Re: Re: Re: Re: For Jay Bertolet/re:Bruckner 4


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Posted by Rick Denney on March 02, 2003 at 10:49:42:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: For Jay Bertolet/re:Bruckner 4 posted by Jay Bertolet on March 01, 2003 at 23:33:04:

It's one thing to explore the history, where you identify the provenance of specific editions and try to understand what the composer knew and didn't know. Even within this line of reasoning, you have to consider the standards of performance at the time, too. Some of those composers might have had low expectations of the sounds their parts would produce.

But I think it's even more important to look at how the music goes together. As was said elsewhere, there is a distinction between the tuba as the bass voice of the orchestra and the tuba as the bass voice of the brass (or even as a special-effect instrument). If the part tracks the brass parts without being more general, then the musician should temper the sound to fill that role. When it comes to Bruckner, though, I suppose even providing the bottom for a modern brass section could require a large instrument depending on the choices made by the other musicians.

In the end, the audience knows little of history, and whatever historical interpretations are made have to have a musical purpose in the here and now. Roger Norrington, in the notes for one of his remarkable period-instrument Beethoven symphonies, explained that we perform these works on period instruments "so that they sound new again." For him, it was a revolutionary approach rather than an anachronistic one.

Jay's comment that the more sensitive he is to the historical framework of the work, the more he realizes the potential of the composer's intentions is directed right at this musical issue. Are we masking something important when we expand the size of our sound so much? Is it better to be clear rather than massive in some cases? These are musical decisions, not historical ones. The history only gives us a clue, and that clue is based on the seemingly obvious assumption that the great composers were great musicians. Sometimes I think we lose faith in the seemingly obvious. But there is a balance, because the other members of the orchestra are not using old instruments and the audience is not listening with old ears. Because that balance is swayed by the audience, and by other musicians over whom we have no control, there is no definitive answer, it seems to me. Thus, history is just a clue.

Rick "who thinks the Willson EEb is bigger, physically and acoustically, than contrabasses of the 1870's" Denney


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