On 9/15/06, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Let me know if I am off base about this.
IMHO you are so ON base on this one, Doctor Perelman. The other case studies to consider would be the call and response form of work songs and the role of the caller in country dance. I've mentioned Karl Bücher's Arbeit und Rhythmus before on this list and would add Roger Abrahams's Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South. I would suppose that a conductor would have to mediate between musicians, piece, acoustics of the venue and audience, which would require an enormous amount of humility in conjunction with consumate skill. On the other hand, the celebrity status of conductors outside of the performance proper would seem to erode the subjective basis for such humility. The symphonic conductor thus would become somewhat of a walking contradiction. -- Sandwichman
