Re: GG and Marriage: a Question of Sex?

[Jost Ammon <jost.ammon@gmx.de>]

My spouse definetly doesn't leave neither living room nor house or town
when GG is in the player - the contrary. She is by no means a genuine
musician, but - being an
archaeologist - she has an incredible ability of pattern recognition, and
who would deny that the musical language is highly pattern driven. So she
comes to music from a
totally different angle but carves out the architectural wonders
amazingly. GG is a perfect vehicle for such an approach.

I think it is the utmost nonsense pretending to be able to conclude from a
giving interpretation about the sex of the artist. Case in point:
Triosonate for organ c-minor BWV 526
as played by Marie-Claire Alain and Hans Fagius - two entirely different
approaches, but what on earth is typical female and what male?  Another
example Ravel's Sonate
Posthume played by Gidon and Elena Kremer - this interpretation is pure
musical eroticism, but in the sense of fusing two voices in a
self-absorbing game on a sublime level
that has long left behind a rude male/female basis.

An observation of a recent Parsifal performance I've attended: the
orchestra pit was 40-50% female occupied, but all women where young (<=
30ies) and all men were old
(>=40). Now let us conclude from this complementary relationship about
society changes. Will we see still the same shares in twenty years? I
think not, given our own
experiences with time sharing in job when the children arrived: either you
provide 150% output or you don't get the job, so women are out of the game
as long as they want to
grow up children (any attempt to share this task between the two of us
have ridiculously failed for various reasons).

The fact that women are not in the high ranks of conductors etc is true
for any occupation, management, politics, whatever. Even if some
conditions (that lead the to 40-50%
share in the orchestra pit) may have altered the game, the - during long
centuries - "acquired" female (and male as well) self-definition of their
role doesn't seem to have
encouraged women to really have the necessary self-assurance. An inverse
example: Picasso's father, who was a teacher in painting, is said to have
thrown the brush away
when he realized the incredible talent of his son. Now imagine the
self-confidence of young Pablo that this incident must have triggered. Who
has motivated women this way?
What examples during the precedent ages could they have?

Women and men do act differently - a fool who could say the contrary. Our
twins (male and female, 4 years old) have totally diverging interests -
the girl loves role games and
likes dressing and our boy likes machines, the louder the better (and this
does not come from me!!!!!!). I don't know the share of genetic and
acquired (educational) reason for
this. Anyway they ought to keep their individuality, but this should not
at all determine their possibilities for a living.

Working on everybody's right of self-determination will keep us busy as
long as we are those humans that we are today.

jost