At 03:22 PM 1/29/05 -0500, A-NO-NE Music wrote: >In my life, I have three live concerts which my tears couldn't stop >coming out during the show. [...]
Then you are at concerts for a different reason than I am. All I want is the music, not personalities of performers in the way. (And I did say that improv-based music is different -- the music is re-invented in the performance.) What interested me about the discussion was talking about replacements for musicians ... so far I'll trade all your tears for recordings where the notes are actually right. And it won't be long before virtual orchestras have every bit as much contouring as pro performers have, but (to my taste, fortunately) without all that performer "stuff" in the way. :) Don't get me wrong. I have performed and conducted and still do, but only because no one else does the material I did. Early American choral before the renewed interest created a body of recordings, free medieval and Renaissance concerts in an urban community without access to it, and post-Fluxus performance art and extended vocal work even today. But once a piece is done and recorded, it's done. Maybe somebody wants a different take. That's fine. But the hundreds of undifferentiated classical performances of the same stuff are to my mind just plain stupid. Save your $40 ticket and go buy a bottle of wine, some spicy take-out, and a $2.99 CD and have a better-sounding copy you can hear anytime and relive the moment. At 10:33 AM 1/29/05 -0800, Mariposa Symphony Orchestra wrote: >BUT: to have that communal experience with a great >orchestra under a great conductor in a great hall with >great acoustics: Yeah. Easy choice. I've been to concerts in great halls with great orchestras and great conductors. Maybe not as many as most here because I get bored quickly by concerts. And I just don't remember anything about them except the extra-musical part -- Bernstein hopping up and down during some Mahler, Stravinsky's plain conducting in Sacre, Copland's microscopic motions during something of his, the demeanor of the Czech Chamber the night their country was invaded, Kubelik at Carnegie switching conducting hands during a Martinu piece to mop his brow, some painfully bad male singing in Lulu (the earlier truncated version) at the Met, the yawning horn player during something Chailly conducted at the Concertgebouw... but the music itself? Nothing. All better on recordings. At 09:49 PM 1/29/05 +0100, Daniel Wolf wrote: >The upshot of all this has been that I've had no enthusisasm about >producing recordings of my own music, and have really begun to think of >my music as tailored for concert, live broadcast, and private playing. >I think that the greater possibilities of electronic play-back from >scores will change this somewhat, but the ramifications of this are >still pretty vague to me. The de facto way of hearing music today is on recording. I'm not going to try to convince you that's good -- though it would be nice to hear your music more than by chance someday, somewhere. But likely I'll never hear you in concert except by accident. Most composers whose work I've come to know and love has been via CD (or downloads now). The way things are set up today, going to a concert means getting ready, dealing with getting there, paying a bundle for one play and all its mistakes, listening through other junk you didn't want to hear, probably getting bad seats since so few are really good, being around noisy people, and worst of all -- having no reverse-scan button, which I can't live without. :) I appreciate the private playing part. There is a communal nature that's fun -- but that's not performance. That's a physical exchange with its own rewards. Performers do what they do, and get fulfillment from it. And I enjoy sitting in on rehearsals of my music (moreso if the rehearsal is for a recording). As far as score playback goes, that's on the way. And the effect will be dramatic. I look forward to it. At 08:10 PM 1/29/05 -0500, David W. Fenton wrote: >But were it not for repeated live performances before audiences, it >would not be possible to get recorded preformances that hold up under >repeated listening. If the music is played correctly, the recording will hold up just fine for me. I have shelves of recordings by third-string groups that are completely listenable. In any case, I'll pass on those idiosyncratic emotional readings that 'hold up under repeated listening' for other people. All I hear is the conductor and the players getting in the way of the music after a while -- very, very annoying. (What comes to mind immediately is the ten bucks I wasted on a recording of Casals snorting through Mozarts EKN.) >Perhaps all of this is one of the reasons composers are often >dissatisfied with first performances of their pieces, precisely >because it's impossible in any first performance to accomplish more >than just scratching the surface. If new music works could get 15 or >20 performances by the same group, maybe folks like Dennis would not >be so bitter about the results. I'm not bitter. Who am I to be bitter? As far as performances, of course more are better because they serve as rehearsals for a potentially good performance and recording. This fall I had an orchestral work performed 10 times by a pro orchestra with a good conductor. By the 10th performance, they almost had the notes right. (Hell, it was in C minor, not some jump-ass atonal thing.) They worked hard and were dedicated, and the performances were exciting to the audience, and I had fun because of the 'eventiness' of it all, but I really would have liked just one measly recording that had all the notes right. As it stands, only my own electroacoustic pieces are done to my satisfaction. There's another factor. I think 90% is what the listener brings to a performance. The right partner, the right beverage, the right moment in one's life, and a mediocre performance blooms into a work of genius. If only I had time to tell all the mis-hearings my music has gotten over the years ... as a composer, I certainly don't need another layer of performer quirks being interposed! I'll pass on the deep, rich, emotional, vivid, lustrous, personal, powerful (etc.) performances. Plain is good, clean is good, nicely recorded is good. Correct is best. If I feel like getting emotional over one of my pieces, I'll do it no matter who is playing. :) So I do look forward to the virtual orchestra, or at least the assisted orchestra. Something to, you know, get it right --- and be cheaper, too. Maybe all the displaced musicians will find themselves composing ... now *there* is an idea that appeals to me. More people creating. It would be a cultural change that I'd certainly welcome! Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
