On Feb 16, 2006, at 3:46 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
But, on the other hand, I think we know that in Mozart's time, symphonies in certain keys in certain styles would often add trumpets and drums as a matter of performance practice, improvised by the performers reading from a bass line (Dwight Blazin has done work on this subject in the Salzburg repertory). The military musicians in Salzburg were not actually members of the Capella, but were frequently called in to supplement the orchestra. And there is some question as to the degree of their musical literacy.
You bring up a very important point that is often overlooked. While we tend to take every note and indication as gospel in these modern times, many of the musicians of the time were faking it, kind of like a cocktail trio does today. Berlioz, for one, is famous for clamping down on the liberties many musicians (and conductors!) took with music as a matter of course.
There's a musicologist I teach with who is nuts about Bob Dylan. He has transcribed many of his recordings meticulously and organised readings of the tunes. He doesn't seem to realise that all those arrangements were improvised off the cuff in the studio, and that if somebody hit a bum note, it stayed in because they didn't have another take that was cleaner. He insists that the musicians play the bum notes in his transcriptions and has ascribed all sorts of meaning to them that Dylan must have meant to put in. He also claims that each out-of-tune note Dylan sings is an integral part of the work, and wants the guitarist to tune his upper E string a little sharp because that's the way it is on the recording.
He gets teased mercilessly, but he thinks his work will go down in the annals of musicology.
Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
