Re: [F_minor]http://archives.radio-canada.ca/arts_culture/musique/dossiers/309/

[Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Houpt, Fred wrote:
> I think so called experts make much too much of how artists sway and
> move and bop at their instrument.  Did these same experts decide that
> Oscar Peterson must have had a problem with his mind because he hummed
> like a buzz saw, all throughout his career?  Who cares if they do that?
> Listen to how he rips up the keys and gives you goosebumps.  That's what
> is important.  Who cares if they drool, have their eyes roll up into
> their skulls.  They just might be caught in an updraft of creative
> power?  

This is reminiscent of Dr Burney's report of hearing CPE Bach play in 1772.

"M. Bach was so obliging as to sit down to his Silbermann clavichord and 
favourite instrument, upon which he played three or four of his choicest 
and most difficult compositions... In the pathetic and slow movements, 
whenever he had a long note to express, he absolutely contrived to 
produce, from his instrument, a cry of sorrow and complaint, such as can 
only be effected on the clavichord, and perhaps by himself."

"After dinner... I prevailed upon him to sit down again to a clavichord, 
and he played, with little intermission, till near eleven o'clock at 
night. During this time, he grew so animated and possessed, that he not 
only played, but looked like one inspired.  His eyes were fixed, his 
under lip fell, and drops of effervescence distilled from his 
countenance. He said, if he were to be set to work frequently, in this 
manner, he should grow young again."


Brad Lehman
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