Posted by Jay Bertolet on February 03, 2000 at 09:31:00:
In Reply to: Re: What does it mean to you? posted by Richard on February 03, 2000 at 01:46:56:
Amen to that! We're currently doing a program which has on it, among other things, a lengthy collection of movements from the Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet Suites. One of the movements we're doing, "The Death of Tybalt", is falling victim to exactly what you're talking about. I kid you not, the last three bars of this movement are taking almost 30 seconds. Our conductor is going SO slow in this part that I'm only able to play one note per breath and the half note low F is taking at least two breaths! Everytime we have finished this section I've thought to myself afterwards, "that was overdone".
To me, "self indulgence" is when a conductor twists the musical interpretation of music past the point of what could be reasonably expected, both by the composer and the musicians, in an attempt to put a personal stamp on the performance. I agree with previous posters who say that such a term is derisive when used by a music critic. But to be honest, I don't care much what the critics write. The ones down here have distinguished themselves in the negative sense. To give you an idea, when I first got here in 1985 we did a concert in Miami. The reviewer for the Miami paper came to the concert and reviewed it. However, he left at intermission and wrote a review of the second half without hearing the performance. How do I know this? Because, unbeknownst to him, we changed the symphonic work performed on the second half at the last minute, after the programs went to press. This reviewer wrote a review of the piece that was listed in the program even though we didn't play it! More recently, we did a series of performances of the Rite of Spring (just two weeks ago in fact) and the reviewer from Palm Beach wrote something that really tickled me. In commenting about the Stravinsky, the reviewer wrote that "there was a tuba flub at the end of the first part". Those of you who know the piece know that the last note of the first part has both tubas playing, one playing a high E and the other playing a high Eb. The conductor made a specific mention of holding that last note out for almost a full beat and at full volume to accentuate the dissonance. This left us "hanging in the breeze" in half steps and the effect was noticable. Every night we could hear the ring coming back to us and it was very satisfying! However, this particular critic obviously thought that the dissonance was a mistake, perhaps because somebody played a wrong note.
Music critics, as well as the vast majority of our listeners, usually don't have the benefit of the years of training combined with the years of experience that trained symphony musicians enjoy. I'll heed the comments of our subscribers to a certain extent because they pay the bills and because we are entertainers. But when it comes to the critics, they have to show me that they are knowledgable before I'll take anything they say seriously. Until then, they're simple parasites trying to make a buck for their business and at our expense...