultural assumptions at play that are simply not valid today.
There is a fundamental difference between musicians who say, "it's not in the
score, therefore we shouldn't do it"--as many conductors do today, and
musicians who probably would have quite unapologetically said "these are things
that never in scores but must be applied" as Mahler, Debussy, and others did.
There are other statements in your postings that surprise me given your
experience--most importantly on the role of the conductor in governing the
effect of a performance. We all know that ultimately it's the musicians, not
the conductor, who plays the notes. And I am usually quick to celebrate
individual (and collective) artistry in orchestras. These factors are critical
and should be obvious. Equally obvious, though is the effect a conductor has on
an orchestra. Anyone who is a Stokie admirer, as you are, knows how significant
his effect was on his orchestras. Compare the difference in sound between the
CSO under Giulini or Solti, in the same works in the same basic period--we're
not just talking about engineering here. The players themselves attest to the
way they altered their sound, their reeds, their style, to suit their
conductors (as is documented in that book, A Season with Solti).
"Collaborator" is a term that far underestimates the role of the conductor, as
you know. No more so than in the case of Mahler, who was hardly a
"collaborative" artist in a meaningful sense--he browbeat his "collaborators"
by force of will and intellect.
--Jeff
Matthew Silverstein
> [snip] I would contend
> that (a) the "differences" between these various performances aren't in
> fact all that significant; and that (b) they change nothing about the
> effect or "meaning" of the work itself in any case, and (c) to lay all
> of these differences at the conductor's door in any respect save with
> regard to tempo and ensemble cohesion is to vastly overestimate what
> most conductors do and give them far too much credit for the results
> they obtain. After all, the notes are the same, the order of movements
> is the same, the dynamics, phrasing and balances are largely the same.
> The music isn't reorchestrated, transposed, cut, or otherwise altered
> in any significant way (save perhaps by Scherchen, whose eccentricities
> in this regard extended well beyond what he did to Mahler, so there's
> nothing directly related to his "Mahler experience" going on there).
I think your point is well taken. That is, we always assume when we hear one
great performance of Mahler 4 followed by a boring, lackluster performance
that is the conductor's doing--that so-and-so is a great Mahler conductor
while thus-and-such is a poor Mahler conductor. And I certainly agree that
there is a lot more that goes into a good (or bad) performance than a good (or
bad) conductor. In other words, I agree that the conductor should never get
all of the credit or all of the blame.
At the same time, I think perhaps you are understating the conductor's
influence, especially when it comes to mammoth, late-Romantic works like
Mahler's symphonies. Mengelberg clearly has a vision of Mahler 4 (what it's
about and the way it should sound), and even if the differences between his
performance and others are not gargantuan, they remain significant. I can be
incredibly moved by one performance and incredibly bored by another, and at
times it's hard to pick out just why that is the case. Often, I think it's a
good conductor that makes the difference. Is it the only difference? Of course
not, but I don't think one should underplay the importance.
Simon wrote (about being literal):
> No, but he said he did it, and lots of early HIPsters - and others -
> said they did it too.
David replied:
> This is a gross oversimplification; you know it, Henry knows it. The
> proof is in the performances themselves, and Toscanini was as quick as
> anyone to diddle a score to secure the effects he was looking for (more
> so, in fact, than Furtwangler, who seems to me to treat the letter of
> score textually speaking with much more respect than most conductors of
> his era, however free his tempos and phrasing). HIPsters do the same,
> whatever justification they claim for it.
Taruskin has already shown very conclusively just how poorly most early
HIPsters fulfilled their promises of authenticity and fidelity. But Simon's
point was not that these musicians succeeded, but that they made the claims in
the first place. We may all know now that Toscanini didn't merely play it as
written, but that certainly seems to have been his reputation at the time,
especially when compared to "subjectivist" conductors like Furtwängler. The
same goes for the HIPsters. They made their name by promising to deliver more
Beethoven and less, say, Karajan, and people--to at least some extent--bought
into these promises.
Perhaps it's true that--to some extent--HIPsters were "badgered" into
justifying their choices, and that this led them to make those outlandish
claims. But that hardly seems true of Toscanini, who was pretty much at the
peak of the musical world; he surely did not need to justify his performances
to anyone. But I think that you're probably mischaracterising the nature of
the early HIP movement. People may have started to play on old instruments
because they were curious or because they liked the sound, but that also did
so out of at least some conviction that they were doing something "right."
> The above is not "an assertion of literalism." The second half of my
> description of a performer's obligation is, in fact, just the opposite.
> We all accept that notation contains ambiguities; given this
> fact, "literalism," as you state, is impossible, and therefore so is
> Henry's apparent contention that there are conductors or other
> musicians running around waving their scores in the air and saying that
> there is no such thing as interpretation as long as you play the
> score "literally." Don't you think these people are smart enough to
> figure this out? Really, guys, I would have though this argument died
> with Stravinsky. All I have done above is describe what musicians
> really do when they learn a piece of music. I don't think that any
> practicing musician asks himself if literalism is true or not before
> learning a work. What he does is this: he takes the score and studies
> the hell out of it. Where it's ambiguous, he makes interpretive
> decisions, based either on impulse, intuition, further study,
> historical criteria, or some mixture of all of these. I leave the
> philosophical implications of this fact, as well as the question of
> whether he is "obliged" to do this (and what the performance would
> sound like absent this obligation), to you and Henry.
A point you're ignoring, though, is that many musicians make "interpretive
decisions" even when the score is not ambiguous. Barenboim's set of Beethoven
symphonies--a set of which you are very fond--is full of them. And I don't
just mean rubato. He tweaks dynamics all over the place (and he occassionally
re-orchestrates, although only following "tradition"). Some conductors and
musicians have no problem making such choices (Robert Levin, Barenboim,
Mahler--in his re-orchestrations of Schumann). Now, all of these musicians may
believe that they are "doing the composer service" by making such changes, but
they are really just saying this: "The music sounds better this way, and I'm
sure Beethoven would have wanted it to sound better."
Again, some musicians feel liscenced to make such changes, and others do not.
There is a *real* difference here, not an imagined one.
> Yes, the score is the work in question, or at least more of it than any
> one performance. What varies is the individual's ability to realize the
> work directly from the printed page. I don't have this ability, and I
> suspect that most of us, even many professional musicians, don't, but I
> also don't pretend that such a thing doesn't exist. In any case, the
> score is more than just a blueprint, since it contains within its
> inherently ambiguous notation all of the possibilities of every
> performance that ever was or will be, and is thus more "complete" than
> any single performance.
(On a purely semantic note, this sounds like a blueprint to me . . .)
> But we digress. Again, we must return to what Henry said: "the whole
> concept of "fidelity to the score" and an "authentic performance that
> mirrors what the composer had in mind" is folly..." I have never seen
> any respectable musician formulate the problem of interpretation in
> such a fashion. All musicians know that their perspective matters; that
> composers expect performers to "interpret," and that the issue of
> fidelity to the score as the justification for certain performance
> choices does not alter the fact that these are ultimately personal
> choices. The question is one of degree, and to state the matter in this
> absolute form has absolutely nothing to do with the real-world practice
> of making music. Whether this is insulting or not I leave to each
> musician to decide for himself. You get the point.
I get the point, and I think it's a good one. It seems consistent with my
point above, that some musicians feel more inclined to be "faithful" than
others.
> In the final analysis,
> everyone accepts that, absent a living composer unambiguously stating
> his intentions in plain language, it is the score (and whatever other
> relevant contemporary performance or biographical circumstances
> pertain) that governs the fundamentals of interpretation. I do not view
> this as "literalism." I call it the basics of what professional
> musicians do, and no one understands this more than Henry.
Perhaps what Simon is suggesting is that--even if the face of a living
composer unambiguously stating his or her intentions in plain language--a
performer still has "the right" to disregard those intentions.
Matty
ra...@my-deja.com
"Matthew Silverstein" <matthew.silverstein@corpus-
I agree with this, in general. The question, obviously, is where to
draw the line (about which we could debate endlessly), and to stick
with the original point, we are talkng about Henry's theory that the
perceived "differences" between these interpretations reflect back on
both the composer's philosophy of performance and that of the entire
19th century, and that, it seems to me, is pushing the envelope way too
far given the quality and nature of the actual "evidence" on hand.
No, it is Simon who is mischaracterizing the HIP movement. In the first
place, there is a big difference between 'authenticity'
and 'literalism.' I don't know anyone who would claim for a moment that
the HIP movement asserts that "authenticity" is the product of a
literal interpretation of the bare text of a score. Just the opposite,
in fact. The essence of the HIP movement is not an assertion of the
literal truth of the text or score; it is the assertion that certain
rules or procedures for interpreting that which is NOT in the score can
be learned or acquired as the natural result of playing the instruments
of the period and through study of contemporary texts and sources. In
its very essence it is most concerned with interpretation and that
which is NOT notated, and textual fidelity, to the extent it exists, is
more the natural outcome of the study of contemporary sources, and
forms the basis for interpretation. Where the HIP movement goes too far
is when it asserts (a) that this approach is the "only" legitimate one
(thus irrationally limiting the music's own possibilities), and (b)
when it ignores its own premises in favor of an attempted recreation of
particular performances circumstances which may or may not have ever
existed, and which plainly contradict what the composer wrote (for
example, Hogwood's refusal to use trumpet and drum parts in Haydn
symphonies where they are later additions, even if in the composer's
own hand or sanctioned by him).
As to Toscanini, again, his reputation as a "literalist" is irrelevant,
as are out of context statements he may have made from time to time.
Many conductors when asked "how they did it" will say something like "I
just followed the score." But the real question is HOW they "just"
followed the score, and in Toscanini's case we know from what he
actually did in performance that his "literalism," if such it was, was
as personal a variety with as unique results as any other
interpreter's. In other words, he wasn't "literal" in the sense Simon
means at all. It's a fundamental mistake to take artists
words "literally" absent serious listening to what they actually did in
performance, and an even bigger mistake to give these statements more
credence than the music itself.
I agree completely. But the decision to make such changes is not made
in a vacuum; it is made after studying the score in an attempt to
divine the composer's intentions as embodied there, given the facts
that notation isn't perfect, composer's aren't either (either in terms
of their skill as writers of their own scores or as proof-readers), and
published texts tend to get corrupted over time and contain errors of
their own. Further, when Barenboim does something like retaining the
horns in the recapitulation of Beethoven 5/i, or the trumpets in the
coda of the the Eroica's first movement, in both instances because the
notes were not available on Beethoven's instrument (despite what the
score plainly says), he is doing so out of historical awareness of
contemporary performance practice. Again, is this "literalism"
or "freedom?" There isn't a single decision he makes that does not
arise from either (a) consideration of the score, (b) some concession
to the historical performance tradition of the music, and in either
case the result is a "literal" process as Simon would have it (because
it necessitates study of both the score and historical documents
reagrding performance practices). And you are taking my use of the
term "ambiguity" far too literally. I have never said that the score is
law, and that all notations contained therein must be observed to the
letter. What I maintain is that whatever an performer decides to do,
the score is the source of and basis of these decisions. I do not
dispute the right of a performer to disregard a composer's suggestions
with respect to dynamics or expression, but the practical fact is that
most performers do so in full knowledge of what they are disregarding,
and have good reasons for so doing whenever it happens. What they do
NOT do (in general) is say "I did it because it just sounds better to
me that way." The decision to meddle with the text is not one that most
performers take lightly, and you are wrong to reduce the process to a
mere whim based on the fact that "it sounds better to me this way." As
my Mengelberg example demonstrates, even the most wayward or capricious
interpreters will often defend themselves when pressed by referring to
the score or some similar "authority" to justify their decisions in all
matters beyond minor modifications of dynamics and expression such as
any composer would expect as a result of local or particular
performance circumstances, and to the extent they feel the need to
justify themselves at all, the process is a "literal" one as Simon
seems to want to define it.
A performer has the "right" to do anything he wants. That isn't the
issue. The issue, to get back to basics once again, is Henry's wrong-
headed contention that we may infer anything about Mahler's aesthetic
of performance and that of the entire 19th century from the documentary
evidence of a few recordings made decades after the man's death by
conductors who purportedly new the composer. My answer to this is
simple: the point makes logical, practical, and historical nonsense.
Nor is it necessary to go through such rational contortions when we
have Mahler's scores, which answer this question in a most satisfying
way. The composer's refusal to use metronome markings extensively
indicates that he accepted, or even encouraged, a certain flexibility
as regards tempo. That explains Henry's "differences." However, his
fanatically detailed notations regarding phrasing, balance, and
dynamics (to say nothing of his unique gifts as an orchestrator--his
genius in this area has never been surpassed) reveal a far less
flexible position in these respects, and a consequent overriding
concern for contrapuntal clarity above all else. These are facts. I
have never heard a performance of any Mahler symphony which captures
all of the detail contained in the scores (another fact which explains
Henry's "differences," and which raises another, very interesting point
we may discuss some other day: just how much "notation" can any
composer reasonably expect a peformer to realize on any given day). Any
adjustments the interpreter makes, therefor, should (ideally) further
these basic preferences as stated in the scores themselves. Why we need
to make "inferences" based on later sources when the scores themselves
are crystal clear and totally unambiguous in this respect is beyond me.
Dave
CosyFunnyTutu
Wehrung) wrote:
>Other conductors. As I recall, Mahler didn't lead all his first
>performances, a clever bit of strategy if he hoped that his
>carefully-prepared disciples would take their new-found knowledge on the
>road and offer the music elsewhere
He didn't? I recall he premiered all of his symphonies except #9 and
Das Lied von der Erde (for the obvious reason) and I don't recall his
orchestral songs were premiered by anyone else but Mahler.
CosyFunnyTutu
Roberts) wrote:
>I doubt that anyone disagrees with that
I do disagree. I don't like opera performances with actors/singers
acting like they are actors/singers in an opera performance some
century or so ago. Modernization at least takes away the camp aspect
of non-contemporary opera.
ra...@my-deja.com
jrs...@aol.com (JRsnfld) wrote:
> David Hurwitz writes:
>
> >All I have done above is describe what musicians
> really do when they learn a piece of music. I don't think that any
> practicing musician asks himself if literalism is true or not before
> learning a work. What he does is this: he takes the score and studies
> decisions, based either on impulse, intuition, further study,
> historical criteria, or some mixture of all of these.<
>
I think you are completely wrong, Jeff. First, to say that Mahler's
score doesn't imply tempo fluctuations is totally untrue (it is, in
fact, repleat with them: there are three in the first four bars alone,
and Mahler is known to have spoken in favor of such an approach to
conducting, though his own interpretations in this regard--as witnessed
by descriptions of his performances--evidently changed significantly
over time). Forget about Mengelberg, Fried, et al for a moment. How
about Mahler's Fourth conducted by Gatti, or Colin Davis? There's just
as much "stuff" going on in these performances as in Mengelberg's, and
to the extent there are differences, they ARE simply matters of degree.
(I like Davis and Mengelberg, by the way, and loathe Gatti). Second, I
don't think you or anyone else is in a position to say what the "mental
process" behind Mengelberg's interpretations was, or to compare it to
that of today's musicians. Such generalizations are meaningless. Third,
interpretation doesn't always involve "ambiguities" as you know
perfectly well. Performers will make choices that sometimes involve
disregarding the composer's clear notation, but as I note elsewhere,
they do not generally do so capriciously, and when asked will justify
such choices based on musical criteria or with reference to some
performance tradition or scholarly alternative. Either way, the text
governs.
So what can these recordings tell us about Mahler's own aesthetic (to
get back to Henry's original point)? Nothing. Did Davis and Gatti know
him personally? No. They worked from the score. Just as did the
conductors who actually knew Mahler. And whether you call Mengelberg's
notations additions or accretions, or whatever, the fact remains that
they all have their basis in the score, and they are moreover
systematic (that is, they consistently modify certain aspects of the
score), and not random. Mengelberg did not arrive at his interpretation
in a vacuum, but by careful study of and work with the score. This
issue is not one of "schools" or "zeitgeist," but rather what
individual performers do. It may be that there is less tempo
flexibility today, say, than in the 19th century (although 20 years'
experience playing in community orchestras leads me to doubt this), but
to say that today's artists don't "interpret" or concern themselves
with textual issues with every bit as much conviction or enthusiasm as
in the past is simply untrue. Equally untrue is Henry's assertion or
suggestion that personal acquaintance with the composer overrides the
plain facts contained in the printed text of the work in question, at
least to the extent that we may infer certain things about the
composer's aesthetic or that of the period in question.
>
> There is a fundamental difference between musicians who say, "it's
not in the
> score, therefore we shouldn't do it"--as many conductors do today,
Oh really? Like whom, for example, and how do you know that conductors
in the past did not say the same thing?
and
> musicians who probably would have quite unapologetically said "these
are things
> that never in scores but must be applied" as Mahler, Debussy, and
others did.
Like, for instance, Bernstein, and Szell, and Mackerras, and Dorati,
and Munch, and Segerstam, and Karajan, and Barenboim, and Gatti, and
Colin Davis, and Barbirolli, and Tilson Thomas, and....
The danger about the kinds of generalizations that Henry and you are
making is that they have a tendency to create a bias that prejudices
the listening experience. It may be true that, as a gross percentage,
more musicians today say "if it's not in the score, we shouldn't do
it," but the evidence of my own ears as someone constantly involved
listening to live and recorded performance tells me that the
differences, if they exist at all, aren't really all that significant.
It is, moreoever, ridiculous to compare a select few historical
recordings, chosen because of their uniqueness as representatives of a
particular aesthetic philosophy, to a random selection of modern
recordings chosen so as to reflect an alternate or opposite philosophy,
and then claim that either set is "representative" of an entire era.
You simply can't point to Furtwangler and Mengelberg and tell me that
they were any more "free" or "original" than Harnoncourt or
Celibidache. And I'll take any pianist of the "golden age" of demented
virtuosos and put him next to Argerich, Pogorelich, Pletnev, or
Mustonen today. By the same token, if I were to take as my "examplars"
of the 19th century aesthetic Pierre Monteux (who knew Brahms, after
all) and Victor de Sabata (never mind Toscanini), what would this tell
us about the aesthetics of the 19th century? What valid generalizations
would follow from their approach to tempo or the score?
>
> There are other statements in your postings that surprise me given
your
> experience--most importantly on the role of the conductor in
governing the
> effect of a performance. We all know that ultimately it's the
musicians, not
> the conductor, who plays the notes. And I am usually quick to
celebrate
> individual (and collective) artistry in orchestras. These factors are
critical
> and should be obvious. Equally obvious, though is the effect a
conductor has on
> an orchestra. Anyone who is a Stokie admirer, as you are, knows how
significant
> his effect was on his orchestras. Compare the difference in sound
between the
> CSO under Giulini or Solti, in the same works in the same basic
period--we're
> not just talking about engineering here. The players themselves
attest to the
> way they altered their sound, their reeds, their style, to suit their
> conductors (as is documented in that book, A Season with Solti).
Yes, that is undoubtedly true. A conductor "may," over time, have that
kind of influence over an orchestra. But we were talking specifically
about the examples that Henry cited vis-a-vis the extent to which each
conductor's performance reflects a legitimate interpretive view that
would have been espoused by Mahler. In general I agree with you; but in
this specific instance, my point is simply that in each case we must
ask the question: to what extent is each performance in question the
result of the conductor's and ONLY the conductor's view, because that
is how Henry frames the issue. Obviously, Mengelberg rates high on
the "personal view scale" (but then, of course, the question becomes
the extent to which this personal view may have found favor with
Mahler). With a conductor like Fried, on the other hand, whose work is
limited by (a) relative scarcity of surviving examples, and (b)
technical limitations of recording conditions, I think we are in a much
less secure position to make generalizations.
>
> "Collaborator" is a term that far underestimates the role of the
conductor, as
> you know. No more so than in the case of Mahler, who was hardly a
> "collaborative" artist in a meaningful sense--he browbeat
his "collaborators"
> by force of will and intellect.
But he was, in the final analysis, still at the mercy of his musicians.
The Vienna Philharmonic, after all, fired him. However much he may have
carried on, I think you exaggerate the effect of his presence on the
podium, and I believe "collaborator" expresses the relationship
accurately. Nevertheless, certain conductors may indeed exert greater
or lesser control over a performance, but the factors that lead to this
result are many, and generally not those considered or discussed in
this group. For example, perhaps the single most important
consideration governing the tenor a performance isn't what the
conductor does on the podium, but what parts the orchestra plays from.
A conductor like Beecham (or Mahler, or Stokowksi, or Karajan, or
Bernstein--and most of the really great ones known for their
unique "sound") almost always made orchestral musicians play from
unique sets of parts, and he was thus able to have a far greater impact
on the actual sound of the performance than would have been possible
through mere gestures from the podium (which really concern little more
than tempo, dynamics, and basic ensemble).
In other words, the printed text ALWAYS governs the essentials of the
performance. The idea that any conductor, even the most "free," simply
improvises his interpretation from the podium is total, utter nonsense,
as is Simon's persistent implication that "fidelity to the score" as a
form of "literalism" in in some way restrictive, inhibiting, or
detrimental to the free exercise of the performer's imagination in
creating an interpretation. It's amazing how easily people who really
should know better blithely ignore the fact that years of practical
performance experience, hours of rehearsal, painstaking marking of
parts, and years of study go into any decent conductor's
interpretation. And that's just from the conductor's end, and ignores
completely the training of the orchestra or ensemble which has nothing
at all to do with the specific performance at hand. If the result
sounds "free" and "spontaneous," that doesn't mean that the forethought
and planning isn't there. In fact, the opposite is usually the case.
My point, Jeff, isn't that conductor's don't exercise the kind of
control you cite. Some do. But it's interesting to me that you raise
the example of Solti: in other words, not a "historical" figure at all.
It seems to me that you've put your finger on the essential issue,
which is not what period a conductor comes from, but rather the extent
to which he is able to mold an ensemble in his own image over time.
This is, I believe, the real issue, and to the extent that this happens
less and less these days, we may really have lost something (though
this must be set against much higher performance standards in general
and the ever present possibility [not all that rare, in fact] that a
conductor will manage to "personalize" the performance in the time
allotted).
However, if this last observation is true, it is just as true with
respect to the many, many recordings made in the pre-war period by
conductors and orchestras having little familiarity with each other or
the music being recorded. Certainly there were just as many such
productions then as now (I just received for example Dutton's recent
transfers of Ansermet doing Stravinsky with the LPO, Prokofiev doing
his own Third Piano Concerto with Coppola alongside Koussevitsky's
prosaic Prokofiev Fifth, and Stoki's rather uninteresting Hollywood
Bowl Brahms 1--none particularly special). For every wonderful example
of that special orchestra/conductor relationship evidenced on records
from the past, I can cite just as many from the present, and similarly,
I could point out just as many duds from both periods.
This is why Henry is wrong to claim that we can make general
observations about Mahler and his period from the recordings he cites.
Further, as I state elsewhere, I believe that his framing of the issue
in extreme terms: "freedom of interpretation or flexibility"
vs. "playing the score as written to mirror the intentions of the
composer" says absolutely nothing about the reality of musical
performance, either today, or in the past.
Matthew Silverstein
[snip]
> There isn't a single decision he makes that does not
> arise from either (a) consideration of the score, (b) some concession
> to the historical performance tradition of the music, and in either
> case the result is a "literal" process as Simon would have it (because
> it necessitates study of both the score and historical documents
> reagrding performance practices). And you are taking my use of the
> term "ambiguity" far too literally. I have never said that the score is
> law, and that all notations contained therein must be observed to the
> letter. What I maintain is that whatever an performer decides to do,
> the score is the source of and basis of these decisions.
This sounds eminently reasonable.
> I do not
> dispute the right of a performer to disregard a composer's suggestions
> with respect to dynamics or expression, but the practical fact is that
> most performers do so in full knowledge of what they are disregarding,
> and have good reasons for so doing whenever it happens. What they do
> NOT do (in general) is say "I did it because it just sounds better to
> me that way." The decision to meddle with the text is not one that most
> performers take lightly, and you are wrong to reduce the process to a
> mere whim based on the fact that "it sounds better to me this way." As
> my Mengelberg example demonstrates, even the most wayward or capricious
> interpreters will often defend themselves when pressed by referring to
> the score or some similar "authority" to justify their decisions in all
> matters beyond minor modifications of dynamics and expression such as
> any composer would expect as a result of local or particular
> performance circumstances, and to the extent they feel the need to
> justify themselves at all, the process is a "literal" one as Simon
> seems to want to define it.
But I thought we should not pay attention to what people like Toscanini (or
Norrington) say when justifying their choices ("It's in the score," "Beethoven
wanted it this way." "His cousin mis-wrote the metronome mark."). That may be
Toscanini's excuse, but I suspect he altered the timpani parts in the finale
of Brahms 1 because he thought his way was better. Of course he has an
informed opinion, and this opinion is couched in the context of the rest of
the symphony, but it is nonetheless Toscanini deciding that he has the
"authority" to play the music with such an alteration. This is, on Toscanini's
part, a clear step away from the literalism which he preached, and it is a
step that many (if not most or all) contemporary conductors would never take.
What does all this mean? . . . I have no idea. We seem to have gotten off the
point, and I've lost track of the direction of the conversation.
Matty
ra...@my-deja.com
> But I thought we should not pay attention to what people like
Toscanini (or
> Norrington) say when justifying their choices ("It's in the
score," "Beethoven
> wanted it this way." "His cousin mis-wrote the metronome mark.").
That may be
> Toscanini's excuse, but I suspect he altered the timpani parts in the
finale
> of Brahms 1 because he thought his way was better. Of course he has an
> informed opinion, and this opinion is couched in the context of the
rest of
> the symphony, but it is nonetheless Toscanini deciding that he has the
> "authority" to play the music with such an alteration. This is, on
Toscanini's
> part, a clear step away from the literalism which he preached, and it
is a
> step that many (if not most or all) contemporary conductors would
never take.
Ah, but this, Matty, is where you are quite wrong. Most, if not all,
contemporary conductors ALWAYS diddle parts, even if it's merely a
matter of doubling winds here and there for purposes of balance, and
you'd be amazed what happens to percussion and timpani parts, even
today. I remember Neville Marriner (of all people) recording Dvorak's
Seventh with what sounded like a totally rewritten timpani part.
Conductors ALWAYS adjust orchestral parts, there's nothing unusual
about it at all, and in fact in the past ten years if anything I have
seen this trend increasing, not decreasing, and could cite quite a few
examples.
>
> What does all this mean? . . . I have no idea. We seem to have gotten
off the
> point, and I've lost track of the direction of the conversation.
>
Well, I did try to keep it focussed on what Henry originally wrote...
Roland van Gaalen
news:9074hb$6ec$2...@netnews.upenn.edu...
Yes and then we can have all these endless threads about which
interpretations are be more or less "egregious".
For all practical purposes this debate is totally pointless, since
"violations" of the artist's "basic intentions" will be impossible to prove,
and even if it could be established with logical rigor that (say) Caravan's
Handel recordings are wrong in every conceivable non-egregious
interpretation of what this criterion means, I would still reserve the right
to label them "Handel", if only for convenience.
--
Roland van Gaalen
Amsterdam
E-mail: R.P.vanGaalenATchello.nl (replace AT by @)
Sacqueboutier
> This is tangential to the Mengelberg/Mahler 4th thread. I have always found it
> interesting that the Mahler recorded performances left by conductors who knew
> and worked with Mahler (Walter, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Fried, and Scherchen)
> are all so different from each other. (I don't count F. Charles Adler because
> although he did know and work with Mahler, he did not have the kind of
> important international conducting career that the others had and may not have
> been as proficient a conductor). Scherchen did not work with Mahler as a
> conductor, but he played, I believe, in an orchestra under Mahler's direction
> (I may be remembering that incorrectly). The other four, Walter, Klemperer,
> Mengelberg and Fried, all worked on Mahler's scores with him in some fashion or
> another, and yet all four differ so much from each other that it is amazing.
>
> I think this argues a number of things. One, of course, is that conductors will
> in the end assert their own musical viewpoints and follow their own musical
> instincts; that is clear. But moreso, does it not imply the possibility that
> the kind of interpretive differences and freedom that we find in those four is
> perhaps precisely what Mahler (and, by inference, other composers from his era
> and the era from which he sprang, the 19th century) not only accepted but
> perhaps even encouraged. In other words, the performer's perspective is, and
> should be, an inherent part of music -- and the whole concept of "fidelity to
> the score" and an "authentic performance that mirrors what the composer had in
> mind" is a folly, because one thing the composer had in mind was that different
> performers would play his music differently. I am certain that no playwright
> would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>
> Henry Fogel
Bravo
--
AAAAAHHHHH! The atmosphere! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Don Patterson
* DCP Music Printing
* Professional Computer Music Typeset
* Music Arrangements
* don...@olg.com
* Trombonist
* "The President's Own"
* United States Marine Band
CosyFunnyTutu
<matthew.s...@corpus-christi.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
>But I thought we should not pay attention to what people like
Quoting out of context brings a refreshing new insight in what the
likes of Toscanini did.
Simon Roberts
: On 1 Dec 2000 03:05:15 GMT, si...@dept.english.upenn.edu (Simon
: Roberts) wrote:
: >I doubt that anyone disagrees with that
: I do disagree. I don't like opera performances with actors/singers
: acting like they are actors/singers in an opera performance some
: century or so ago. Modernization at least takes away the camp aspect
: of non-contemporary opera.
Evidently you don't disagree; the statement I was referring to was: "there
are "limits" to interpretation"....
Simon
JRsnfld
called "dumbing down," <
Matthew, I'm sure that "dumbing down" has reached new heights of sophistication
in our times. But I think of it as a symptom of what ails classical music
today, not the illness itself. If performers were able to reach wider
audiences, with deeper impact, on the basis of what happens in the ordinary
concert, the fuss over crossover marketing and the accusations of elitism would
be moot.
I'm not saying that performers are to blame, by the way, just that it's the
impression that music makes, in the hall, in the home, that governs what people
really think of classical music. The tastes of audiences may have changed, but
I don't think naive or educated listeners are unable to appreciate music on
their own.
The marketing is pure noise. For his time, Toscanini was marketed to the hilt,
and as result most people you talk to still think he was the ultimate (if they
don't still swoon over Ormandy). And they still think Toscanini was more
faithful to the score than anyone before or since. That's how he was sold. But
that's not why they loved him. In concert he (and Ormandy!) delivered almost
exactly what their audiences were looking for, anyway.
--Jeff
Simon Roberts
: In article <906pbv$avb$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: si...@dept.english.upenn.edu (Simon Roberts) wrote:
: My point is simply that what Fried, Walter, Mengelberg
: et al may or may not have done says nothing about Mahler's own attitude
: towards performances of his music; it certainly says a great deal less
: than the printed score, which we know comes direct from the composer,
: without intermediary.
Mahler's scores tell us absolutely nothing about Mahler's attitude to how
others should treat his scores or about the obligations of interpreters
generally. His scores tell us what he wants (if I can put it so crudely),
not how he thinks others should go about realizing them, the extent to
which they deserve respect, etc.
[snip]
: I never said they weren't ambiguous. What I said was that the trend
: throughout the 19th century is towards ever greater precision, and
: given this fact (which I should think is pretty much beyond dispute),
: might we not construe the composer's intentions, especially one as
: painstaking as Mahler, away from greater interpretive latitude?
That's certainly a plausible interpretation; but then again it might
merely reflect different expectations about performance. 18th century
composers, say, didn't write for posterity or even with the expectation
that someone else would perform their music; rather, their music was
contemporary and local, performed by native speakers (as it were). There
was thus less need to write out detailed instructions. It might also
reflect the relatively greater complexity of, say, Mahler's music.
And
: yes, I know he said that "If anything after my death doesn't sound
: right, change it," or words to that effect. This of course says nothing
: about what "sounding right" means, or under what circumstances
: such "changes" would meet with Mahler's approval.
Or whether it even occurred to him that his approval was required: sounds
right to whom, based on what criteria?
: But beyond that, there's still the question of just how different the
: performances Henry cites really are, and how much
: interpretive "freedom" is on offer. Unlike Henry, I am not especially
: struck by the range of interpretations. As usual, there is a tendency
: here to read huge significance into variations in tempo and (to a
: lesser extent) phrasing or inflexion. Making allowances for such
: factors as the limitations of recording technology over the period in
: question, local performance standards, individual musical contributions
: of the various orchestral musicians, each conductor's depth of
: acquaintance with Mahler himself, and with Mahler's own interpretations
: or vision of the specific work, number of rehearsals leading up to each
: recording, the consequent extent to which every unique feature of the
: recording represents the conductors' personal vision of the piece
: (something which we cannot know unless we were there with the specific
: purpose of noting such details), and the numerous imponderables that
: can influence a performance from one day to the next, I would contend
: that (a) the "differences" between these various performances aren't in
: fact all that significant; and that (b) they change nothing about the
: effect or "meaning" of the work itself in any case,
I agree with much of the above, and won't bother disputing (a) since
what's significant to you mightn't be significant to me, and vice versa.
But I disagree with (b). The "meaning" of Mahler 9/iv, say, seems quite
different depending on whether it's conducted by Walter/VPO,
Walter/Columbia S.O., Klemperer, Bernstein/NYPO, Bernstein/Concertgebouw;
the meaning of Eroica i probably varies even more among recordings by
Furtwaengler, Klemperer, Toscanini, Scherchen (not to mention among
Scherchen's own recordings), Hogwood, Norrington, Brueggen and Savall
(say).
and (c) to lay all
: of these differences at the conductor's door in any respect save with
: regard to tempo and ensemble cohesion is to vastly overestimate what
: most conductors do and give them far too much credit for the results
: they obtain.
Depends on the conductor and the age; I suspect this is truer today in an
age when conductors flit about from orchestra to orchestra without
developing the close ties with orchestras that conductors in previous
generations did. But even today it's quite obvious that some conductors
radically alter the way an orchestra plays. The Concertgebouw plays quite
differently for Harnoncourt from how it plays for Chailly, Rattle's
appearances here with the Philadelphia Orchestra seem to have an
electrifying effect on the orchestra (at least in Mahler); etc.
[snip]
: >
: > : Nor do I see a
: > : lot of today's conductors running around with a score in hand
: > : saying "It's all in the score. I just follow the score." No one does
: > : that; the HIP people don't do it. Toscanini didn't do it.
: >
: > No, but he said he did it, and lots of early HIPsters - and others -
: said
: > they did it too.
: This is a gross oversimplification; you know it, Henry knows it. The
: proof is in the performances themselves, and Toscanini was as quick as
: anyone to diddle a score to secure the effects he was looking for (more
: so, in fact, than Furtwangler, who seems to me to treat the letter of
: score textually speaking with much more respect than most conductors of
: his era, however free his tempos and phrasing). HIPsters do the same,
: whatever justification they claim for it. As I said, this is nothing
: but a straw man setting forth the argument in terms of extremes (total
: fidelity to the score vs. comparative "freedom") that no real world,
: practicing musician would recognize, whatever they may say when being
: badgered into justifying their interpretive choices or philosophy.
You're confusing two different things. I agree that that's what these
various musicians *do*. I was addressing what they, and their
spokespeople, say they're doing. The fact that Toscanini rewrote scores,
and the fact that HIPsters can't be literalists, doesn't show that they
didn't make statements supporting literalism.
[snip]
: The above is not "an assertion of literalism." The second half of my
: description of a performer's obligation is, in fact, just the opposite.
Is it? You seem to posit the supremacy of the score, including using it
as the key to creatively trying to figure out the composer's intent.
What's more, as far as I can tell from reading lots of your reviews, your
primary focus seems to be on determining the extent to which a conductor
(or whatever) accurately adheres to the score. Perhaps I've inferred too
much....
: We all accept that notation contains ambiguities; given this
: fact, "literalism," as you state, is impossible, and therefore so is
: Henry's apparent contention that there are conductors or other
: musicians running around waving their scores in the air and saying that
: there is no such thing as interpretation as long as you play the
: score "literally."
The fact that literalism, construed narrowly, is impossible hardly
prevents people from espousing it!
Don't you think these people are smart enough to
: figure this out? Really, guys, I would have though this argument died
: with Stravinsky.
Perhaps it should have done, but....
All I have done above is describe what musicians
: really do when they learn a piece of music. I don't think that any
: practicing musician asks himself if literalism is true or not before
: learning a work.
Perhaps he doesn't (though I think quite a few HIPsters do). But the
question raised by Henry wasn't whether musicians care about theories of
interpretation but how we should react when musicians seem to deviate
from/adhere to the score.
: > Perhaps; but the score isn't "the work in question," merely a blue-
: print
: > for its realization. Why does it insult performers' intelligence to
: > suggest that there's more to making music than adhering to the letter
: of
: > the score and that composers didn't expect uniform adherence? One may
: > disagree with this understanding of what music is, but why is this
: > understanding insulting? (If it insults anyone, it's surely
: composers, not
: > musicians.)
: >
: Yes, the score is the work in question, or at least more of it than any
: one performance. What varies is the individual's ability to realize the
: work directly from the printed page. I don't have this ability, and I
: suspect that most of us, even many professional musicians, don't, but I
: also don't pretend that such a thing doesn't exist.
Well, if the work is the score, presumably not....
In any case, the
: score is more than just a blueprint, since it contains within its
: inherently ambiguous notation all of the possibilities of every
: performance that ever was or will be, and is thus more "complete" than
: any single performance. It is the performance which is simply one
: viewpoint, or snapshot, of the work itself. Obviously, if the work is
: subject to performance from a number of interpretive angles or
: approaches, then "the work" itself must be the sum total of all
: performances it has ever had, and our personal understanding of what
: the work is becomes the sum total of our individual experiences of it.
In which case the work isn't the score....
: Who said anything about espousing literalism? That's you putting words
: in my mouth. I say no such thing. Remember, one of my favorite
: conductors is Stokowski! My whole point is that it's a matter of fine
: shades and degrees, rather than absolutes, which is how Henry frames
: his argument. The opposition between literalism and freedom is a false
: one. Scores are not "literal" in the sense that they limit, constrict,
: or restrain.
They do if one is a literalist.
When I follow a performance with a score in hand, I'm
: always struck by how much more is there, compared to what I'm actually
: hearing at any one time. Nothing is more "literal" than a recording: a
: totally fixed, unalterable, identically repeatable experience.
? How does that make it literal?
[snip]
: Take a topical example: Mengelberg, for instance, usually makes
: everyone's "freedom" list. And yet his conductor's scores (and I've
: seen several) are probably the most detailed of all. Every single stop,
: start, distortion, and mannerism is meticulously notated in various
: colored inks and clearly based on some observation he makes relative to
: the basic text. There isn't a single spontaneous bar in any of his
: later peformances. It was all carefully planned in advance. Is this
: literal, or is it free?
I don't think this is a good example. The question is whether Mengelberg
was (and should have been if he wasn't) faithful to what Mahler or whoever
wrote, not whether he stuck doggedly to his changements.
: A performer may believe that he is the literal incarnation of the
: composer himself, or he may spend years of study of historical sources
: before playing a note; he may take his inspiration from God, or from
: Barenreiter. My point, Simon, is that in the real world it simply
: doesn't matter. Performers perform, and they justify what they do in
: various ways. If the result sounds great, then who are we to say that
: their approach is inherently wrong or untrue?
I agree. But whether a performance "sounds great" depends in part on
one's attitude to the score. To someone who believes in some degree of
literalism, unmarked tempo changes, absence of repeats, rescorings, etc.,
don't sound good. So I don't think that you can make the problem go away
so easily.
Simon
Simon Roberts
: No, it is Simon who is mischaracterizing the HIP movement. In the first
: place, there is a big difference between 'authenticity'
: and 'literalism.' I don't know anyone who would claim for a moment that
: the HIP movement asserts that "authenticity" is the product of a
: literal interpretation of the bare text of a score. Just the opposite,
: in fact. The essence of the HIP movement is not an assertion of the
: literal truth of the text or score; it is the assertion that certain
: rules or procedures for interpreting that which is NOT in the score can
: be learned or acquired as the natural result of playing the instruments
: of the period and through study of contemporary texts and sources. In
: its very essence it is most concerned with interpretation and that
: which is NOT notated, and textual fidelity, to the extent it exists, is
: more the natural outcome of the study of contemporary sources, and
: forms the basis for interpretation.
I agree with all that except for the first sentence. Thanks in part to
Taruskin (perhaps) HIPsters have dropped some of the arguments they used
to offer (the best ones never used them in the first place). Have you
forgotten the statements Hogwood used to make in interviews at the time of
his Mozart and Beethoven symphonies came out? It's not oversimplifying
much to summarize them as: "learn how to play old instruments, then sit
down with the score and play through it; "interpretation" (fluctuating
tempi a la Furtwaengler, etc.) is inauthentic because in Mozart's day
there was no conductor to create one."
: As to Toscanini, again, his reputation as a "literalist" is irrelevant,
: as are out of context statements he may have made from time to time.
: Many conductors when asked "how they did it" will say something like "I
: just followed the score." But the real question is HOW they "just"
: followed the score, and in Toscanini's case we know from what he
: actually did in performance that his "literalism," if such it was, was
: as personal a variety with as unique results as any other
: interpreter's. In other words, he wasn't "literal" in the sense Simon
: means at all. It's a fundamental mistake to take artists
: words "literally" absent serious listening to what they actually did in
: performance, and an even bigger mistake to give these statements more
: credence than the music itself.
It depends entirely on what one is interested in. If there weren't a
belief that there's some moral authority in the score, that one had a duty
to be faithful to it, why would Toscanini (and others) have made any such
statements? One question I find interesting is why literalism is
appealing (and I think it is, at least prima facie). That question isn't
addressed by pointing out that professed literalists aren't always literal
in practice.
[snip]
What they do
: NOT do (in general) is say "I did it because it just sounds better to
: me that way." The decision to meddle with the text is not one that most
: performers take lightly, and you are wrong to reduce the process to a
: mere whim based on the fact that "it sounds better to me this way." As
: my Mengelberg example demonstrates, even the most wayward or capricious
: interpreters will often defend themselves when pressed by referring to
: the score or some similar "authority" to justify their decisions in all
: matters beyond minor modifications of dynamics and expression such as
: any composer would expect as a result of local or particular
: performance circumstances, and to the extent they feel the need to
: justify themselves at all, the process is a "literal" one as Simon
: seems to want to define it.
Arriving at an understanding of the music based on the-score-in-general,
tradition, what one knows of historic practices etc. is more than
literalism. Ignoring markings in a score - assuming the conductor or
whoever noticed them in the first place, which I think we should assume -
can't sensibly be called literalist, but as you know it happens
frequently. (I'm not talking about disagreements over how to interpret
ambiguous markings, either.)
Simon
Simon Roberts
: In other words, the printed text ALWAYS governs the essentials of the
: performance. The idea that any conductor, even the most "free," simply
: improvises his interpretation from the podium is total, utter nonsense,
Probably, but who has suggested that?
: as is Simon's persistent implication that "fidelity to the score" as a
: form of "literalism" in in some way restrictive, inhibiting, or
: detrimental to the free exercise of the performer's imagination in
: creating an interpretation.
But of course it is. Anyone who feels an obligation of fidelity to the
score immediately has his imagination inhibited by the score in question
(which isn't to say he doesn't have a vast range of choices to make
using his imagination in the process).
Simon
ra...@my-deja.com
> score immediately has his imagination inhibited by the score in
question
> (which isn't to say he doesn't have a vast range of choices to make
> using his imagination in the process).
>
> Simon
>
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
> >I doubt that anyone disagrees with that
> I do disagree. I don't like opera performances with actors/singers
> acting like they are actors/singers in an opera performance some
> century or so ago. Modernization at least takes away the camp aspect
> of non-contemporary opera.
>>>>
What's more "camp" than people standing on a stage and
bursting out into song with a full orchestra at their feet and
cheesy painted scenery in the background?
The entire conceit of opera is "camp" and requires a suspension
of disbelief - "modernization" does nothing to alter that.
================================
Simon Roberts
: >
: Sure Simon, whatever you say.
Now that that's settled, perhaps you can answer this: do you know which
Haydn symphonies conducted by Fey will be released next? I guess it would
be too optimistic to hope for him to satisfy my desire for a truly
extrovert 56 or 90 any time soon....
Simon
ESH Tooter
a rule seem to have been happy to have *any* performances, but in the
special case where the composer was a skilled conductor, did the
imperative to be performed override the desire for a certain type of
interpretation? >>
Mahler often wrote of his disappointment in particular performances of his
works by others and his resulting concern that his music would not be
understood as a result. Of course he also complained of his own performances
when the orchestra didn't achieve what he was after.
ESH Tooter
reaction of most listeners is outrage. King Lear is cut and most people
accept it. When a director edits a play or a conductor edits a symphony it
is usually for interpretative reasons (money would be the other reason),
which raises the question of the limits of interpretation. While many
listeners accept Barbirolli's or Karajan's Mahler 5th , different as they
are, they stop short of Scherchen's because he's gone too far. Apparently
there are limits... >>
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." -Blake
Tooter
ESH Tooter
my comment first. I think what I object to in the following formulation is the
notion that the "dominatrix" violetta or the "game show host" Don Giovanni fail
because "they go to far." The problem is not in degree but in achievement.
Oscar Wilde said something about great art becoming great because of its
ambiguity. I think what he meant is that great art resonates with rich
possibilities. In the same way, rich interpretations leave room for the
imagination to play over the details. Weak interpretations may limit the
"meaning" too narrowly. Poor interpretations don't interpret at all. It's not
how how much the artist interpretsd but how.
Tooter
ra...@my-deja.com
I haven't been assigned the notes to the next one yet; I just did
Beethoven's First and Second Symphonies with Fey, but as soon as they
tell me, I'll let you know. I agree, by the way, that we really need a
couple of really dynamic versions of those two works.
dave
David7Gable
Mr. Fogel wrote (in part):
> I am certain that no playwright
>> : would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
>> : perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
>>
Mr. Roberts responded:
>> Quite so.
And Mr. Golescu seconded the motion:
>I agree with Mr. Roberts.
I don't agree with Messieurs Fogel, Roberts, and Golescu at all. The latitude
granted the performance of a verbal text considerably weakens the strength of
the analogy. Moreover, again and again playwrites have been dismayed when they
see second and third productions of their plays with which they have had
nothing to do. (It's always possible for an author to be pleasantly surprised
by what a performer does, even when the performer does something the author
hasn't fully foreseen, but the number of unpleasant surprises of this kind that
authors must endure surely far outweighs these happy but rare exceptions.)
I do agree with a greatly watered down version of Mr. Fogel's claim, but one so
watered down that nobody could possibly object to it. That is, I don't think
Mahler or any other composer expects any piece to receive absolutely identical
performances every night. But Mahler strove mightily to restrict the
conductor's latitude, attempting to place the most narrow possible limits on
the field within which the interpreter could flex his muscles and guiding his
instincts at every turn with written restrictions.
-david gable
David7Gable
>Taruskin suggests that the horrific experiences of the 20th century may have
>ushered the complete victory of the modernists. The World Wars tainted
>Wagner's
>ideas of the omnipotence of artists.
This is the kind of outright balderdash that only people who hate "modernist"
art could ever believe. (Never mind for a moment the absurdity of the
proposition that all modernists are alike or that any single definition of
modernism could possibly hope to encapsulate the views of them all.) There is
no expressionist angst, lack of self confidence, neurotic acting out, or black
despair in Boulez's Pli selon pli or Carter's Concerto for Orchestra. And the
Romantic view of the artist as protean creator of new worlds is alive and well
in the presuppositions that allowed such extraordinary world-creating
achievements to unfold.
It's one thing looking back on an entire century as an historian and making
glib statements connecting political upheavals within that period to movements
in the arts and quite another to live from day to day. In reality, how soon we
forget. The memory of the World Wars was not omnipresent in the back of
Boulez's mind from 1959-1962 as Pli selon pli gradually evolved or in Carter's
mind in the late 1960's as the Concerto for Orchestra came to life. During
this past summer, for weeks on end it appeared that Bush was an unbeatable
candidate. Then it appeared that Gore was an unbeatable candidate. That's
about the scale of the time frame within which we actually live. It was
believed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be wastelands for centuries to come
after the bombs were dropped. The people living on those sites today
necessarily go about their daily lives facing the future as we all do, without
giving the bomb too much thought.
Nor is "objectivism" necessarily synonymous with modernism. More like
"relativity." Most of Boulez's mature music is premised on a rubato that makes
Chopin's look positively Stravinskyan, while in Carter's music we find
conflicting subjective perceptions of time presented in a dramatic form in
which they simultaneously find free and individual play. As Stravinsky wrote
of Boulez's Eclat, "the score contains only verbal directions for tempo and is
therefore at the opposite pole to mechanically geared pieces such as my
Variations," and in most of Boulez's music the tempo floats in response to the
changing sonorities.
But even assuming Carter's or Boulez's music were "mechanically geared," would
that mean that it necesarily embodied the kind of world view Taruskin wants to
claim for all modernism?
-david gable
David7Gable
Another paradox. One reason that the score is increasingly detailed in the
20th century is precisely because 20th century composers pursued the kind of
rubato that Chopin and Wagner paved the way for. Some of the Five Orchestral
Pieces, Op. 16, or Schoenberg exist entirely in a kind of rubato so elaborate
that it had to be written out (which does not mean there's no room for
flexibility in the performance of the pieces). Carter's music represents the
last degree of this tradition of written out rubato, and Boulez has given back
to the performer many of the freedoms removed by Ravel and Stravinsky in order
to engender a new kind of floating flexibility.
-david gable
CosyFunnyTutu
Glenw...@xteleport.com> wrote:
>What's more "camp" than people standing on a stage and
>bursting out into song with a full orchestra at their feet and
>cheesy painted scenery in the background?
>
>The entire conceit of opera is "camp" and requires a suspension
>of disbelief - "modernization" does nothing to alter that.
I agree on opera being 'camp' to most eyes (and sometimes ears too).
Giving it all a contemporary or 'neutral' look (like those abstract,
post-nucleair stage designs for Wagner operas) is pleasing to lots of
eyes that formerly got turned off by the supra- or meta-camp
appearance of actors-acting-like-opera-singers in persistant styles
such as Salzburg saccharine, Italian pittoresque and badly dressed
Bavarian. It's easier to procrastinate disbelief when looking at a
kitsch sci-fi film set, than gazing at a historical drama acted out in
a traditional kitsch setting.
ESH Tooter
<< The memory of the World Wars was not omnipresent in the back of
Boulez's mind from 1959-1962 as Pli selon pli gradually evolved or in Carter's
mind in the late 1960's as the Concerto for Orchestra came to life. During
this past summer, for weeks on end it appeared that Bush was an unbeatable
candidate. Then it appeared that Gore was an unbeatable candidate. That's
about the scale of the time frame within which we actually live. >>
While our daily lives, perhaps, exist on this kind of scale, the works I
cherish (and I suspect that have lasting value) view the world from a more
elevated level where daily events are informed by a humanity that takes in the
context in which our "lives of quiet desperation" take on universal meaning.
It is at this level that even those inspirations that arrive while watching a
toothpaste commercial comprehend the atrocities of 20th century war and the
suffering of poverty and lost love.
Tooter
ESH Tooter
While I admire your willingness to take up your case against the majority
viewpoint, I believe that the analogy between theatrical performance and
musical performance to be largely valid. First, the notion that playwrights
are usually unhappy with performances of their plays that they do not control
is unfounded and unprovable. If true, it only speaks to the general level of
inadequacy of performances in general unless you choose to argue that Ibsen
ALWAYS wants Hedda Gabler to appear in the way he envisioned her as he wrote or
by the actress who he imagined to take up the part.
Of course, after this we reach a level of argument that rests on our personal
philosophies of what makes an outstanding performance. I suspect that it is
quite likely that in our age where one may hear 100 performances of the least
popular Beethoven symphony in ones livingroom, and where each of these
performances can be replayed at will, that our need to have such works
revitalized by the performer is greater than it was in the 19th century. Those
are the real conditions of artistic experience that we live with. However,
that doesn't mean that the intirnsic beauties of a great work can not provide
food for a lifetime of contemplation.
So what is the proper relationship between the intrinsic beauties of the great
work and the individuality of a given performer? Are these in any way similar
for actor and musician? That is the question, I believe, we are asking.
When I consider a work like Winterreise, I certainly expect the performer to
bring his/her whole temprement and experience to play. The performance that
Fassbaender gives of Winterreise is entirely different from that of Lehmann or
Hotter, and each is intimately connected to who each is as a person and an
artist.
Does the fact that Winterreise is a work with text and characterization offer
greater latitude for performance than might be brought to, say, Beethoven's
16th quartet? Perhaps this gets us closer to the philosophic beliefs that
distinguish our positions in this discussion.
My own answer (and philosophic bias) would be no. The performer's latitude in
interpretation is not more narrowly circumscribed when recreating Beethoven's
16th quartet than it is in Winterreise; it is only that imaginitive power of
the work comes to us more directly in the Beethoven for its not having to be
filtered through the code of language and story. The recreating artist is just
as called upon to bring personal life to the joys and terrors of the work and
to find concrete utterances for them in the squeals of his/her instrument.
Those squeals eminate ultimately, not from the instrument, but from the soul of
the performer. The test of validity has less to do with how far from the
printed score the performer strays than with how fully he/she brings out the
magnitude of the works implications. Indeed, if the perfomers for the
Beethoven Quartet bring out its meanings while playing on saxophones, I'm ready
to welcome the greatness of their achievement and its fidelity to Beethoven's
intentions.
Tooter
JRsnfld
Romantic view of the artist as protean creator of new worlds is alive and
This is certainly one of the points that most vexed me about Taruskin's book.
He does acknowledge this (don't let my simplified summary stand for the whole),
but in doing so he practically contradicts his usual notion of modernism. Then
again, most intellectual histories are full of such apparent contradictions.
Basically the issue boils down to what you say: that modernism is very
difficult to define and it is not monolithic. I don't think Taruskin would
dispute that notion, but as a Stravinsky scholar with an axe to grind against
HIP philosophies of the 70s and 80s, he focused on certain aspects of modernism
that pervaded recent musical interpretations. (Of course, then he turned around
and wrote a book about how much Stravinsky was indebted to earlier Russian
musical traditions.)
As a child of numerous 19th century developments, modernism is both reaction to
and distillation of parent developments. A lot of real, human children spend
years in therapy separating out such subtleties.
>It's one thing looking back on an entire century as an historian and making
glib statements connecting political upheavals within that period to movements
in the arts and quite another to live from day to day. In reality, how soon we
forget. The memory of the World Wars was not omnipresent in the back of
Boulez's mind from 1959-1962 as Pli selon pli gradually evolved...<
Obviously you're right about this. Again, I hope you're not assuming that this
point about political history dominates Taruskin's argument. But you can't miss
it either, at least as a partial explanation for how Stravinsky and Toscanini's
reputed methods became so significant in this century. I felt very
uncomfortable reading these passages in Text and Act. Many artists are quite
insulated from political themes of their times (I know plenty of them who are
insulated from things like checkbooks, cooking, and social manners, let alone
politics!). And it's a stretch to apply these themes to day-to-day
compositional practice. But plenty has been written about how German artists
have been hounded out of jobs in the U.S. (I think of Muck more than
Furtwangler), or how Toscanini's rejection of Mussolini's regime enhanced his
status elsewhere. We know that such things can influence trends in the arts,
even if indirectly.
>Nor is "objectivism" necessarily synonymous with modernism. More like
"relativity."<
That depends on whose modernism you're talking about. Yes, Boulez and Carter
might write copiously detailed rubato into their scores, or that they might
exclude markings and openly demand rubato (for some composers, improvisation).
This is intriguing because it suggests that they could not expect musicians to
naturally apply such concepts without exhortation from texts.
Perhaps this type of rubato is more "postmodern" than "modern." Remember, in
most of the arts, "modernism" was dead by World War II anyway. It's mostly in
music where we still fumble around with the concept, trying to figure out what
to make of our plurality of approaches. In any case, I'd say there's a
difference between a self-aware, dictated approach to rubato and a routine,
unabashed use of rubato. It's the kind of difference that cultural historians
make a living on.
In general I'd say Taruskin's argument is more aimed at people who speciously
claim authenticity lies in texts, or that tradition is usually mere accretion
on such texts, or that re-creations of premiere performances of the past are
possible and somehow more authentic than subsequent performances tinged by
accrued tradition. His comments about modernism in Text and Act are mostly
limited to that context.
--Jeff
David7Gable
>Anyone who feels an obligation of fidelity to the
>score immediately has his imagination inhibited by the score in question
(a) Fidelity to the score is essential. It's just that the score does not
provide all the answers. Every performance is an attempt to realize a score.
(b) If the conductor doesn't want his imagination inhibited, let him go
exercise his imagination on staff paper by producing a new score.
-david gable
David7Gable
>>of disbelief
I don't believe there is anything intrinsically "camp" about opera. Nor is
camp defined by "suspension of disbelief." Camp involves a certain (IMO
implicitly nihilistic) species of distancing irony and sophistication ("I don't
REALLY take this seriously."). When a deadly earnest Italian tenor sings
Nemorino in a deadly earnest provincial Italian production of L'elisir d'amore,
there is no camp involved. The spectator of course may bring a camp outlook
with him, his interest in opera itself being a camp interest, but that is
external to the opera and its performance.
For the record, I love opera and detest "camp." That doesn't mean I don't find
many opera productions laughable. But for an opera to be camp, it would have
to be self-consciously laughable, bad on purpose. The function of camp is to
allow the spectator to feel superior to the art work and to others who don't
"get it" and do take the artwork seriously. With camp, the artwork or the
performance winks at the spectator and says, "Aren't you clever? You get it.
You know this is laughable." I take L'elisir d'amore and its comedy entirely
seriously. I don't want a production of it to wink at me so that I may feel
superior to it. Nor is the supension of disbelief all that difficult when the
composer, producer, and performers are in earnest.
I also do not have to abandon my critical faculties to take opera seriously. I
don't abandon them precisely because I do take opera seriously, and I am
appalled, for example, in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette and (an even more
egregious example) Massenet's Werther by the introduction of religiosity during
the death scenes, by this belated bow to the pieties on the part of librettist
and composer. In both case the religiosity is foreign to the originals (by
Shakespeare and Goethe) and to the operas themselves. Having committed the
mortal sin of suicide, Romeo and Juliette sentimentally invoke the Christian
god while dying, and Massenet's Werther does the same. I far prefer the clear
eyed and ice cold dramatic irony (absolutely characteristic of French realism
and naturalism) of the juxtaposition of the children singing Christmas carols
offstage to Werther's suicide onstage.
-david gable
samir golescu
On 2 Dec 2000, David Gable quoted:
>> Taruskin suggests that the horrific experiences of the 20th century
may have ushered the complete victory of the modernists. The World Wars
tainted Wagner's ideas of the omnipotence of artists. <<
...and then wrote Himself:
>> This is the kind of outright balderdash that only people who hate
"modernist" art could ever believe. (Never mind for a moment the
absurdity of the proposition that all modernists are alike or that any
single definition of modernism could possibly hope to encapsulate the
views of them all. <<
Um, did you try to substitute for a moment "modernism" with "HIP"?
Simon Roberts in disguise
samir golescu
Um, "written out rubato"? A notion I might agree with, cum grano
salis, i.e. provided one is cautious enough as to distinguish between
the proper-called "written out rubato" (IMO the first great composer
to use it on a really significant scale was Brahms--see all the
"ritenuti in disguise" for which he noted already augmented sets of
rhythmical values within apparent metrical staticism!) and *complex
rhythmical structures which are meant to be thought as written*. The
locution "written out rubato" strongly implies that the musical notation
offers a precise *apparent* image (interpretation) of a
*more elementary* rhythm in disguise. Unless the greatest care is
involved in the attempt of "reading the composer's mind" (i.e. in
deducting what the "true" rhythm, the one behind the "written out
rubato"), the way to dangerous speculation is open in precisely the way
you are warning against in another ramification of this thread.
regards,
SG
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
I wrote:
> >>The entire conceit of opera is "camp" and requires a suspension
> >>of disbelief
> I don't believe there is anything intrinsically "camp" about opera. Nor
is
> camp defined by "suspension of disbelief."
Nor did I claim it was. Notice the quotation marks around "camp" -
just be ironic.
And no, "camp" has nothing to do as such with a suspension of
disbelief.
One has to engage in a suspension of disbelief on some level with any work
of art - from motion pictures to poetry - things in "real life" just don't
usually
occur as they do on screen or in a sonnet.
================================
Simon Roberts
: I don't agree with Messieurs Fogel, Roberts, and Golescu at all. The latitude
: granted the performance of a verbal text considerably weakens the strength of
: the analogy.
Granted where, by whom?
Moreover, again and again playwrites have been dismayed when they
: see second and third productions of their plays with which they have had
: nothing to do.
It looks like you think it perhaps *is* a good analogy....
: I do agree with a greatly watered down version of Mr. Fogel's claim, but one so
: watered down that nobody could possibly object to it. That is, I don't think
: Mahler or any other composer expects any piece to receive absolutely identical
: performances every night. But Mahler strove mightily to restrict the
: conductor's latitude, attempting to place the most narrow possible limits on
: the field within which the interpreter could flex his muscles and guiding his
: instincts at every turn with written restrictions.
But must we infer from the extra detail his attitude to interpretative
freedom? That is to say, were his markings meant as "instructions" or
expressions of wishes or descriptions of what he would do if he were
conducting, or descriptions of how he sees the music at the time of
writing, etc? I have no idea what the answer to this question is, but
will merely note that most of these alternatives (which don't seem a
priori implausible, let alone wrong) are consistent with sanctioning
considerable interpretative freedom, even to the extent of ignoring
markings in the score.
Simon
David7Gable
>actual ending scenario but INVERTS it, having his vision of a ideal land
>not be a cruel false hope but actually a return to Christian faith!
>And so the mystery of Faust's salvation is made dull and ordinary.
>
>S.
Sad but true. But at least not quite totally. At least the old devil does
keep whistling while the angels are pelting him with roses, a punishment on the
order of Monty Python's soft cushions.
-david gable
samir golescu
I have to admit that I read with utmost interest Mr. Gable's
interventions in this thread. He is a professional musicologist, and,
as far as I am entitled to judge, a good and clever one. I have to learn
from him and -- be my presumptuousness forgiven -- I may not be the only
one.
However, professionals (thank God I am not one!) tend to misunderstand
the nature of the "truth of perception" in artistic matters. To use an
analogy, a poet from the 3rd century BC had a different perception of the
Moon than a 20th century astronomer. In a highly "Facts-trusting" age,
we tend to believe that the poet "was wrong" and the "astronomer is
right". Actually they were both "right", within completely different sets
of "truth-values" -- useless to say that I am partial to the poet's view
of the Moon, factually "wrong", but more penetrating beyond THAT set of
"wrongs and rights".
Something quite similar happens in this interesting discussion between the
consummate professional (D. Gable) and a highly knowledgeable amateur (S.
Roberts). They *are* both right, because they have a different perception
of what "the score" is. Mr. Gable is right in most ideas he utters, only
that his passionate and well-argued defense of the score is somehow
futile in a more practical sense, in that today not horrific anarchy, nor
rebellion against the dignity of the Score, is what mostly mars bad
interpretation, but choking literalism, blandness, the assembly-line
interpretive approach.
I would like to try to hint at some important distinctions in what
regards one's understanding of what the score is, how important it is, and
why it (undoubtedly) *should* be respected, but how.
Mr. Gable is certainly right when he points out that the interpreter's
field(s) of choice is (are), most of the times, extremely small when
compared to the composer's contribution to the musical act. Indeed, in
quantitative terms, what is a sordid choice of an interpreter ("I'll
make a little ritenuto here, I'll bring out more the alto in this point,
I'll take a breath there" et cetera), sordid when compared to the
immutable *fact* of the, say, 95% of the elements of the musical
"happening" being decided by the composer? Almost nothing, agreed. But
then how is that, among two interpretations which observe to a very close
(identical is impossible) degree the composer's text, one is boring, even
obnoxious, and the other is revealing? The answer, I believe, consists in
making a difference between *different degrees of substantiality* in a
composer's text.
The notes, the famous musical notes, are actually "projected details" of
a process of musical thinking which is *expressed through* notes, not
*created by* notes. The composer thinks melodic gestures, tonal contexts,
modulations, rhythms, textures, registrations etc.--all part of a
creative process in which reason, instinct, and that ineffable "je ne
sais quoi" contribute to give [musical, not literary] meaning to a
succession of notes. All these couldn't be written down without notes,
but the notes contain a kind of "frozen concentrate" of the real music,
not real music. The paper doesn't play, the little dots do not sing. When
the composer wrote down everything, he wrote *in the last instance*
interpretive indications. In that moment THE COMPOSER HIMSELF WAS ONLY A
VIRTUAL INTERPRETER of his own music. A privileged one, of course. He
tried to convey in conventional signs his vision of his own music. He
*does succeed* to a certain extent, Mr. Roberts, but he does succeed
*to a certain extent*, Mr. Gable.
Please, do not come with examples like Stravinsky, because Stravinsky is
"compensated" by Bach, so we are left with Beethoven as a "central"
example--not "too much", not "too little" in the score. (-:
My beef is that interpretive indications are *not* as authoritative in a
score as the notes (certainly) are. This is not a case of "take it all or
leave it all", sorry! Take Brahms's Intermezzo opus 118 in A Major.
There are four similar "starts" ("c# b dd c# b aa"). Brahms writes
piano for the first, dolce for the second, pianissimo for the third,
dolce for the fourth. What does that mean, for God's sake? Does he want a
*dolce within the piano* for the second, and a *dolce within a pianissimo
for the fourth? Does he want "the same dolce" for the second and fourth?
But then piano is a dynamic indication and dolce a color indication.
Perhaps dolce can be louder than piano, who knows?
Does that mean that those indications are to be disregarded or considered
completely futile? Not at all. Brahms does suggest *at least* that he
wants at least three different dynamic-color shadings and the interpreter
will oblige. But, for God's sake, wouldn't a good performer avoid monotony
in enunciating a potentially repetitive material without any prompting
from the composer?!
In reality, interpretive suggestions, in the range of music I am referring
to, are supposed to emphasize elements of musical language *already
existent in a score*. A pianist can emphasize an important modulation by a
brusque accent, or by a sudden pianissimo--IT DOESN"T REALLY MATTER, as
long as the modulation (which pertains to the MUSIC, not to the score,
i.e. it is written in the score in an i(m)-mediate way, without the *word*
MODULATION written in the score), [so as long as the modulation] doesn't
pass unnoticed. Different, even opposite *interpretive gestures*
(crescendo and decrescendo, accelerando and rallentando) can serve
equally well, sometimes (not all the times, by all means!!!), the musical
purpose, the "compositional gesture", as long as the reasoned interpretive
motivation and, even more, the incandescent rendition makes one or the
other interpretive gesture valid *in context*.
In context, *of course*, as long as any individual effect in a given
passage should also be judged in terms of appropriateness within
the big form. The form, again, is "frozen" in the score, but playing the
notes "as close to as written as possible" will not guarantee the clarity
of the form. The interpreter who goes for "the composer knew ALWAYS
better" may be modest and charming, but he will be nonetheless sorely
limited. The interpreter has *to judge every interpretive indication for
himself*, EVEN when he *agrees* with most/all of them. In *this* sense,
Mr. Roberts's image of the (uncreatively submissive) interpreter's
imagination being drastically limited by the score was 1000% pertinent.
Sometimes *observing* the interpretive indications in a score
as scrupulously as possible goes against the tendency the musical material
itself. I shudder when I think of all the hordes of pianists who played
Tchaikovsky's Sonata opus 37 *observing* the huge (about 3/4 of the first
movement) amount of prescribed fortissimo. Cutting Tchaikovsky's
fortissimo, in the appropriate places, and substituting smaller dynamics,
except for the real climaxes, goes against the interpretive indications
inscribed in the score, but serves the musical structure the score is
bearing (and the interpreter is supposed to reveal).
Again, this has nothing to do with anarchy. Interpreting critically the
composer's interpretive indications is very far from burning the scores in
the piazzas or changing the notes at whim. Moreover, it is a duty of the
interpreter to try to distill the motivation behind words instilled in
the score. That many interpreters are barely able to (uncritically) read a
score -- which would make the claims above superfluous, irealizable -- is,
as Kipling would have said, a different story.
Educated amateurs have the advantage of their limits: not (at least not
usually) following their recordings with a score, they are both "ignorant"
of certain aspects of them, but also unprejudiced in judging the immediate
aesthetic effect of a piece of music/performance. Few professionals can do
that, regain their innocence. A Furtwangler certainly did, and consciously
attempted to.
That is why I continue to "agree with Mr. Henry Fogel". Blessed are the
astronomers who, "forgetting" (leaving behind) the facts, still perceive
the Moon as... [write down your favorite metaphor for the Moon].
regards,
SG
____________
<<Now there are so many harpsichordists -- what they call harpsichordists
-- you can find a harpsichordist everywhere. They sprout like mushrooms.>>
Wanda Landowska
David7Gable
>of art - from motion pictures to poetry - things in "real life" just don't
>usually
>occur as they do on screen or in a sonnet.
True enough. And we do it readily, instantaneously, and without even taking
notice of doing it.
-david gable
Matthew Silverstein
> (b) If the conductor doesn't want his imagination inhibited, let him go
> exercise his imagination on staff paper by producing a new score.
Why? Perhaps he or she should take up an already composed piece of music and
see if it cannot be made any better.
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
> However, professionals (thank God I am not one!) tend to misunderstand
> the nature of the "truth of perception" in artistic matters. To use an
> analogy, a poet from the 3rd century BC had a different perception of the
> Moon than a 20th century astronomer. In a highly "Facts-trusting" age,
> we tend to believe that the poet "was wrong" and the "astronomer is
> right". Actually they were both "right", within completely different sets
> of "truth-values" -- useless to say that I am partial to the poet's view
> of the Moon, factually "wrong", but more penetrating beyond THAT set of
> "wrongs and rights".
But don't you think that one set of "truth-values" is better than another?
That is, some person raised in a pop-music culture might believe that Britney
Spears is better than Beethoven. To follow your description above, we might
say that she is not wrong. No, she is right, just according to a completely
different set of "truth-values."
I imagine that your response to this would be that her set of "truth-values"
is somehow inferior to, say, yours. If so, then why is not the same true for,
say, Messers Roberts and Gable? Just curious.
Matty
CosyFunnyTutu
>
>Sad but true. But at least not quite totally. At least the old devil does
>keep whistling while the angels are pelting him with roses, a punishment on the
>order of Monty Python's soft cushions.
>
>-david gable
I bet Leonore didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition either!
Alain Dagher
samir golescu wrote:
> That is why I continue to "agree with Mr. Henry Fogel". Blessed are the
> astronomers who, "forgetting" (leaving behind) the facts, still perceive
> the Moon as... [write down your favorite metaphor for the Moon].
... made of blue cheese.
Alain
samir golescu
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Matthew Silverstein wrote:
> Samir wrote:
>
> > However, professionals (thank God I am not one!) tend to misunderstand
> > the nature of the "truth of perception" in artistic matters. To use an
> > analogy, a poet from the 3rd century BC had a different perception of the
> > Moon than a 20th century astronomer. In a highly "Facts-trusting" age,
> > we tend to believe that the poet "was wrong" and the "astronomer is
> > right". Actually they were both "right", within completely different sets
> > of "truth-values" -- useless to say that I am partial to the poet's view
> > of the Moon, factually "wrong", but more penetrating beyond THAT set of
> > "wrongs and rights".
>
> But don't you think that one set of "truth-values" is better than another?
> That is, some person raised in a pop-music culture might believe that Britney
> Spears is better than Beethoven. To follow your description above, we might
> say that she is not wrong. No, she is right, just according to a completely
> different set of "truth-values."
>
> I imagine that your response to this would be that her set of "truth-values"
> is somehow inferior to, say, yours. If so, then why is not the same true for,
> say, Messers Roberts and Gable? Just curious.
Matty, it seems that you lack another "pop vs. classical" thread--I can
not oblige, the subject was exhausted.
To answer you succinctly, the reaction to music, and having a concept of
"better" music vs. "worse" music is a totally different matter from
my "astronomer-poet" analogy. In the former, two things (say, two
musical works) are compared by one person. In the latter, the same object
is seen from a different perspective. The former implies a
values-judgment, the later brings the matter of how two subjects refer to
the same set of "data". My "moderate relativism didn't imply, BTW, that a
third subject is free to perceive a score as a, say, fried turkey.
regards,
SG
David7Gable
>see if it cannot be made any better.
But it can't. It can only be made as good as it is possible for it to be. It
can be ruined though. But even an indifferent performance is apt not really to
ruin it.
-david gable
David7Gable
>notice of doing it.
Suspend our disbelief, that is.
-david gable
Roland van Gaalen
>
> Matthew Silverstein wrote:
>
> > Samir wrote:
> >
> > > the nature of the "truth of perception" in artistic matters. To use an
> > > analogy, a poet from the 3rd century BC had a different perception of
the
> > > Moon than a 20th century astronomer. In a highly "Facts-trusting" age,
> > > we tend to believe that the poet "was wrong" and the "astronomer is
> > > right". Actually they were both "right", within completely different
sets
> > > of "truth-values" -- useless to say that I am partial to the poet's
view
> > > of the Moon, factually "wrong", but more penetrating beyond THAT set
of
> > > "wrongs and rights".
> >
another?
> > That is, some person raised in a pop-music culture might believe that
Britney
> > Spears is better than Beethoven. To follow your description above, we
might
> > say that she is not wrong. No, she is right, just according to a
completely
> > different set of "truth-values."
Matthew, don't you think that academics have an unfair advantage in this
kind of theorizing -- that one set of "truth-values" might be better than
another?
In the context of music appreciation, I think it is sophistry.
Isn't it totally obvious that the truths of poetry are not necessarily based
on, or even consistent with, scientific or scholarly paradigms?
Why is "prosaic" a synonym for "dull"?
--
Roland van Gaalen
Amsterdam
E-mail: R.P.vanGaalenATchello.nl (replace AT by @)
Simon Roberts
: Why is "prosaic" a synonym for "dull"?
Good question. Does this apply in other languages, or is it an Anglo
thing?
Simon
CosyFunnyTutu
Roberts) wrote:
No. 'Prozaďsch' means dull in Dutch too. Prose makes an attempt at
describing (... _other_ people's...) reality, hence 'dull'.
Glenworthy@xteleport.com Henry Glenworthy
> samir golescu wrote:
> > That is why I continue to "agree with Mr. Henry Fogel". Blessed are the
> > astronomers who, "forgetting" (leaving behind) the facts, still perceive
> > the Moon as... [write down your favorite metaphor for the Moon].
> ... made of blue cheese.
>>>>
It is. See Nick Park's "A Grand Day Out".
===============================
Alain Dagher
David7Gable wrote:
> Mr. Fogel wrote (in part):
>
> > I am certain that no playwright
> >> : would expect a cast to listen to a tape of his play when first performed,
> >> : perhaps under the playwright's direction, and duplicate the inflections!
> >>
>
> Mr. Roberts responded:
>
> >> Quite so.
>
> And Mr. Golescu seconded the motion:
>
> >I agree with Mr. Roberts.
>
> I don't agree with Messieurs Fogel, Roberts, and Golescu at all.
I propose the following experiment. I would like the members of rmrc to contribute
to a fund that I will then use to rent out Chicago's Orchestra Hall from Mr Fogel
for a performance of Mahler's First symphony.
The performance will be as follows. There will be only an air conditioner on stage.
It will be turned on, and allowed to hum, for the following time durations:
1. 12'32
2. 6'22
3. 11'18
4. 18'17
the exact timings of the four movements in Bruno Walter's 1954 recording of the
symphony.
We will then vote on whether this was a performance of Mahler's first symphony.
The first half of the program will feature a new piece entitled "The Moon is Made
of Blue Cheese" with Samir Golescu as soloist.
cheers,
Maestro
Steve Emerson
Not exactly. Prose is in contrast with verse. Partridge offers the
following:
"provertere, to turn forward, pp proversus, whence the contr prorsus,
eased to prosus, which, used as adj, occurs in prosa oratio, speech
going straight ahead without turns (versus), whence the syn prosa,
whence MF-F prose, adopted by E; derivative LL prosaicus leads to late
MF-F prosaique, whence E prosaic"
The prosaic is that which goes ahead without turns; without surprise;
predictable...
Too, though, we have a sense of prosaic that isn't quite the same as
dull: "belonging to or suitable for the everyday world: commonplace,
down-to-earth, matter of fact <the more prosaic business of testing
boilers -- Richard Thruelsen> <a far more robust, more religious and, in
a good sense, more prosaic heritage -- Douglas Bush>." Not to mention
the sense that is merely the adjectival form of 'prose'.
SE.
Edward A. Cowan
> Why is "prosaic" a synonym for "dull"?
American Heritage Dictionary, 1st ed., and also Wahrigs deutsches
Wörterbuch, 1.Ausg., generally declare "prosaic" and its root word,
"prose," to mean "straight talk" as opposed to verse.
The AHD etymology reads: "[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin
_prosa (oratio)_, "straightforward discourse," from _prosus_, _prorsus_,
straightforward, direct, from _proversus_, past participle of
_provertere_, to turn forward: _pro-_, forward, + _vertere_, to turn
(see _wer-_^3 in Appendix).]"
The Appendix is a list of several hundred Indo-European roots for much
of the English vocabulary. (The Wahrig dictionary, cited above, provides
these within the entries for German words.) The entry for _wer-_^3
(i.e., the third entry for _wer-_ in general) is prolific in vocabulary
entries for English. The same applies to German.
(Cf. Monsieur Jourdain's "C'est la prose!" in _Le bourgeois
gentilhomme_...)
(NOTE: After reading a devastating review of AHD/4, just published, in
the NY Times, I suggest avoiding that edition and recommend seeking out
AHD/1 or AHD/2. AHD/4 seems to be entirely 'descriptive' and not
'prescriptive' in its vision of the English language, subverting, in my
mind, the utility of such a book. The NYT review compared this approach
to that of Humpty Dumpty in _Through the Looking-Glass_...)
--
E.A.C.
Roland van Gaalen
news:3A2ADC6B...@bic.mni.mcgill.ca...
If I may take your jest seriously:
You have given a trivial example of an interpretation that all reasonable
people, I suppose, would agree to be "egregious" (to borrow your adjective).
That's all, and there is no hope that this kind of reasoning will get you
any farther than that; your example doesn't prove that any one of us would
be able to specify satisfactory criteria for separating "egregious" from
admissible (non-"egregious") interpretations. And even if we could, in all
likelihood there wouldn't be unanimity about exactly where the line should
be drawn.
In other words, your example is very amusing, but I'm afraid it has no
implications whatsoever for resolving non-trivial cases.
Matthew Silverstein
> Isn't it totally obvious that the truths of poetry are not necessarily based
> on, or even consistent with, scientific or scholarly paradigms?
No, which is why I am not a great believer in "truths of poetry" . . .
Matty
Matthew Silverstein
>Why? Perhaps he or she should take up an already composed piece of music and
>see if it cannot be made any better.
David Gable replied:
> But it can't. It can only be made as good as it is possible for it to be.
It
> can be ruined though. But even an indifferent performance is apt not really
to
> ruin it.
I don't understand at all, unless you are suggesting that altering the score
(even in some relatively radical way) can not make a piece of music any
better. Actually, I don't understand this either.
Matty
>
> -david gable
CosyFunnyTutu
wrote:
>Not exactly. Prose is in contrast with verse. Partridge offers the
>following:
>
>"provertere, to turn forward, pp proversus, whence the contr prorsus,
>eased to prosus, which, used as adj, occurs in prosa oratio, speech
>going straight ahead without turns (versus), whence the syn prosa,
>whence MF-F prose, adopted by E; derivative LL prosaicus leads to late
>MF-F prosaique, whence E prosaic"
The etymology is interesting, and even (not entirely accidently)
consistent with the fact that we actually use 'prosaic' as opposed to
'poetic'.
ra...@my-deja.com
>
> I don't understand at all, unless you are suggesting that altering
the score
> (even in some relatively radical way) can not make a piece of music
any
> better. Actually, I don't understand this either.
>
> Matty
I'm not surprised, Matty. This is what happens when discussion takes
place in a total vacuum, utterly removed from the reality of what
musicians actually do. It is a fact that musicians routinely modify or
alter indications in scores in countless ways. It is also a fact that
they respect the composers basic intentions almost 100% of the time.
This means that they play the vast majority notes, phrasing, dynamics,
and accents and articulations as indicated. It may be entertaining to
play philosophical or semantic games in this respect, but that doesn't
change the reality at all. David G. is correct when he notes that most
compositions are robust; they can put up with a lot of changes in
detail without losing the big picture. There's a pernicious myth that
great music is like a fragile bubble, always ready to burst. This is
untrue. The better written a piece is, the less susceptible to damage
it will be, and the more readily it will communicate the composer's
intentions despite myriad interpretive options exercised on the part of
the performer. A great deal of the composer's craft in writing a
composition goes to insuring just this "foolproof" robustness. In
addition, Matty, your question hinges on the interpretation of the
word "better." A performer who radically alters the music's text
doesn't make it "better." He simply makes it "other" than what the
composer intended. Whether this constitutes an improvement or not
depends on one's individual perceptions. The issue that all performers
must decide is the degree of permissible intervention, modification,
or "interpretation" suitable to any given piece of music, and it is a
universal fact (and has been for a couple of hundred years now, at
least), that this range is, compared to the extent to which the
paramaters of a work are fixed by the composer and respected as such,
very narrow. The proof of this, obviously, is the fact that if you take
any piece of music--say, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony--you can listen
to any performance of it and within about two seconds recognize it as,
indeed, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, no matter how fast, slow, loud,
soft, conservative or radical the conductor's approach is. It will have
four movements; it will be in A major; the appropriate instruments will
play the music Beethoven wrote for them. In fact, you would just as
quickly recognize the wind octet transcription, or Liszt's piano
reduction. This tells us another fact: that the recognizable essence or
personality of a piece of music is a function of the notes (and
consequently the harmonies), first and foremost, and then their
rhythmic organization. As long as these remain intact, in the
composer's order, the music survives in recognizable form. So this
whole discussion about "changes" and "interpretation" really involves
only small variations from one performance to the next. If you wish to
read huge significance into such things, that's your perogative. But
such a perspective runs counter to both the facts of interpretation as
they have existed for several centuries, and the reality of musical
performance today.
Dave
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.