Re: composers playing their own concertos (was GG hagiography)

[Dave L <mauve_mojo@YAHOO.COM>]

Agreed - entirely.

There is nothing wrong with having reverence for Bach
and his compeers - the music warrants it, but I abhor
the idea that such music can only be played in a
certain manner on period instruments.

My personal image of baroque music, specifically the
secular works, is that of a very free style and one
that encourages the performer to embelish on the
score. The classical and romantic periods may have
been more emotive and relaxed in content, but
generally the scores themselves seem far more strict
and the composers' intentions that much more apparent,
if not unavoidable.

Just as there is something to be gained from the
serious study of appropriate ornamentation and
"historical" performances, it is just as valid for
performers to bring something of themselves to the
music. I think this is something Gould did in spades,
and whilst there are some recordings of his that I
really can't abide, it is not a dislike that stems
from an inflexible attitude towards a particular
composer's music, but simply a matter of personal
taste.

Regards,

David

--- Elmer Elevator <bobmer.javanet@RCN.COM> wrote:
> Half the fun of being a Gould fan is all the
> fighting among the High and the
> Mighty over Gould's "wrong" interpretations. And I
> think that's half the
> contribution Gould made to classical music:
> Stretching the debate about how
> these compositions can be played. I think the
> experience of the critical
> reception of Gould's interpretations demonstrated,
> if nothing else, that
> with the passage of centuries, interpretive ideals
> become stultified and
> rigid and ossified and "Smithsonianized" -- the
> tendency is to regard the
> interpretation of these things as sacred museum
> pieces. And I think that
> slowly but inexorably works to classical music's
> detriment. As it grows more
> and more rigid and stratified with each generation's
> insistence on (often
> very arbitrary) rules, we forget that at one time
> all this music was new and
> thrilling and electrifying, and this music gets
> drained of those components.

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