Wow, Darcy, the classical players with which you sometimes work sound
like the jazz players with which I sometimes work!
Seriously - what kind of players are you talking about? Are these
middle-of-the-pack free lancers in NYC, or what? Here, where we can have
two hundred applicants for a single brass opening, we get very good
players, and they can count very well. Of course, the Louisville
Orchestra has a long tradition of commissioning and recording
contemporary music (which is, unfortunately, in remission in the last
several years because of lack of finance) and has always read like
bandits, but the new players we have gotten in in the last several years
are also good.
Raymond Horton
Bass Trombonist,
Louisville Orchestra
Darcy James Argue wrote:
Many professional classically-trained musicians -- most, I would say,
although younger generations are considerably better -- can't play
*Piazolla's* rhythms accurately or convincingly, let alone
Ferneyhough's. A great many of them cannot play a long string of
quarter notes without speeding up or slowing down, or play three
quarter-note triplets of equal length (which is kind of an important
prerequisite before attempting 5/6). Rhythmic authority is not
something that is emphasized in conservatory training. Many
established classical teachers even disdain rhythmic accuracy as
"mechanical," something to be avoided at all costs in all situations,
and heap even more disdain on music that requires a regular, stable
pulse. And god forbid you suggest that they might want to break out
the metronome on occasion.
So it's a bit galling for someone coming from a tradition where it
don't mean a thing if it ain't got that rhythmic authority to hear
players who clearly have zero emotional connection to rhythm, and who
have not spent the long hours necessary to develop a solid internal
sense of time, fake their way through the rhythmic minefileds laid by
composers like Ferneyhough (especially when you know these are players
who fall all over themselves trying to find the "and" of three in a
bar of 4/4). And then to have people congratulate them on their
uncanny ability to perform such rhythmically challenging music!
I also find it frustrating that performers can mostly get away with
this sloppiness in this kind of music, because it so often lacks an
audible rhythmic grid, some kind of regular reference point against
which the "irrational" rhythms are juxtaposed. I find the jazz-based
and postminimalist/totalist/metametric/Downtown approach to these
rhythms much more satisfying. And in those situations, you can tell
instantly if someone is faking it. But, you know, that's just my
personal preference.
I don't like Ferneyhough's stuff -- it's not my thing. But I certainly
don't begrudge him his music or his admirers, nor performances by
musicians who take his music's considerable rhythmic demands
seriously. It's only the pikers I can't stand.
Cheers,
- Darcy
-----
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
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