On 9 Feb 2009 at 13:49, earlrs...@aol.com wrote: > It sounds like you are saying after 1900 music is less apt to be "swung". > If that is what you are saying then I would disagree with you.
Whether or not it was intended by the original practitioners in the 19th century, the performance practice tradition in which *I* grew up was very clearly of the opinion that Wagner and later wanted the meter to be subservient to the line. This meant that the traditional underlying accent pattern of the meter was ignored, with all notes being of equal weight regardless of their metric position, and deriving the pattern of emphasis from the shape of the line. Most of the bad performances of Baroque music that came out of the 50s and 60s treated the Baroque in that fashion, too. But, again, YMMV -- I don't want to make the "Taruskin error" by claiming picking off the weak just so I can criticize the performances of the whole. When I listen to certain individual performers, I hear a lot of "swing" in their playing, despite their being planted firmly in what I might call the "swingless" tradition. But it's the exception to the overarching performance style, which you are likely to hear much more blatantly in the second- and third- tier musical organizations. It's particularly a problem of chamber music ensembles and orchestras, much moreso than individual performers, seems to me. I don't speak for Johannes, of course. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
