Re: The Listener as Artist

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

Neil wrote:
 
> Or people just can't relate to music at all. I'm lost for words when people
> express no feelings about any music of any kind. I can't relate to these people.

Yep.  Frank Zappa had a good term for these folks.  I think it was on the
Grand Wazoo
album (help me out on this one, Skip....):  QUESTION MARKS???

> For me a world without Bach would be unimaginable. I could just about cope
> without any other composers.

Ditto.  I could just about get everything I need from the B-minor Mass, but I'd
have to have some selected GG on the island with me.
 
> But as I've elaborated in another post, there's a lot in dance music worth
> listening too. Our hero of course loved Streisand (I love "downtown" - and you
> should hear the new remix of it ...). When we discuss Gould we are really
> discussing the way in which music as a means of communication effects us. I
> think one important thing GG was reminding us is what the great music making
> need not be live and spontaneous.

And, if you listen to any amount of popular music, most of it is not (live or spontaneous).
Strange, however, that GG was so dismissive of George Martin and the Beatles
however, since they were the true embodiment of his feelings regarding editing
and the "non-take-two-ness" of the live performance experience.  How he managed
to do the intellectual disconnect and argue for Petula Clark still escapes me.

BTW, "Downtown" was by Petula Clark, not Streisand.  But GG liked them both
and actually said nice things about Tony Hatch's arrangements for Clark.
 
> Oddly, I do go to piano recitals though. Why does no-one give all Bach concerts
> these days ???

That's a good question.  I think Bach is still not embraced by the classical piano
performance crowd too much.  Part of it could be that Bach (and all of Baroque
keyboard study) is viewed as a specialty that is really outside the realm of learning
to play Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, et. al. on the piano.  Of course, as GG pointed
out on one of his videos, it's interesting to note that neither Mozart or
Chopin had
a 9-foot Steinway model D to play their compositions on.  Yet classical
pianists seem
to have no misgivings about performing *those* pieces on the "wrong" instrument.
How did he put it......"nobody I know of is arguing for a Back-to-the-Pleyel" movement".

There are a few pianists doing all-Bach concerts (Feltsman, etc.) but it's pretty
rare.

cheers,
jh