Many societies place great value on songs, instrumental pieces, dances or ceremonies that have been received as gifts or acquired by inheritance, study, theft or purchase. Notions of the proper uses of existing compositions range from insistence on accurate reproduction to demands for continual reinterpretation and revision.[1]
While it’s true that many composers have a much less strict approach than, say, Schuller, the ethic of exact reproduction as taken hold, especially in the performance of post-Romantic music.
No one was a more celebrated cellist in the pre-Yo-Yo Ma era than Mstislav Rostropovich. And if there is any one piece he is most closely identified with, it is the Dvorak Cello Concerto. He must have performed it thousands of times, and made at least six recordings of it.
In the summer of 1979, I was studying at Tanglewood and heard an extraordinary performance of the Dvorak with “Slava” and the Boston Symphony. The sponsors of my fellowship had invited me to dinner and took me to the concert where I sat with them in choice box seats (which were quite a step up from the benches at the side of the Shed where Tanglewood fellows can sit for free).
It was mesmerizing. It was transporting. It was moving. It was exciting. It was dazzling. It was inspiring.
During the performance, I was enraptured.
After the performance, I was appalled.
Both at what Rostropovich “had done to” the music and at myself for enjoying it. For if there is anything that can be said to be consistent about Rostropovich’s performances of the Dvorak, other than his amazing technical skill and tremendous performing energy, it is the fact that he did not come anywhere close to following the letter of the score when it came to tempo indications (such as Dvorak’s metronome markings) and dynamics. His tempos were much Passages marked piano he played with a full-blooded forte (such as the opening of the second theme of the first movement). slower than Dvorak’s markings, and he added tempo changes, ritards, and accelerandos.
It was a spellbinding, electric performance. And yet, when I analyzed it later on, I decided it was also a musical travesty, since it diverged so much from the score.
But we all loved it, even me, especially me, while it was happening. And one of the exciting things about Rostropovich’s performances and recordings of the Dvorak was that when they were first heard, they were so different than what had been heard before. They were in many ways not just a new standard and approach to cello playing, but also a radical “reinterpretation” and even “revision” of the piece itself.
That’s what I objected to, even as I enjoyed it.
Reinterpretation and revision in music that does not have as strong and exact “fixed-work” concept as that of nineteenth and twentieth-century classic often takes the form of spontaneous improvisation of new notes and harmonies, in addition to tempos, dynamics, rubatos, articulations, etc. In fixed-work music, these reinterpretations are limited to sometimes spontaneous, sometimes planned (and often a mixture of both) revisions of the latter aspects.
And it is those artists who present genuine and personally authentic reinterpretations and revisions who are most embraced by audiences, even though this causes them to, in some cases, be rejected by musicians embracing the ideal of exact realization.
[1] Stephen Blum, “Composition,” Grove Music Online, ed. L Gray (accessed
[2] Gunther Schuller, The Compleat Conductor, paperback ed.
[3] Bruno Nettl, “Concepts,” in “Improvisation I. Concepts and practices,” Grove Music Online, ed. L Gray (accessed
5 comments:
One thing I was going to say about your last post, and am reminded of by this post. I would define "phenomenology" as the description of things by our perceptions of them, rather than by innate qualities of the things. So a phenomenology of music is based upon listeners' and performers' perceptions rather than on the "script" provided by the composer. In actual practice, phenomenological studies of music still use the score as a referent, but support any claims with perceptual contexts.
Oh, and my comparisons aren't meant to be with your definition, but to provide a boundary for "phenomenology." Your definition works, though it is too non-specific for my taste.
Benson defines phenomenology in his book as "the attempt to bring the phenomena to light and, on the basis of the phenomena themselves, to develop a logos - a structure or theory Thus, the point of considering the activities of composition and performance in depth is to see how they actually function and -on that basis - to construct a theory." He then points out that philosophers have a tendency to make the theory and then fit the facts to it.
In an email to me he put it this way, "But it’s really just a fancy way of saying ”description of what takes place.”
And of course you're right, Scott, that everything is based on or viewed through our perceptions--if I understand you correctly.
I suppose an even more specific subtitle for Benson's book would be "a phenomenology of music making," or of "making music," than of just plain music. (Once again, his book is The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music).
Classics vs Standards
Many musicians, more so on instruments other than cello, perform music from multiple genres, and it seems to me integrity has a different meaning for "classics," than it does for "standards" in the jazz/pop/folk genres, and that's to be expected.
If you're were a classical musician in the 1930's, you were far more likely to perform Rimsky-Korsakov's Song of India in a way similar, within the bounds of taste, to how it was originally written for the opera Sadko. To not do so would display a lack of musical integrity. On the other hand, if you were a jazz musician, to play it too similar to the way the Paul Whiteman band, or the Tommy Dorsey band performed it, would likewise show a lack of musical integrity.
Elvis impersonations are amusing, even entertaining, but no one considers them authentic, honest musicianship. The classicists aren't impersonating Elvis, but are they all just impersonating a conceptual ideal?
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