9. Objects in the Mirror Are and Aren't Closer than They Appear

WEBVTT
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Hello, and welcome to Beyond the Notation, a podcast
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on the ongoing reading of the Personal Manifesto
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and Doctoral Thesis on Early Music, The Notation
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is Not the Music, Reflections on Early Music
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Practice and Performance by Barthold Kuijken.
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I'm Marilyn Gans, I'm here with Kenneth Chang.
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We are both young, aspiring musicians seeking
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insight into the fascinating and intricate world
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of historically informed performance and early
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music. Hello, Marilyn. How's it going? We have...
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We have business from the graveyard. Just in
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time for Halloween season. Yes. You know, I will
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say that I think we said this exact same thing
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verbatim last podcast, but the business has been
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off the charts. Oh, yeah. We've been up to stuff
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since then. We hope to... Come back every Saturday,
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but now I have to put something on the website
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saying, oh, I honestly don't know when we're
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going to come back because this is like crazy.
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But hey, it's truthful. Yeah, we're here, we're
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here. I think as long as we have our weekly meeting
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goal, that's what counts sometimes. Yeah, but
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I think today we have a really special guest
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coming on as well. So this is kind of a special
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episode in the lineup. Yes, we will reveal soon
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later. He's a conductor and he specializes in
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new and old music. He's a champion for that and
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an advocate. And he has a lot of things to say
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about... the Kuijken family, their values, beliefs,
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opinions on historical and foreign performance,
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and way beyond. So we'll basically accumulate
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all of our questions we have gathered all over
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these episodes, and we're going to pass them
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down to a conductor that we will see very soon.
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I was going to reveal very soon. I cannot do
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that. All right. Sorry. Without further ado,
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this episode includes content from The Notation
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Is Not the Music by Bartok Aika, used with permission
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of Indiana University Press. All right. So we
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left off on improvisation. Now, these chapters
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going on from now, here from now out, are very
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much shorter. So we're actually kind of like
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towards the end of this entire book, but that's
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not it. We'll be also discussing a lot of...
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post thoughts and maybe a few more interviews
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here and there before um pissed we got another
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book coming to read yeah get ready it's very
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it's it's actually extremely exciting too so
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i like i'm looking forward to combining different
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types of uh early music related books together
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and i'm very excited about that we were talking
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about like ornamentation uh basso continuo and
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but now we go into improvisation it's another
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niche part of like i guess the cadenza category
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um if you must think of that as so but um i think
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i think we're ready to embark on this one -page
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adventure all right do you want to do the honors
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here yeah for sure all right here we go uh i
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think chapter i don't know if it's in chapters
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but chapter 12 improvisation it starts by reading
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most great composers were great improvisers too
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Very likely, they will have included a great
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deal of improvisation and playing in their own
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compositions, or vary their pieces from one performance
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to another, not only in the field of free ornamentation
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or cadenzas. It is known that Handel included
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quite a lot of improvisation in his organ concertos,
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which could explain the fact that in the posthumous
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published set of concertos, Op. 7, some movements
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or sections are missing. We can suppose that
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compositions named Fantasia, Caprice, Toccata,
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Prelude Non, Mejor, I think that's, like, with
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no measure or something. No measure. Yeah, measureless,
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I think. Measureless, yeah. And so forth will
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resemble improvisational style. Some are notated
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freely without bar lines. Others are fully measured.
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In the absence of sound recordings, descriptions
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such as CPE box chapter von der Freien Fantasy...
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Can I just say, this is really off topic, but...
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At the college that I'm going to, I actually
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want to get a minor in conducting. And one of
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the requirements for the minor in conducting
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is to take a class in, I think, German. Deutsch.
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Wow. I'll have to come back after my class is
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in German and rephrase all the words. It will
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be a rewarding experience, though. Like, obviously,
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in the long term. You're going to be knowing
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so much, way more stuff when you recognize something
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in German. In the music, yeah. No, for sure.
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Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh, C .P .A.
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Bach's Chapter von der Freien Fantasy in the
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second part of his Versuch über die Wahrart,
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das Klavier zu spielen, 1762, can give us an
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idea of performance. Some of Frohberger's toccatas
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resemble the Prelude non -majeure very much,
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but are notated with great precision and can
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thus serve as a model for the later. the latter.
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Quite a number of improvisers, among them J .S.
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Bach and Mozart, were famous not only for their
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free frontages, but also for their fugato playing.
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Who could not want to have been present when
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Bach visited Frederick the Great in Potsdam and
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improvised over the king's theme and later over
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a theme of his own, or when Schubert was improvising
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during one of his famous Schubertiades or Chopin
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in a Parisian salon. Oh, have you heard of the
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Schubertiades? I have not heard of that. That
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must be a very, very, very, very, very niche
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Schubert piece. I always wonder what kind of
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pieces early music people fixate on with specific
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classical period composers versus modern people.
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Because modern musicians might prefer different
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types of Mozart repertoire, like the symphonies,
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if you play in a program, but versus the Schubert
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tiadas. Yeah, whatever that is. And I guess,
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you know, a lot of classical composers work,
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I think kind of goes through different phases.
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Like it only takes one person to make a really
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famous recording of something. And then it's
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like, oh, wow. And now it's, it's on the map.
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It's kind of like when Mendelssohn brought Bach
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back. It was like, whoa, that's even so easy
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to think about that, that Bach wasn't really
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thought of as like, I quote unquote worthy, I
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guess, music until. what's the 1840 or something
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like that whenever mendelssohn 19th century yeah
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yeah that's that's crazy that's that's yeah and
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i i find that like crazy to think about every
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time even like we're reminded of like these composers
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every now and then um i'm guessing also you don't
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know too many we're not where too many of these
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other uh like yeah texts like made by these composers
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you know besides their works but Oh, for sure,
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yeah. That's a very short, like, afterthought.
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That is definitely, like, the whipping cream
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of the cupcake here. I'm like, yeah, true. But,
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yeah, I'll read this, like, side note here after
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he says afterthought. It is not enough to decode
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the notation appropriately. We must also judge
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the source's authority and the value of the information
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it transmits. This is a delicate but necessary
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exercise that... cannot be brought to a good
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end by science alone. All right, what did I just
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read here? Well, Herbert in like the early chapter,
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it could have even been chapter one, he was like,
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music is not science. But even though we're doing
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quote unquote like scientific -ish research as
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a historian, but it's still not science exactly
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because it's inherently an artistic practice.
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So I think that's kind of like an allude back.
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Yeah, obviously. The source is authority and
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the value of the information it transmits. But
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that still doesn't really answer a question about,
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like, because what I'm getting out of this chapter,
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short chapter, is that there's not too much to
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the idea of improvisation. I mean, it is a nuance
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itself and a fixture of a performance, right?
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But not necessarily a necessary big element.
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I guess, I don't want to call it sub -element,
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but it's subtly put in there. Yeah, and I wonder
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if maybe, I mean, if you're composing something,
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you must be improvising to begin with to come
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up with the idea. I think this might just be
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just a short comment on maybe it was taken a
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little bit more, or the expectation was greater
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back in that era that you would be able to improvise.
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Kind of going back to, like I like what you said,
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it's a sub -compartment of cadenzas or... trills,
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mordents, things like that, where as a composer,
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you should know how to improvise, but as a performer
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as well, just a greater emphasis back in the
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day. I can see that. So with that, we move on
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to a completely different world, which is print,
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revision, modern editions, and manuscripts, of
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course. But this is also briefly short, but I
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find that interesting. I mean, um do you ever
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think like one day like you have you're holding
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a piece of like uh perhaps manuscript paper and
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then you're holding your edition paper of a piece
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right and how how often do you have uh musicians
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like nowadays all think of every musician i don't
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care if it's a student or adult professional
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that actually looks at the manuscript maybe it
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doesn't have to be original maybe it traces like
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maybe a few um centuries back but it doesn't
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go date all the way back to the original one
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i don't it doesn't really matter but how many
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people actually consider that like um i mean
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i look at that right because i'm like you're
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learning a piece of music it's always like oh
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i need to get the sheet music somehow right um
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and you know i think that a lot of professionals
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are a little more conscious about the the manuscript
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they're actually using or the edition they're
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reading from but um Beyond that, a lot of students,
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I'm definitely guilty of this, where I'm like,
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I just want to learn the music. Let's go get
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the most accessible. Like I'll look up piano
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sheet music online and I'll just get the, as
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long as it's not MuseScore, I'll get the top
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one. And then I'll download that and I'll just
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start from that. But I have had examples of teachers
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telling me maybe this edition isn't the best
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one because they have a more professional or
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closer, you know, quote unquote, closer to the
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original manuscript. And then I realized, wow,
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if I had just learned from that one, then I wouldn't
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have these small technical things. I personally
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experienced that too, right? Like I was working
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on the Saint -Saëns Cello Concerto, and there's
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completely different editions. Like there's the
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classic Leonard Rose. He was a big cello pedagogue
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back in the day in the 20th century. The thing
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is, is like then there's these other niche versions
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you don't know, but they have like awesome fingerings
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and maybe it doesn't have to be historically
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related. But like in my context, technically,
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like there were like some pretty good fingerings
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that I just like better than all these like fancy,
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dramatic, you know, gestures. So, yeah. Yeah.
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Um, let's explore this. Yeah. Music was mostly
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written for immediate use. not for eternity,
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and certainly not in view of a scientific edition
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in our times. Anybody who has handled old manuscripts
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and prints will have experienced how many mistakes
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they contain, especially non -notational details
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such as unclear and inconsistent positioning
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of articulation and dynamic marks. Some are very
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good, such as the manuscript of J .S. Bach's
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Violin Soli BWV 1001 -1006, and there's a figure
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actually on the back of the page if you want
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to take a look at that. or many French engraved
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editions of the first half of the 18th century,
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but unfortunately, this is the exception, not
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the rule. Even autographs were often quickly
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penned and are faulty and error -strung. So,
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obviously, details were not always considered
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of much importance, and anyway, when questions
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arose, the composer or one of his competent students
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or contemporaries would likely be present when
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the performance took place or performance would
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be acquainted with the style. Composers such
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as J .S. Bach and even more so his son Carl Philip
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Emanuel Bach are notorious for constantly revising
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their works. The latter's own copies of his printed
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keyboard works partly survive. They are scribbled
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full of alternatives, ornamentations, and elaborations
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that clearly do not date all from the same time
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period. So this is a nightmare for any editor.
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Some of C .P .E. Bach's compositions exist in
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several manuscripts and or printed sources with
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different titles, tempi, tonalities, instrumentations,
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and or additional movements. Typical examples
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are his violoncello concerti, which he recomposed
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later for harpsichord and for flute. Not only
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has the solo part has been drastically changed
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and adapted to the new instrument, but sometimes
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even changed the orchestral parts. J .S. Bach
00:13:41.110 --> 00:13:44.070
also often reworked earlier pieces, as is shown
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in many religious cantatas, masses, and passions.
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Other examples are his transcriptions of the
00:13:50.250 --> 00:13:52.570
Violin Concerti for Harpsichord or the Violin
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Sonata BWV 1019, which does not contain the same
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movements in all versions. Bach's Viola da Gamba
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Sonata BWV 1027 was originally a trio sonata
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for two flutes and maybe violins and basso continuo.
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Three movements of the sonata also exist in an
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organ version, not proven to be by Bach, but
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certainly from his circle. The very concept of
00:14:17.330 --> 00:14:20.210
an original, definitive, or best version did
00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:40.139
not seem to exist at the time. Manuscript for
00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:42.539
cello suites and it's very messy bones like some
00:14:42.539 --> 00:14:44.299
of the boeing's are just kind of messed up like
00:14:44.299 --> 00:14:46.600
it doesn't make Logically sense, but look at
00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:51.120
this one. This is the violence, uh sonata uh
00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:54.360
solo I think it's the adagio movement, right?
00:14:54.460 --> 00:14:58.639
So oh my piece. Yeah, okay But take a close look
00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.340
at like all where the trill is placed all the
00:15:01.340 --> 00:15:05.519
slurs um and the boeing's I think I they kind
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:08.830
of all look very neatly organized but They weren't
00:15:08.830 --> 00:15:13.529
necessarily that all the time. I was going to
00:15:13.529 --> 00:15:16.330
say, I'm just looking at the slurs specifically
00:15:16.330 --> 00:15:20.549
and the bowings. And this is a very famous piece.
00:15:20.710 --> 00:15:24.049
I mean, you will have tons of violinists play
00:15:24.049 --> 00:15:28.649
it a certain way. And this specific edition is
00:15:28.649 --> 00:15:30.149
definitely, it's actually kind of weird to look
00:15:30.149 --> 00:15:32.029
at it because it's so different than what you
00:15:32.029 --> 00:15:35.669
normally expect with the certain bowings. But
00:15:35.669 --> 00:15:38.649
I will say, though, If I was a violinist and
00:15:38.649 --> 00:15:40.850
I was given this manuscript and told to sight
00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:45.889
read it, it would make, it looks more natural.
00:15:45.909 --> 00:15:48.309
I think it's a bit more clear than, you're right,
00:15:48.370 --> 00:15:50.389
some other manuscripts that I've seen from well
00:15:50.389 --> 00:15:52.929
-established composers where it's like, what
00:15:52.929 --> 00:15:57.269
the heck? Extremely messy. This must have been
00:15:57.269 --> 00:16:01.610
Bach. very concentrated focus and locked in to
00:16:01.610 --> 00:16:07.190
make a fine copy. But it kind of shows how composers
00:16:07.190 --> 00:16:09.690
have so many ideas flowing in their minds at
00:16:09.690 --> 00:16:11.629
once. And once they just spit it out, sometimes
00:16:11.629 --> 00:16:14.629
they just really don't have that time to polish.
00:16:14.870 --> 00:16:17.789
That's fair. I'll say because I'm in a composition
00:16:17.789 --> 00:16:21.370
program and a lot of myself and all of my peers
00:16:21.370 --> 00:16:25.769
have this thing where we kind of don't like writing
00:16:25.769 --> 00:16:27.960
things down on paper. just because it takes so
00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.039
much time it's very much a technical process
00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:32.820
of doing that um which actually kind of feels
00:16:32.820 --> 00:16:35.700
like it takes you away from composing um maybe
00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:37.539
i'm speaking for myself but like when i go to
00:16:37.539 --> 00:16:40.019
a composition lesson sometimes i'll show up with
00:16:40.019 --> 00:16:42.759
maybe a page written down of music but then all
00:16:42.759 --> 00:16:46.080
of my other stuff is recorded like on my audio
00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:48.320
because it's like recorded on piano and then
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.440
i have all these different ideas um because if
00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:54.409
i were to write down all of my recordings It
00:16:54.409 --> 00:16:57.789
would take me hours, I think. Definitely not
00:16:57.789 --> 00:17:01.250
using reverse psychology. Exactly. Because even
00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:04.230
us, even just ordinary people have so many ideas,
00:17:04.349 --> 00:17:07.890
sometimes we forget some of them. And that definitely
00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:12.490
has happened with people from the past. So just
00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:14.950
thinking about all those infinite possibilities
00:17:14.950 --> 00:17:19.329
that Bach could have also done is also just something
00:17:19.329 --> 00:17:23.150
to think about every day. when you play like
00:17:23.150 --> 00:17:27.069
um any piece um oh actually can i just say um
00:17:27.069 --> 00:17:29.410
i went on this this pipeline about two days ago
00:17:29.410 --> 00:17:33.349
on youtube i started so there are recordings
00:17:33.349 --> 00:17:38.869
of students of list um and students who studied
00:17:38.869 --> 00:17:41.839
with either chopin students or list students
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:43.779
so there's kind of a lineage and we have these
00:17:43.779 --> 00:17:46.359
early recordings and what's crazy about it is
00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:51.650
that their playing style is very very um You
00:17:51.650 --> 00:17:53.470
get a sense when you listen to it where you're
00:17:53.470 --> 00:17:55.690
like, oh, yes, this is how it should be. It's
00:17:55.690 --> 00:17:59.220
almost like you're taking away all the filters
00:17:59.220 --> 00:18:01.180
that we've kind of built up on these pieces over
00:18:01.180 --> 00:18:03.819
time. But for me, it's like, oh, wow. I mean,
00:18:03.859 --> 00:18:06.740
it's almost like listening to Liszt or Chopin
00:18:06.740 --> 00:18:09.680
or Rachmaninoff, these composers, actually improvising
00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:11.539
on their pieces because there are moments in
00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:15.519
these piano works where these students who either
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:17.900
studied with them or studied with students of
00:18:17.900 --> 00:18:20.759
them. will take artistic liberties but it works
00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:23.180
so well it's like you can imagine being in the
00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:25.519
parisian salon and hearing it that way and i
00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:28.410
think that's that's very cool so yeah no and
00:18:28.410 --> 00:18:31.970
then being reminded of those uh thoughts and
00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:36.650
then actually having to being able to spatially
00:18:36.650 --> 00:18:39.769
visualize that kind of like environment in that
00:18:39.769 --> 00:18:42.730
world it's just it it feels so close to home
00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:47.049
like as if we have some sort of like like not
00:18:47.049 --> 00:18:49.589
maybe not even beyond spiritual but like a like
00:18:49.589 --> 00:18:53.170
a blood connection to this entire earth and right
00:18:53.170 --> 00:18:57.250
the people that we look up to a lot right especially
00:18:57.250 --> 00:19:01.970
in music and what they were up to right you know
00:19:01.970 --> 00:19:04.089
i could have been there when that spirit i don't
00:19:04.089 --> 00:19:06.369
know who knows i could have been there in this
00:19:06.369 --> 00:19:10.509
right in this room in this room exactly i was
00:19:10.509 --> 00:19:16.660
one of the piano keys i was so so that i that
00:19:16.660 --> 00:19:20.079
is like that thought like one thought could just
00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:22.440
branch into so many other categories so i'm just
00:19:22.440 --> 00:19:27.079
i can't wait to like think about that again so
00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:30.619
i can just like oh i just tell myself oh i want
00:19:30.619 --> 00:19:32.920
to go back maybe i want to go back to like uh
00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:37.619
leipzig when bach was at his best and bach was
00:19:37.619 --> 00:19:39.619
popping off back then and i really wanted to
00:19:39.619 --> 00:19:47.029
be there to hear what's going on Without further
00:19:47.029 --> 00:19:50.089
ado, we would like to invite a very special guest.
00:19:50.210 --> 00:19:52.430
He's a Chicago music educator and conductor.
00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:55.589
He's the concert orchestra director at DePaul
00:19:55.589 --> 00:19:58.089
University and artistic director of the Lakeview
00:19:58.089 --> 00:20:01.970
Orchestra, along with being a pupil of Ilya Musin
00:20:01.970 --> 00:20:04.849
at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He's such
00:20:04.849 --> 00:20:10.490
a legendary conducting educator figure. And he's
00:20:10.490 --> 00:20:12.970
also a champion of old and new music. So we're
00:20:12.970 --> 00:20:17.230
excited to have you. uh mr lewanski here um we're
00:20:17.230 --> 00:20:19.609
we have so many questions burning questions that
00:20:19.609 --> 00:20:22.529
we kind of like accumulated over all these chapters
00:20:22.529 --> 00:20:26.130
and um because there's so many um niche kind
00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:29.210
of like uh topics including like uh what is it
00:20:29.210 --> 00:20:31.950
treatises and other like um source materials
00:20:31.950 --> 00:20:34.730
that we might we as students might not be too
00:20:34.730 --> 00:20:39.569
familiar of um so we are here to um help uh so
00:20:39.569 --> 00:20:42.490
you can help us give uh your guidance to us and
00:20:42.490 --> 00:20:46.730
uh our adventure of historically and for performance
00:20:46.730 --> 00:20:50.630
and learning more about the world that we live
00:20:50.630 --> 00:20:53.309
in sounds great yes sounds great thanks for having
00:20:53.309 --> 00:20:57.630
me i'm happy to be here um so our our kind of
00:20:57.630 --> 00:21:00.309
like first question um after we we were on drafting
00:21:00.309 --> 00:21:04.460
was um music printing companies so we haven't
00:21:04.460 --> 00:21:06.839
really gotten to that but i we we kind of like
00:21:06.839 --> 00:21:09.500
just had it as an afterthought um so when you
00:21:09.500 --> 00:21:11.920
think of music printing companies or like um
00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:16.859
they're like rather um they're possible like
00:21:16.859 --> 00:21:20.119
limited or like biased uh access to scores and
00:21:20.119 --> 00:21:22.519
manuscripts sure so they impact the way we interpret
00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:25.759
like musical works over time so how would a conductor
00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:29.500
best uh go about deciphering like which editions
00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:33.480
work best um Do you need like an elaboration
00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:36.059
of that? No, I think that's, I mean, I think
00:21:36.059 --> 00:21:38.480
that's, I think you're just saying talk about
00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:41.240
additions, which is a great, it's a complex topic.
00:21:41.380 --> 00:21:44.000
I mean, I think you're really right to ask that
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.660
question. Like what, you know, what's the source
00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:51.059
of the notes on this page? You know, where do
00:21:51.059 --> 00:21:52.940
they come from? Do they come from the composer's
00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:54.799
brain? Do they come from a copyist error? Did
00:21:54.799 --> 00:21:56.259
they come from the first edition, et cetera?
00:21:56.339 --> 00:21:59.299
So I do think this is a really important and
00:21:59.299 --> 00:22:01.940
salient question. And I think even just like
00:22:01.940 --> 00:22:04.980
asking the question gets you a long way, because
00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:08.200
I think that like, you know, as musicians, as
00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:10.539
performing musicians, you know, particularly
00:22:10.539 --> 00:22:13.619
kind of working in what we tend to call classical
00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:15.519
music. No one likes that word, but we'll just
00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:17.519
use it because people use it. You know, I think
00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:19.839
musicians working in classical music, you know,
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:23.980
we get a score, we get a part, et cetera. And,
00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:26.539
you know, we kind of have this impulse to do
00:22:26.539 --> 00:22:29.960
what's there. you know, to do our best to faithfully
00:22:29.960 --> 00:22:33.339
realize what's on the page. And also, I think,
00:22:33.339 --> 00:22:37.160
to make a kind of implicit assumption that what
00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:40.000
is on the page is like, quote unquote, correct,
00:22:40.099 --> 00:22:43.380
or is, you know, has some authority, let's say,
00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:47.410
has some authority. When in fact, I don't think
00:22:47.410 --> 00:22:49.130
that that, you know, I don't think anyone says
00:22:49.130 --> 00:22:50.769
that out loud, but I think that is a presupposition
00:22:50.769 --> 00:22:53.470
that we have, that like, that the notes we're
00:22:53.470 --> 00:22:55.470
looking at on the page have some sort of integrity,
00:22:55.650 --> 00:22:58.200
that they have some authority, that they represent
00:22:58.200 --> 00:23:00.940
what the composer was thinking or represent what
00:23:00.940 --> 00:23:03.400
the composer and the first performers were thinking,
00:23:03.559 --> 00:23:07.119
et cetera. So, you know, but it's not clear to
00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:09.019
me that's actually true, right? In the sense
00:23:09.019 --> 00:23:12.440
that when composers, let's say historical composers,
00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:15.740
are writing stuff down, you know, they're just
00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:17.859
working in like radically different circumstances
00:23:17.859 --> 00:23:21.359
than we're working in today, right? So if a composer
00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:23.720
is composing today, they're probably using a
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:26.309
computer program. Right. First and foremost,
00:23:26.470 --> 00:23:28.569
they're not actually writing anything down by
00:23:28.569 --> 00:23:30.430
hand. They're doing it in Sibelius or Finale
00:23:30.430 --> 00:23:33.009
or MuseScore. Is that what the kids are using
00:23:33.009 --> 00:23:36.589
these days? You know, so like, so, you know,
00:23:36.609 --> 00:23:38.190
I'm not great with these notation programs, so
00:23:38.190 --> 00:23:40.049
forgive me for not knowing a lot about how they
00:23:40.049 --> 00:23:41.849
work. But I think that, you know, composers working
00:23:41.849 --> 00:23:44.670
today are not, or maybe even like playing stuff
00:23:44.670 --> 00:23:47.970
into MIDI and having a computer, like put it
00:23:47.970 --> 00:23:50.410
on the staff, you know, whereas like, you know,
00:23:50.410 --> 00:23:53.730
historical composer, let's say just an 18th century
00:23:53.730 --> 00:23:56.549
composer, Or let's say like Schubert, I think,
00:23:56.549 --> 00:24:00.289
is a really is a good example of what the questions
00:24:00.289 --> 00:24:02.329
are. And we can get to Schubert in a second.
00:24:02.390 --> 00:24:03.950
But, you know, Schubert didn't live very long.
00:24:04.369 --> 00:24:07.069
You know, he's writing in Vienna, you know, in
00:24:07.069 --> 00:24:09.910
the early 19th century in a particular kind of
00:24:09.910 --> 00:24:12.470
community. And he's not writing probably with
00:24:12.470 --> 00:24:15.420
posterity in mind. And he's writing stuff very
00:24:15.420 --> 00:24:17.079
quickly as well, forgets what he writes all the
00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:21.460
time. Excuse me. So I think that the composers
00:24:21.460 --> 00:24:23.200
are just working under really different conditions.
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:25.700
And they're probably mostly writing for people
00:24:25.700 --> 00:24:28.500
that they know and that also know the style.
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:31.500
Right. So music in Vienna in the early 19th century
00:24:31.500 --> 00:24:35.000
is a pretty specific style. And all the dudes
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:37.079
that Schubert was hanging out with, like all
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:40.299
knew how to play it. Right. They all the worst
00:24:40.299 --> 00:24:44.339
musician in early 19th century Vienna understood
00:24:44.529 --> 00:24:48.170
Viennese style better than the best musician
00:24:48.170 --> 00:24:51.349
living today. Right. In the same way that like,
00:24:51.430 --> 00:24:54.769
you know. people say this about latin as well
00:24:54.769 --> 00:24:59.049
right that ancient any like dumb ancient roman
00:24:59.049 --> 00:25:01.490
spoke latin better than anyone speaks latin today
00:25:01.490 --> 00:25:03.569
anyone that's like studying latin right so i
00:25:03.569 --> 00:25:04.789
think that's like an important kind of thing
00:25:04.789 --> 00:25:08.049
to realize is that like schubert's you know is
00:25:08.049 --> 00:25:10.750
presupposing a whole set of things that we're
00:25:10.750 --> 00:25:13.130
not even aware of right because they would just
00:25:13.130 --> 00:25:14.950
everyone was alive and they had the same musical
00:25:14.950 --> 00:25:18.519
culture you know In early 19th century Vienna,
00:25:18.619 --> 00:25:20.539
you didn't like walk into a Starbucks and hear
00:25:20.539 --> 00:25:23.240
a Taylor Swift song and then go practice cello
00:25:23.240 --> 00:25:25.339
afterwards, right? It's just like the music all
00:25:25.339 --> 00:25:27.539
sounded a certain kind of way, you know, and
00:25:27.539 --> 00:25:29.380
there's a lot of differences. I mean, Beethoven
00:25:29.380 --> 00:25:31.640
and Schubert don't sound alike at all, you know,
00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:34.220
but they sound more similar than like Schubert
00:25:34.220 --> 00:25:37.420
and Taylor Swift sound, let's say, right? Because
00:25:37.420 --> 00:25:39.160
like, just, you know, they're both using violins
00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:40.700
and they're both using pianos and they're using
00:25:40.700 --> 00:25:43.339
triads and the triads kind of behave in particular
00:25:43.339 --> 00:25:45.869
ways. Why am I saying all this? I'm saying all
00:25:45.869 --> 00:25:48.190
this because it quite simply is very complicated.
00:25:48.730 --> 00:25:50.829
And I think also, before we even talk about what
00:25:50.829 --> 00:25:53.190
edition we're using, I think we should ask what
00:25:53.190 --> 00:25:55.329
we're trying to figure out that we're going for.
00:25:57.190 --> 00:25:59.390
Is the thing that we're going for the composer's
00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:02.910
intention? Even that is not so clear to me, though
00:26:02.910 --> 00:26:06.650
I think that's a good place to start. And composers,
00:26:06.829 --> 00:26:09.690
keep in mind, they change their minds. They change
00:26:09.690 --> 00:26:12.210
their minds all the time. They revise stuff.
00:26:12.410 --> 00:26:15.769
Mahler famously revises everything. Stravinsky's
00:26:15.769 --> 00:26:20.650
recordings of his own pieces change tempos. They
00:26:20.650 --> 00:26:25.670
don't follow his own metronome markings. So what's
00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:29.509
the authentic Stravinsky? Is it this earlier
00:26:29.509 --> 00:26:31.170
recording of the Rite of Spring with this really
00:26:31.170 --> 00:26:33.630
bad French orchestra, or is it a later recording
00:26:33.630 --> 00:26:36.109
of the Rite of Spring with a pickup orchestra
00:26:36.109 --> 00:26:38.390
in New York, etc.? Do you know what I mean? So
00:26:38.390 --> 00:26:41.250
what's the real Stravinsky? Who knows? So I think
00:26:41.250 --> 00:26:43.009
it's the same thing with historical composers,
00:26:43.190 --> 00:26:48.039
is that there is a lot of... uncertainty as to
00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:51.220
what the composer thought. And I think, I mean,
00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:54.039
you know, I still think it's worth trying, right?
00:26:54.119 --> 00:26:55.480
So I'm not saying you should just like throw
00:26:55.480 --> 00:26:57.960
it all out and not work with historical edition,
00:26:58.119 --> 00:27:00.920
but I do think even like good historical editions
00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:04.039
require some kind of interpretation. And I think
00:27:04.039 --> 00:27:06.880
the thing with Schubert is interesting because
00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:10.720
the kind of like traditional 19th century editions,
00:27:10.859 --> 00:27:14.279
like the old like Breitkopf and Hertel editions
00:27:14.279 --> 00:27:17.190
from the 19th century, right? have really different
00:27:17.190 --> 00:27:20.029
ways of interpreting schubert's handwriting than
00:27:20.029 --> 00:27:22.369
like the contemporary editions like your like
00:27:22.369 --> 00:27:24.890
baron writer um you know i'm working on the schubert
00:27:24.890 --> 00:27:26.509
unfinished symphony right now with my students
00:27:26.509 --> 00:27:29.509
at depaul and we're using the baron writer edition
00:27:29.509 --> 00:27:31.650
and comparing it to the old breitkopf edition
00:27:31.650 --> 00:27:36.250
it's really different because um the breitkopf
00:27:36.250 --> 00:27:38.690
interpret interprets one mark that schubert makes
00:27:38.690 --> 00:27:42.470
as a diminuendo and the baron writer interprets
00:27:42.470 --> 00:27:46.089
the same marking as an accent which are not the
00:27:46.089 --> 00:27:50.720
same thing so an instance for instance is the
00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:53.200
last note of the first movement of the schubert
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:56.500
unfinished symphony in the old edition there's
00:27:56.500 --> 00:27:59.859
a diminuendo on this note in the more recent
00:27:59.859 --> 00:28:01.440
edition where they looked at the manuscript and
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:03.119
tried to figure out what this chicken scratch
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:05.900
means like it's not a diminuendo it's an accent
00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:09.440
you know without it you know and so presumably
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:13.269
sustained dynamic after the accent so i mean
00:28:13.269 --> 00:28:15.089
what are you supposed to do how do you decide
00:28:15.089 --> 00:28:18.910
um you know i think you kind of like I think
00:28:18.910 --> 00:28:21.690
that really is when the performer's own judgment
00:28:21.690 --> 00:28:26.390
comes into bear, where the job of the conductor,
00:28:26.470 --> 00:28:30.200
I think, here is not necessarily to say that
00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:32.579
this is right or that's wrong, but to kind of
00:28:32.579 --> 00:28:36.930
look at Schubert's work as a whole, try to listen
00:28:36.930 --> 00:28:39.910
to all the symphonies, spend time with the chamber
00:28:39.910 --> 00:28:42.920
music, spend time with the songs. Obviously,
00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:45.200
he wrote tons and tons of songs. Spend time with
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:47.460
the piano music. and try to get a kind of bigger
00:28:47.460 --> 00:28:49.619
sense of what you think the style is supposed
00:28:49.619 --> 00:28:53.720
to be and based on all the judgment that you
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:56.500
try to accumulate you try to make judgments about
00:28:56.500 --> 00:28:59.619
what the best edition is and even though i don't
00:28:59.619 --> 00:29:01.720
love all these accents instead of diminuendos
00:29:01.720 --> 00:29:04.180
i do tend to think the baron writer edition is
00:29:04.180 --> 00:29:07.559
better for schubert than the old one um which
00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:09.460
is maybe a little bit more kind of like editorially
00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:12.200
loose so i think to answer your question it's
00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:13.740
probably an unsatisfying answer and i'm sorry
00:29:13.740 --> 00:29:16.130
to talk for a long time um but you asked the
00:29:16.130 --> 00:29:20.430
question so so there you go um that i really
00:29:20.430 --> 00:29:25.140
think the the performer has to just do a lot
00:29:25.140 --> 00:29:28.500
of research on their own and not just like read
00:29:28.500 --> 00:29:30.720
what other people think but try to listen to
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:32.799
a lot of composers music try to get to know a
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:34.700
lot of composers music and develop your own sense
00:29:34.700 --> 00:29:37.380
of what you think the style is just based on
00:29:37.380 --> 00:29:40.180
what you know the historical period um you know
00:29:40.180 --> 00:29:41.440
and there's different approaches to style i mean
00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:42.900
the thing with schubert also is that he's like
00:29:43.490 --> 00:29:45.210
we tend to think of him as a kind of transitional
00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:49.109
figure so is it classical classical classical
00:29:49.109 --> 00:29:52.150
viennese classical music or is it proto -romantic
00:29:52.150 --> 00:29:53.890
music and there's different ways to do it right
00:29:53.890 --> 00:29:55.529
and different interpret different interpreters
00:29:55.529 --> 00:29:59.759
have different views on that um so i think that
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:02.140
like i said unsatisfying answer to your question
00:30:02.140 --> 00:30:06.140
but i do think like the the main takeaway that
00:30:06.140 --> 00:30:10.460
i have about additions is that like they present
00:30:10.460 --> 00:30:14.109
themselves as some sort of fixed stuff on a page
00:30:14.109 --> 00:30:17.849
that is not subject to historical intervention
00:30:17.849 --> 00:30:21.109
and contingencies etc and that is simply not
00:30:21.109 --> 00:30:23.650
true right i mean additions themselves are they're
00:30:23.650 --> 00:30:25.390
kind of political statements in a way like there
00:30:25.390 --> 00:30:27.589
are statements of like how you view like have
00:30:27.589 --> 00:30:30.450
you ever looked at um bartok's edition of the
00:30:30.450 --> 00:30:34.140
mozart piano sonatas no that's yeah it's wild
00:30:34.140 --> 00:30:36.420
bartok did an edition of the mozart pianos they're
00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:39.279
totally wild it's so bizarre and you're like
00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:41.710
dude what are you thinking you know like they're
00:30:41.710 --> 00:30:45.230
they're like all these you know made up dynamics
00:30:45.230 --> 00:30:47.930
and made up articulations that just are so not
00:30:47.930 --> 00:30:50.309
you know not that we were there for mozart but
00:30:50.309 --> 00:30:52.710
like pretty sure mozart didn't play it like that
00:30:52.710 --> 00:30:55.049
you know but but it's it's essentially a statement
00:30:55.049 --> 00:30:58.839
of bartok's view on mozart and how bartok think
00:30:58.839 --> 00:31:01.319
thinks this music should sound in his view you
00:31:01.319 --> 00:31:03.380
know so i think it's like it's not authentic
00:31:03.380 --> 00:31:06.039
at all um it's quite the opposite i mean it's
00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:08.200
it's interesting because it's inauthentic right
00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:10.599
but if you're if you're gonna play the Mozart
00:31:10.599 --> 00:31:14.779
piano sonatas from Bartok's edition, then essentially
00:31:14.779 --> 00:31:18.440
you're making a statement about how you think
00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:20.700
is the right way to interpret this music. And
00:31:20.700 --> 00:31:24.839
it's not actually as saying that the way that
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.019
Mozart did it was right. It's almost like a transcription
00:31:28.019 --> 00:31:29.880
or something. It's like weird. It's so different
00:31:29.880 --> 00:31:32.309
than like what, what Mozart actually wrote. So
00:31:32.309 --> 00:31:33.509
I don't know if that answers your question, but
00:31:33.509 --> 00:31:35.430
that's at least like the way that I approach
00:31:35.430 --> 00:31:37.549
it is I do. And I do care about what the composer
00:31:37.549 --> 00:31:40.390
wrote, even though I'm saying like. the composer
00:31:40.390 --> 00:31:42.309
didn't invent the major triad and they had friends
00:31:42.309 --> 00:31:43.710
and they all knew how the style went, et cetera.
00:31:43.809 --> 00:31:46.390
You know, I do care about what the composer wrote
00:31:46.390 --> 00:31:49.150
and thought. And so I do, you know, I think with
00:31:49.150 --> 00:31:51.670
19th century composers, especially, I care a
00:31:51.670 --> 00:31:54.630
lot about how they, you know, when they mark
00:31:54.630 --> 00:31:57.980
tempo changes and when they don't. And I care
00:31:57.980 --> 00:31:59.779
a lot about like what kinds of, what different
00:31:59.779 --> 00:32:02.160
articulations look like, like what a rooftop
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:04.359
accent looks like versus like the regular accents,
00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:07.880
you know, how does Schubert use three Fs versus
00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:09.599
Beethoven's use of three Fs, which are different.
00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:13.799
um so i think like you know um i do care what
00:32:13.799 --> 00:32:16.480
the composer thought but the composer i think
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:19.819
is kind of like just one person in the room for
00:32:20.109 --> 00:32:23.630
an interpretation of their own piece um so i
00:32:23.630 --> 00:32:25.210
don't know that's like maybe that's a lot but
00:32:25.210 --> 00:32:28.339
um those are my views on that it gets convoluted
00:32:28.339 --> 00:32:31.500
too when you have their students um writing down
00:32:31.500 --> 00:32:34.759
their scores especially the older examples yeah
00:32:34.759 --> 00:32:38.019
i mean i'm a pianist so i i look at a lot of
00:32:38.019 --> 00:32:41.259
great points Chopin nocturnes. And there are
00:32:41.259 --> 00:32:43.059
examples in there where it's like, you have to
00:32:43.059 --> 00:32:44.859
wonder, did he actually write this down? Or was
00:32:44.859 --> 00:32:47.480
this a student and every edition is going to
00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:49.680
be different? And there are revisions that happen.
00:32:49.819 --> 00:32:53.819
So, yeah. I think that's a great example. I mean,
00:32:53.839 --> 00:32:56.559
that's really just, yeah, it's a different way
00:32:56.559 --> 00:32:58.660
of looking at this at the same point, I think.
00:32:58.759 --> 00:33:01.240
And I think like also to your point, Marilyn,
00:33:01.380 --> 00:33:03.880
I mean, I think that there's a way in which like
00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:08.009
kind of all of that actually is the piece. that
00:33:08.009 --> 00:33:09.809
the piece is not a fixed thing. The piece is
00:33:09.809 --> 00:33:13.029
actually like a set of possible interpretations
00:33:13.029 --> 00:33:16.230
and possible versions. Right. And you're right.
00:33:16.329 --> 00:33:17.750
I mean, like, I think particularly like, again,
00:33:17.769 --> 00:33:19.369
people are writing quickly and they're not using
00:33:19.369 --> 00:33:22.230
Sibelius and Finale and like, you know, and are
00:33:22.230 --> 00:33:23.990
not necessarily thinking that their piece is
00:33:23.990 --> 00:33:26.490
going to be recorded 78 times on Deutsche Grammophon.
00:33:26.809 --> 00:33:29.740
You know, you know, it's a different set of social
00:33:29.740 --> 00:33:32.119
relations, you know. And so I think I think your
00:33:32.119 --> 00:33:35.079
point about the students writing stuff down.
00:33:35.640 --> 00:33:38.180
does also kind of emphasize slightly the kind
00:33:38.180 --> 00:33:42.339
of community aspect of this that I mean obviously
00:33:42.339 --> 00:33:44.099
Chopin wrote the piece it's not like his students
00:33:44.099 --> 00:33:46.420
wrote it but they maybe they kind of wrote some
00:33:46.420 --> 00:33:50.839
of it like Joachim like wrote the you know told
00:33:50.839 --> 00:33:53.779
Brahms for the violin concerto Joachim was like
00:33:53.779 --> 00:33:56.430
dude this doesn't work like I'll just write this
00:33:56.430 --> 00:33:59.130
cadenza you know so it's like how much of like
00:33:59.130 --> 00:34:01.049
the Brahms violin concerto violin part is by
00:34:01.049 --> 00:34:04.069
Joachim and how much is by Brahms I mean, at
00:34:04.069 --> 00:34:07.950
least some is by Joachim, right? Yes, yeah. But
00:34:07.950 --> 00:34:08.809
I think that's a great point. It's cool when
00:34:08.809 --> 00:34:15.400
it happens, too. Yeah. So I think that was even
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:17.059
better than just getting the answer, because
00:34:17.059 --> 00:34:21.820
I think you helped us maybe expand our lenses
00:34:21.820 --> 00:34:26.019
through how you have to plug in A into B and
00:34:26.019 --> 00:34:31.179
B into C in order to get to what maybe might
00:34:31.179 --> 00:34:35.019
not be a fully transparent conclusion, we had
00:34:35.019 --> 00:34:38.519
a, we had a nice like process to like, and maybe
00:34:38.519 --> 00:34:41.619
like our own maybe formula to truthfully kind
00:34:41.619 --> 00:34:46.809
of like getting to that extent of like, I don't
00:34:46.809 --> 00:34:50.130
know, honesty when performing, recording, whatever
00:34:50.130 --> 00:34:54.170
you have to do with like a composer work. But
00:34:54.170 --> 00:34:57.230
yeah, I think you can do better and worse. Right.
00:34:57.309 --> 00:35:00.670
So I'm not saying like, there's no rules. It's
00:35:00.670 --> 00:35:02.429
like, you know, as you're suggesting, Kenny,
00:35:02.449 --> 00:35:04.389
like you kind of try to go through a process.
00:35:05.190 --> 00:35:07.170
You know, try to do a process that seems like
00:35:07.170 --> 00:35:09.510
it has some intellectual integrity and do your
00:35:09.510 --> 00:35:11.309
best to arrive at a conclusion that you think
00:35:11.309 --> 00:35:15.730
represents a good faith effort. You know, with
00:35:15.730 --> 00:35:17.110
the understanding you're not going to come to
00:35:17.110 --> 00:35:19.570
a perfect conclusion. A perfect conclusion is
00:35:19.570 --> 00:35:22.289
impossible. The composer thought it was impossible.
00:35:22.750 --> 00:35:27.230
They changed their minds, you know. Just try
00:35:27.230 --> 00:35:30.050
to do your best, you know, I mean, and don't,
00:35:30.050 --> 00:35:32.170
yeah, I mean, I think it's all, to put it differently,
00:35:32.230 --> 00:35:34.570
like, don't be lazy about it, you know. Don't
00:35:34.570 --> 00:35:36.530
just be like, well, the score says this, so that's
00:35:36.530 --> 00:35:39.389
what we're going to do. The score is a political
00:35:39.389 --> 00:35:43.449
document. It's a historical document. People
00:35:43.449 --> 00:35:47.909
had to decide to use an accent instead of a diminuendo.
00:35:50.219 --> 00:35:55.340
Anyway, I'll stop. It's all right. So maybe going
00:35:55.340 --> 00:35:59.820
on to that, I wanted to maybe go talk about like...
00:35:59.900 --> 00:36:02.880
the the role of the conductor like now right
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:06.760
in 21st century sure so it it seems to be more
00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:10.000
of like a modern concept today with classical
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:12.880
music like the the ideal 21st century conductor
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:15.440
and i don't know we don't have that many more
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:17.619
like we call old school old school conductor
00:36:17.619 --> 00:36:20.739
you know like kurt masur like um those kind of
00:36:20.739 --> 00:36:24.019
figures so in your like in your opinion you don't
00:36:24.019 --> 00:36:26.179
have to be fully transparent transparent but
00:36:26.179 --> 00:36:30.480
um how how how did it come to introduce this
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:34.619
role in like musical artistry and like um where
00:36:34.619 --> 00:36:36.639
we are today like how how was that introduced
00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:40.059
like the idea of the modern conductor and like
00:36:40.059 --> 00:36:43.820
maybe not exactly like stereotypes but like characteristics
00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:49.099
of what um we have come to today sure i mean
00:36:49.099 --> 00:36:51.519
i think like you know i'm not a historian so
00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:54.460
i wouldn't want to like and i'm sure and smart
00:36:54.460 --> 00:36:57.469
scholars have written detailed histories of this
00:36:57.469 --> 00:36:59.639
stuff but i think kind of like broadly speaking
00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:02.460
the contours are pretty clear you know that that
00:37:02.460 --> 00:37:06.050
um you know orchestras start you know like if
00:37:06.050 --> 00:37:09.190
you sort of think of like the lily um you know
00:37:09.190 --> 00:37:12.050
the 24 violins of the king etc is kind of like
00:37:12.050 --> 00:37:14.969
maybe the locus classicus of the modern symphony
00:37:14.969 --> 00:37:18.349
orchestra if you like um the idea of like everyone's
00:37:18.349 --> 00:37:20.530
playing the same boeings you know and it's kind
00:37:20.530 --> 00:37:22.210
of an organized group of people that are kind
00:37:22.210 --> 00:37:24.389
of always the same group of people you know if
00:37:24.389 --> 00:37:27.750
it's 24 violins of the king that's much smaller
00:37:27.750 --> 00:37:31.010
than a modern orchestra right um and just at
00:37:31.010 --> 00:37:34.170
some point like orchestras they they trend towards
00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:37.190
getting bigger right by which by trend i mean
00:37:37.190 --> 00:37:39.409
like sometimes they're smaller sometimes they're
00:37:39.409 --> 00:37:42.010
bigger but over over the course of from let's
00:37:42.010 --> 00:37:50.500
say 1680 to like 1870 just objectively the orchestra
00:37:50.500 --> 00:37:55.070
in european countries gets bigger you know And
00:37:55.070 --> 00:37:56.889
there are certainly like funny exceptions to
00:37:56.889 --> 00:37:59.449
this, like Haydn, when Haydn went to Paris to
00:37:59.449 --> 00:38:02.010
do his Paris symphonies, apparently like they
00:38:02.010 --> 00:38:04.510
offered him some absolutely enormous gargantuan
00:38:04.510 --> 00:38:06.170
orchestra to play these symphonies with, which
00:38:06.170 --> 00:38:08.690
is like much bigger than you play Haydn symphonies
00:38:08.690 --> 00:38:11.130
with today, you know, and he was thrilled apparently
00:38:11.130 --> 00:38:13.349
and everyone loved it. But, but I think that's
00:38:13.349 --> 00:38:15.150
an exception that proves the rule, right. That
00:38:15.150 --> 00:38:17.289
he had that Esterhazy, he had a small orchestra.
00:38:17.849 --> 00:38:21.690
So I think like just the larger orchestras get,
00:38:21.829 --> 00:38:26.289
excuse me, the more, the more like, you need
00:38:26.289 --> 00:38:29.250
someone to like sift through the chaos, you know,
00:38:29.250 --> 00:38:32.449
and someone to essentially like lead, you know,
00:38:32.469 --> 00:38:34.429
I think of, I mean, really to me, like conducting
00:38:34.429 --> 00:38:37.590
is primarily like leading rehearsal and managing
00:38:37.590 --> 00:38:41.469
time. Right. But someone's got to do that somehow.
00:38:41.570 --> 00:38:44.650
And like, it just took a while to, I think, organize
00:38:44.650 --> 00:38:48.750
how that labor was, was distributed, you know,
00:38:48.769 --> 00:38:51.590
I mean, like, I think famously, you know, Beethoven
00:38:51.590 --> 00:38:54.179
Ninth Symphony. the premiere there's kind of
00:38:54.179 --> 00:38:56.400
like a thing where like the concert master is
00:38:56.400 --> 00:38:59.900
kind of leading and like someone is playing continue
00:38:59.900 --> 00:39:02.519
is playing continue on a piano actually not a
00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:05.079
harpsichord and beethoven is also kind of there
00:39:05.079 --> 00:39:08.480
leading stuff even though he's deaf and can't
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:10.619
hear what's going on you know so i'm sure that
00:39:10.619 --> 00:39:12.659
was great sure that was a really awesome performance
00:39:12.659 --> 00:39:16.800
that was super polished um this is also like
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:18.579
low -key like i think i have like a slightly
00:39:18.579 --> 00:39:21.539
spicy take which is that like a lot of like performances
00:39:21.539 --> 00:39:23.800
of historical music when they were first played
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:26.619
were probably like really bad performances you
00:39:26.719 --> 00:39:29.960
know so um i don't know would you say that people
00:39:29.960 --> 00:39:33.300
i think one funny thing about like people that
00:39:33.300 --> 00:39:37.530
do you know um you know historically informed
00:39:37.530 --> 00:39:39.429
performances is like their performances tend
00:39:39.429 --> 00:39:42.090
to be very polished but probably the most authentic
00:39:42.090 --> 00:39:45.110
thing you could do would be to like not rehearse
00:39:45.110 --> 00:39:49.079
very much and like kind of play badly you know
00:39:49.849 --> 00:39:54.650
Like you got to be the identity of what you really
00:39:54.650 --> 00:39:56.570
want to like. Yeah. Y 'all are too good for,
00:39:56.610 --> 00:40:00.230
to be authentic, you know? But sorry, I was talking
00:40:00.230 --> 00:40:02.010
about Haydn again. So orchestra is getting bigger.
00:40:02.090 --> 00:40:04.349
So I think like, I mean, I feel like people normally
00:40:04.349 --> 00:40:07.710
say that Carl Maria von Weber was the first person
00:40:07.710 --> 00:40:10.150
to be like, I'm a conductor and I'm going to
00:40:10.150 --> 00:40:12.610
use a scroll of paper and I'm going to use the
00:40:12.610 --> 00:40:14.650
scroll of paper to direct an orchestra. And then,
00:40:14.670 --> 00:40:16.570
you know, barely, it was really takes on that
00:40:16.570 --> 00:40:19.820
role. So does Mendelssohn. So I think like it
00:40:19.820 --> 00:40:22.539
is kind of like, in my view, an early 19th century
00:40:22.539 --> 00:40:25.139
thing. You know, if you really want like the
00:40:25.139 --> 00:40:26.860
spiciest of takes on this, I think it's from
00:40:26.860 --> 00:40:29.480
Jacques Attali, who's this French economist who
00:40:29.480 --> 00:40:31.820
wrote a book called Noise, the Political Economy
00:40:31.820 --> 00:40:33.940
of Music. He's not a musician, he's an economist,
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:36.960
but he really thinks the 19th century, he has
00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:38.760
this really like wacky theory that music like
00:40:38.760 --> 00:40:42.619
predicts everything in like political economic
00:40:42.619 --> 00:40:45.239
culture, that music is always ahead of other
00:40:45.239 --> 00:40:48.559
art forms and other kind of like. cultural phenomenon.
00:40:49.690 --> 00:40:52.150
So one thing that Atali really thinks I think
00:40:52.150 --> 00:40:54.849
pretty provocatively is that the orchestra is
00:40:54.849 --> 00:40:58.170
a 19th century creature because it kind of like
00:40:58.170 --> 00:41:01.650
prefigures the logic of like industrial capitalism
00:41:01.650 --> 00:41:05.610
which is to say like you know the division of
00:41:05.610 --> 00:41:07.769
labor so people have these individual things
00:41:07.769 --> 00:41:09.750
they do in a factory to make a car or something
00:41:09.750 --> 00:41:12.530
like that and then there's like one person that
00:41:12.530 --> 00:41:15.309
kind of owns the company and the conductor is
00:41:15.309 --> 00:41:18.119
like the kind of like is that person the conductor
00:41:18.119 --> 00:41:20.760
is like the captain of industry as it were and
00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:23.639
kind of like your bourgeois 19th century audience
00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:26.360
members that go to orchestra concerts end up
00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:28.420
really identifying with the person of the conductor
00:41:28.420 --> 00:41:31.300
because it kind of mirrors the economic circumstances
00:41:31.300 --> 00:41:33.960
that were developing at the time so like i said
00:41:33.960 --> 00:41:36.039
that's like probably the spiciest take that i
00:41:36.039 --> 00:41:38.519
know on what the conductor is um and this is
00:41:38.519 --> 00:41:39.900
a great book if you guys haven't read it like
00:41:39.900 --> 00:41:41.940
i said it's not it's not a performance book it's
00:41:41.940 --> 00:41:45.239
like a it's a work it's about the political economy
00:41:45.239 --> 00:41:47.190
and i think it's very interesting But I kind
00:41:47.190 --> 00:41:49.429
of, there's an extent to which I buy that, which
00:41:49.429 --> 00:41:52.670
is that, like, I don't think it's a coincidence
00:41:52.670 --> 00:41:56.989
that, like, industrial capitalism, meaning, like,
00:41:57.090 --> 00:42:01.230
you know, factories and, you know, mass producing
00:42:01.230 --> 00:42:05.610
stuff and, like, the orchestra as we know it
00:42:05.610 --> 00:42:09.630
and sort of the trying to perfect all the instruments
00:42:09.630 --> 00:42:12.650
at the same time. I don't think that it's a coincidence
00:42:12.650 --> 00:42:14.250
that that's all happening at the same time. I
00:42:14.250 --> 00:42:15.929
think that's all kind of the same cultural logic.
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:19.280
And so in the most practical sense, it's like
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.500
suddenly if you've got like, you know, 90 people
00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:25.550
in an orchestra, that's just not going to work
00:42:25.550 --> 00:42:27.510
as well if they're all just trying to listen
00:42:27.510 --> 00:42:31.150
to each other, you know, and try to play at the
00:42:31.150 --> 00:42:33.530
same time. And like the way music is being written
00:42:33.530 --> 00:42:35.150
is starting to be different. It has more tempo
00:42:35.150 --> 00:42:38.590
changes. So you need like, you kind of do need
00:42:38.590 --> 00:42:43.570
a person to be like faster, slower, sharper,
00:42:43.630 --> 00:42:48.940
flatter, louder, softer, you know. So I think,
00:42:48.940 --> 00:42:50.400
I'm not sure, again, if that answers your question.
00:42:50.539 --> 00:42:53.000
The exact history, like I said, I think people
00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:54.539
tend to think that it's Carl Maria von Weber
00:42:54.539 --> 00:42:57.900
who's the first legit conductor, as it were,
00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:01.380
and then Berlioz obviously is big into that as
00:43:01.380 --> 00:43:03.719
well. Habeneck also, isn't that right? The guy
00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:07.630
at the Paris Conservatory. Yeah, I think the
00:43:07.630 --> 00:43:09.150
Paris Conservatory history is probably worth
00:43:09.150 --> 00:43:10.929
looking into, and I don't know that history as
00:43:10.929 --> 00:43:13.789
well as I should, but I think the Paris Conservatory
00:43:13.789 --> 00:43:19.050
is the oldest continually existing kind of cultural
00:43:19.050 --> 00:43:22.070
like school in in western europe and i know that
00:43:22.070 --> 00:43:25.070
they had a very fine orchestra and you know they
00:43:25.070 --> 00:43:27.269
came from france no actually it's not that it's
00:43:27.269 --> 00:43:30.210
a um barely has heard them play the beethoven
00:43:30.210 --> 00:43:32.849
symphonies in paris and was really impressed
00:43:32.849 --> 00:43:35.690
by how precise they were this has got to be i'm
00:43:35.690 --> 00:43:39.530
guessing that's like late 1820s early 1830s you
00:43:39.530 --> 00:43:42.309
know um and i think habanik was the conductor
00:43:42.309 --> 00:43:44.389
though i don't know if he led from the violin
00:43:44.389 --> 00:43:48.130
or not um But the kind of like standalone star
00:43:48.130 --> 00:43:49.610
conductor, I think, you know, is a little bit
00:43:49.610 --> 00:43:52.510
later. And I think does evolve from just the
00:43:52.510 --> 00:43:54.869
idea that you do need a person, particularly
00:43:54.869 --> 00:43:56.849
like when time is limited. And that certainly
00:43:56.849 --> 00:44:00.489
is the case now in like 21st century U .S. Is
00:44:00.489 --> 00:44:03.369
that like, you know, if if musicians are like
00:44:03.369 --> 00:44:07.460
professionals who are getting paid money to be
00:44:07.460 --> 00:44:09.440
there, which wasn't always the case. Right. So
00:44:09.440 --> 00:44:11.570
early 19th century Vienna, like. these Beethoven
00:44:11.570 --> 00:44:14.050
performances that I think were so bad. It's partially
00:44:14.050 --> 00:44:15.570
because like, it's a lot of amateur musicians,
00:44:15.710 --> 00:44:18.170
you know, who were like, you know, and they have
00:44:18.170 --> 00:44:20.190
like janky bows and some of them have the new
00:44:20.190 --> 00:44:21.710
bows and some of them have the old bows, you
00:44:21.710 --> 00:44:24.760
know? But I think like with the professionalization
00:44:24.760 --> 00:44:28.179
of music, that also means that you got to pay
00:44:28.179 --> 00:44:30.300
the musicians for their time. And that means
00:44:30.300 --> 00:44:33.239
like every rehearsal costs an organization, a
00:44:33.239 --> 00:44:35.739
lot of money. And so you got to have someone
00:44:35.739 --> 00:44:38.340
there to be like, here's how we're going to manage
00:44:38.340 --> 00:44:41.300
that time. Because if it's just like 90 musicians
00:44:41.300 --> 00:44:43.199
trying to be like, I think this and I think that
00:44:43.199 --> 00:44:45.480
and I think that and I think that, that's probably
00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:48.139
not going to work very efficiently. There are
00:44:48.139 --> 00:44:51.659
advantages to that also, but one of the advantages
00:44:51.659 --> 00:44:58.380
is not time. It's not efficiency. And if it's
00:44:58.380 --> 00:44:59.960
just like you're working with a limited budget,
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:02.820
which arts organizations always are, you do need
00:45:02.820 --> 00:45:05.159
a person to be like, here's the tempo and that's
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:07.860
what we're doing. Again, I don't know if that
00:45:07.860 --> 00:45:08.980
answered your question, but that's just kind
00:45:08.980 --> 00:45:10.340
of like the way that I tend to think about it.
00:45:10.739 --> 00:45:13.300
Same idea. It's always nice to hear someone else's
00:45:13.300 --> 00:45:16.739
thought. And always when I don't think like at
00:45:16.739 --> 00:45:18.139
this point we're looking at answer, we're kind
00:45:18.139 --> 00:45:21.079
of seeing like the thought process of each person
00:45:21.079 --> 00:45:25.639
because we did have another guest come here and
00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:29.139
he kind of instead we kind of like ask him questions,
00:45:29.159 --> 00:45:31.239
but simultaneously he kind of presented his own
00:45:31.239 --> 00:45:34.360
like worldview. It was a little bit more niche
00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:38.039
in particular on like seeding. but it was, it
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:41.539
was also something great to like, no, like, you
00:45:41.539 --> 00:45:43.679
know, getting into a dip of each person's world,
00:45:43.719 --> 00:45:47.300
but also that, that idea, how you see it as like,
00:45:47.380 --> 00:45:49.440
you know, like the modern orchestra kind of like
00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:52.239
as kind of like almost like a factory in a sense
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:55.440
with like, like almost like production lines
00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:58.239
with each of the inch and like instrument players
00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:02.579
role is also nice to always have a new idea or
00:46:02.579 --> 00:46:05.960
thought on that. I think, I think there's also
00:46:05.960 --> 00:46:08.349
like, a way in which like that's a little unfortunate
00:46:08.349 --> 00:46:10.250
you know which is to say that i think that like
00:46:10.250 --> 00:46:13.329
you will hear people like you know players who
00:46:13.329 --> 00:46:15.869
have professional orchestra jobs and that's like
00:46:15.869 --> 00:46:17.289
their full -time job that they do all the time
00:46:17.289 --> 00:46:20.530
some players do find that unsatisfying right
00:46:20.530 --> 00:46:23.030
and it's precisely for this reason it's that
00:46:23.030 --> 00:46:26.409
like if you're one of 16 violinists in a violin
00:46:26.409 --> 00:46:28.510
section in a professional orchestra like you
00:46:28.510 --> 00:46:30.489
probably don't have that much artistic agency
00:46:30.489 --> 00:46:33.460
you have some but you you got to do the same
00:46:33.460 --> 00:46:34.820
bowing as the concertmaster. You got to be in
00:46:34.820 --> 00:46:36.659
the same place in the bow. You got to do the
00:46:36.659 --> 00:46:38.460
thing that the conductor is saying. And that
00:46:38.460 --> 00:46:39.980
probably is not what you necessarily want to
00:46:39.980 --> 00:46:43.590
do, you know? So it does have like a, you know,
00:46:43.590 --> 00:46:45.769
a worker quality to it. I mean, I do think like
00:46:45.769 --> 00:46:47.949
musicians are laborers in the same way that like
00:46:47.949 --> 00:46:49.469
lots of other people are laborers and that's
00:46:49.469 --> 00:46:52.429
an under appreciated. We're also artists, you
00:46:52.429 --> 00:46:54.969
know, but we're both in the same way that athletes,
00:46:55.090 --> 00:46:57.989
you know, are like both like workers and also
00:46:57.989 --> 00:47:03.639
like athletes. You know, I dealt with that. especially
00:47:03.639 --> 00:47:06.159
in my late high school years, because I'm a freshman
00:47:06.159 --> 00:47:10.059
in college and I made that difficult decision
00:47:10.059 --> 00:47:12.019
kind of, and I think a lot of people, musicians
00:47:12.019 --> 00:47:14.440
have to go through that, is am I going to be
00:47:14.440 --> 00:47:17.920
a performance student and am I going to do, not
00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:21.059
that you can't be a performance major and have
00:47:21.059 --> 00:47:23.320
artistic liberty. I mean, you can do outside
00:47:23.320 --> 00:47:27.119
of the box projects. For me, I mean, I really,
00:47:27.260 --> 00:47:29.820
because I'm a composition major and I want a
00:47:29.820 --> 00:47:32.880
minor in conducting and piano performance. Because
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:36.420
I did all these, but I, I realized that I think
00:47:36.420 --> 00:47:39.980
it's sort of this individual thing where you
00:47:39.980 --> 00:47:42.860
have to know what you want to do years down the
00:47:42.860 --> 00:47:46.239
line. And I think there are some people who almost
00:47:46.530 --> 00:47:50.869
go for that more like orchestral position because
00:47:50.869 --> 00:47:54.690
there is, I don't know how to put it. There's,
00:47:54.690 --> 00:47:57.570
there is something nice about being able to go
00:47:57.570 --> 00:48:00.130
to a job, which is fairly consistent to have
00:48:00.130 --> 00:48:01.809
somebody to tell you, this is how I've done it.
00:48:02.099 --> 00:48:04.539
but i think um there are times though where it's
00:48:04.539 --> 00:48:07.099
like if you're especially in more of the the
00:48:07.099 --> 00:48:11.190
creative side of that that process um it can
00:48:11.190 --> 00:48:14.010
it can feel limiting i think if you don't have
00:48:14.010 --> 00:48:16.110
that outlet to to and musicians have opinions
00:48:16.110 --> 00:48:18.309
that's what i'm learning at my college is that
00:48:18.309 --> 00:48:21.050
everyone has an opinion and nothing gets done
00:48:21.050 --> 00:48:24.829
without that one person to say okay like they're
00:48:24.829 --> 00:48:27.630
all the opinions are good but let's let's pick
00:48:27.630 --> 00:48:30.570
one so then we can actually vote for you gotta
00:48:30.570 --> 00:48:34.699
pick one right true um but no that's very interesting
00:48:34.699 --> 00:48:38.699
and um actually kind of going on to like uh an
00:48:38.699 --> 00:48:40.579
additional question you kind of touched on it
00:48:40.579 --> 00:48:43.239
with historical performance and how a better
00:48:43.239 --> 00:48:46.280
practice might be for performers to not rehearse
00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:49.699
as much to to get closer to the original um but
00:48:49.699 --> 00:48:52.800
you know i don't want to say it's better necessarily
00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:55.699
i'm just saying like um it's it's more i sort
00:48:55.699 --> 00:49:00.090
of like i'm slightly questioning um I guess I
00:49:00.090 --> 00:49:02.050
don't want to take the idea of authenticity too
00:49:02.050 --> 00:49:05.190
seriously because I think like historically informed
00:49:05.190 --> 00:49:07.489
performance is like, I think, which I love, I
00:49:07.489 --> 00:49:09.909
mean, you know, and try to do myself. It still
00:49:09.909 --> 00:49:13.269
is really about contemporary performers, you
00:49:13.269 --> 00:49:16.150
know, and, and as, as contemporary performers,
00:49:16.190 --> 00:49:19.849
we do have an aesthetic of polish. We want our
00:49:19.849 --> 00:49:21.550
performances to be polished when we put them
00:49:21.550 --> 00:49:24.139
on a stage. you know and that's just because
00:49:24.139 --> 00:49:26.320
of how music is professionalized and it simply
00:49:26.320 --> 00:49:28.039
was not you know it depends on where you are
00:49:28.039 --> 00:49:30.579
what time period and you know where you are and
00:49:30.579 --> 00:49:33.000
are you in vienna are you in berlin are you in
00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:35.599
paris you know there's different levels of like
00:49:35.599 --> 00:49:38.900
just like professionalization and like like i
00:49:38.900 --> 00:49:40.260
said they didn't have a lot of rehearsal time
00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:42.920
also they everyone kind of knows how it goes
00:49:42.920 --> 00:49:44.159
but they didn't have a lot of rehearsal time
00:49:44.159 --> 00:49:48.670
and so um you know like that what's that performance
00:49:48.670 --> 00:49:52.329
in like like december 23rd 1808 i think where
00:49:52.329 --> 00:49:54.469
like beethoven presents like four hours of music
00:49:54.469 --> 00:49:56.610
and he has like no he has like one day of rehearsal
00:49:56.610 --> 00:50:00.780
and also the theater is like super cold and so
00:50:00.780 --> 00:50:03.119
i mean it must have been a disaster i mean it
00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:07.760
was probably unbearable you know um so yeah anyway
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:09.340
i'm just saying like i'm not saying we should
00:50:09.340 --> 00:50:11.719
do that like but i'm just saying like actually
00:50:11.719 --> 00:50:13.280
if what you're really going for is authentic
00:50:13.280 --> 00:50:18.539
authenticity is you should like be worse or um
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:21.719
And you might not, the thing is, you're probably
00:50:21.719 --> 00:50:23.539
not actually going for authenticity. That's what
00:50:23.539 --> 00:50:26.380
I'm really saying. You know, we're going for
00:50:26.380 --> 00:50:28.320
a particular kind of aesthetic, which is one
00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:32.639
that I like, frankly. Yeah, Kenny and I, while
00:50:32.639 --> 00:50:34.480
we've been reading this book, we're finding that
00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:37.219
a lot of, well, the author brings up this quote
00:50:37.219 --> 00:50:41.420
quite a bit about bad taste in music. Sure. Which
00:50:41.420 --> 00:50:43.280
is a fine line, because it's, you know, we're
00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:44.820
in the arts, and what does that actually mean?
00:50:45.420 --> 00:50:49.110
Taste is a confusing concept, I agree. Because
00:50:49.110 --> 00:50:51.349
we've talked a lot about performance, but from
00:50:51.349 --> 00:50:54.489
a conducting point of view, when you see a group
00:50:54.489 --> 00:50:58.070
of historical performers, are there any trends
00:50:58.070 --> 00:51:02.539
in it that you see that maybe are not... I mean,
00:51:02.579 --> 00:51:04.599
you've already brought one up, but that are not
00:51:04.599 --> 00:51:08.940
maybe good for the well -being of the practice
00:51:08.940 --> 00:51:11.260
of historical performance? Because some people
00:51:11.260 --> 00:51:14.260
have argued that removing things like vibrato...
00:51:14.619 --> 00:51:17.599
um doing these sort of i guess more modern perspective
00:51:17.599 --> 00:51:20.119
ideals of what it should sound like is actually
00:51:20.119 --> 00:51:23.920
detracting from the art itself if that makes
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:26.400
sense i'm not sure no it does i mean i think
00:51:26.400 --> 00:51:31.650
um yeah okay so i think if if um if you're asking
00:51:31.650 --> 00:51:33.489
me about vibrato specifically i'll just say my
00:51:33.489 --> 00:51:36.550
my views on vibrato real quick um which is that
00:51:36.550 --> 00:51:38.630
like i think that so practically speaking when
00:51:38.630 --> 00:51:40.889
you're rehearsing an orchestra and let's say
00:51:40.889 --> 00:51:43.269
truly let's just like say we're doing like a
00:51:43.269 --> 00:51:48.369
mozart symphony like The thing that I will ask
00:51:48.369 --> 00:51:50.809
them to do with their first rehearsal is to use
00:51:50.809 --> 00:51:53.659
no vibrato at all, the string players. I'll be
00:51:53.659 --> 00:51:57.369
like, no vibrato. Vibrato is illegal. No vibrato
00:51:57.369 --> 00:52:00.030
in this first rehearsal. And then within eight
00:52:00.030 --> 00:52:02.329
bars of me saying that, they're using vibrato
00:52:02.329 --> 00:52:05.469
again. So the reason I ask them not to use vibrato
00:52:05.469 --> 00:52:09.190
is because string players tend to use vibrato
00:52:09.190 --> 00:52:11.590
like deodorant, which say they just put it on
00:52:11.590 --> 00:52:14.750
to cover up something unpleasant. Basically to
00:52:14.750 --> 00:52:17.340
like, they have a particular idea of sound and
00:52:17.340 --> 00:52:18.960
a particular idea of intonation you kind of like
00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:20.900
notice intonation problems a little bit less
00:52:20.900 --> 00:52:23.699
with vibrato you know so i think like the main
00:52:23.699 --> 00:52:25.500
thing about vibrato is that i think contemporary
00:52:25.500 --> 00:52:29.000
performers need like more awareness of it right
00:52:29.130 --> 00:52:31.110
and that's really the thing that we that's the
00:52:31.110 --> 00:52:33.489
issue that we face is that like we're taught
00:52:33.489 --> 00:52:35.989
that vibrato is kind of an integral part of a
00:52:35.989 --> 00:52:39.949
good tone when that's not necessarily the way
00:52:39.949 --> 00:52:41.969
you need to look at it it's kind of like one
00:52:41.969 --> 00:52:44.480
of many aspects of what you do you know and i
00:52:44.480 --> 00:52:47.000
think kind of like a conventional historically
00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:49.599
informed performance line on vibrato might be
00:52:49.599 --> 00:52:53.320
that it's an ornament like a whole bunch of other
00:52:53.320 --> 00:52:55.219
different kinds of ornaments rather than like
00:52:55.219 --> 00:52:58.559
a thing specifically to enhance the tone right
00:52:58.559 --> 00:53:01.000
and so you kind of pick and choose your battles
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:02.880
in terms of like when you use vibrato and when
00:53:02.880 --> 00:53:05.619
you don't and so that's kind of that that that's
00:53:05.619 --> 00:53:07.320
actually like when working with like players
00:53:07.320 --> 00:53:11.699
on modern instruments i'll start by saying no
00:53:11.699 --> 00:53:15.219
vibrato at all just by mostly by way of trying
00:53:15.219 --> 00:53:17.579
to get them to be aware of it. Trying to be like,
00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:19.980
oh, wow, I actually just use vibrato all the
00:53:19.980 --> 00:53:22.440
time and I'm not really thinking about it. I'm
00:53:22.440 --> 00:53:24.780
kind of on autopilot with it. And so I think
00:53:24.780 --> 00:53:29.059
like then I do like, you know, I like, you know,
00:53:29.059 --> 00:53:32.079
if I really have my way, I do like my Mozart
00:53:32.079 --> 00:53:35.199
and Haydn, you know, mostly non -vibrato with
00:53:35.199 --> 00:53:37.800
strings. You know, if we don't have modern instruments
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:39.380
or if we don't have historical instruments available,
00:53:39.619 --> 00:53:43.389
we can get pretty close. by not sustaining the
00:53:43.389 --> 00:53:47.969
sounds, using minimal vibrato, you know, having
00:53:47.969 --> 00:53:51.289
like faster tempos, having an overall kind of
00:53:51.289 --> 00:53:53.510
like transparent sounds. I think that gets you
00:53:53.510 --> 00:53:57.690
like 77 % of the way there. And I think like,
00:53:57.730 --> 00:53:59.989
I find, you know, I don't know if that's more
00:53:59.989 --> 00:54:03.329
authentic, but I do think like in my view, speaking
00:54:03.329 --> 00:54:06.949
of taste, the music kind of speaks a little bit
00:54:06.949 --> 00:54:09.949
better that way to me. Like I find the performance,
00:54:09.969 --> 00:54:12.559
I find like, John Elliot Gardner's performances
00:54:12.559 --> 00:54:14.920
of Mozart symphonies more convincing than like
00:54:14.920 --> 00:54:18.719
Carl Burm with the Berlin Philharmonic from like
00:54:18.719 --> 00:54:22.559
1967 which is like its own thing and like you
00:54:22.559 --> 00:54:24.460
might like that but it's not because it's authentic
00:54:24.460 --> 00:54:26.780
you know it's like its own kind of historical
00:54:26.780 --> 00:54:28.880
it's very sweet in a way you're like oh cute
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:30.300
I can't believe you guys thought Mozart went
00:54:30.300 --> 00:54:34.579
like that how sweet bless your heart as we say
00:54:34.579 --> 00:54:40.059
where I'm from you know All right. So that's
00:54:40.059 --> 00:54:41.900
my view. That's my kind of like top level view
00:54:41.900 --> 00:54:44.420
on vibrato is that like, you know, and I think
00:54:44.420 --> 00:54:48.039
like it mostly it's good to be aware of it. And
00:54:48.039 --> 00:54:50.300
it's good to try to figure out like kind of how
00:54:50.300 --> 00:54:52.159
you think people use it at the time and place.
00:54:52.539 --> 00:54:54.179
But I think it's also clear that when you read
00:54:54.179 --> 00:54:56.920
the treatises, people also don't agree on vibrato.
00:54:58.139 --> 00:55:00.119
Right. Like some people like really are like,
00:55:00.199 --> 00:55:02.139
no, use vibrato. Vibrato is great. And some people
00:55:02.139 --> 00:55:04.619
are like, you know, you sound like a dumbass
00:55:04.619 --> 00:55:07.340
if you use too much vibrato. I feel like Jim
00:55:07.340 --> 00:55:10.440
and Yanni and like Leopold Mozart, I don't know
00:55:10.440 --> 00:55:12.079
if I'm allowed to say dumbass, but whatever,
00:55:12.179 --> 00:55:15.239
you can edit it. Jim and Yanni and like Leopold
00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:17.679
Mozart, I think they really like disagree about
00:55:17.679 --> 00:55:19.519
vibrato, you know? And I think that's okay. I
00:55:19.519 --> 00:55:21.920
mean, musicians these days disagree. I'm sure
00:55:21.920 --> 00:55:24.960
they did too. But probably, I mean, I think when
00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:27.860
you play a historical violin and it doesn't have
00:55:27.860 --> 00:55:29.340
a shoulder pad and it doesn't have like a chin
00:55:29.340 --> 00:55:31.760
rest, your left hand is doing a different thing.
00:55:31.800 --> 00:55:33.320
You're kind of trying to hold the violin up.
00:55:33.659 --> 00:55:35.139
and support it rather than supporting it with
00:55:35.139 --> 00:55:36.800
your neck which is kind of what is what contemporary
00:55:36.800 --> 00:55:38.900
violinists do so that just makes that actually
00:55:38.900 --> 00:55:42.519
just does make vibrato harder to do you know
00:55:42.519 --> 00:55:44.260
so i think having at least having that insight
00:55:44.260 --> 00:55:47.019
that like they probably use less vibrato because
00:55:47.019 --> 00:55:50.019
like just the physical technology of the violin
00:55:50.019 --> 00:55:52.780
was different and we should at least take that
00:55:52.780 --> 00:55:55.079
into account when we're more making musical decisions
00:55:55.079 --> 00:56:01.250
in 2026. Yeah, such a such a like well -developed
00:56:01.250 --> 00:56:03.889
answer. I don't like because if you ask me, perhaps
00:56:03.889 --> 00:56:06.690
like any like big, big show conductors, like
00:56:06.690 --> 00:56:11.199
even today, like some might not even like necessarily
00:56:11.199 --> 00:56:14.320
have that in mind where we have other people
00:56:14.320 --> 00:56:18.360
who have that interest. Right. Yeah. Once have
00:56:18.360 --> 00:56:21.320
a developed idea of kind of like executing that
00:56:21.320 --> 00:56:24.880
vision with students, professional musicians,
00:56:25.059 --> 00:56:28.110
even amateur musicians, too. So it's always lucky
00:56:28.110 --> 00:56:33.750
who also you have to share those ideas if they
00:56:33.750 --> 00:56:37.869
do have those. Maybe one other nuance was with
00:56:37.869 --> 00:56:40.349
cadenzas. I know that's kind of irrelevant, but
00:56:40.349 --> 00:56:43.190
you can think of it in the context of when you
00:56:43.190 --> 00:56:46.289
conduct maybe a concerto for students or other
00:56:46.289 --> 00:56:50.070
musicians. Do you have any thoughts about...
00:56:51.099 --> 00:56:54.719
what people do like the with the cadenza so like
00:56:54.719 --> 00:56:57.739
there's people who improvise ones for themselves
00:56:57.739 --> 00:57:01.679
or they're pre -made ones right that other composers
00:57:01.679 --> 00:57:04.400
musicians made for the concerto or the piece
00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:09.320
um like up to like today i don't i don't know
00:57:09.320 --> 00:57:11.780
too much about like contemporary music like concerto
00:57:11.780 --> 00:57:15.260
like cadenzas stuff but um do you have like a
00:57:15.260 --> 00:57:18.969
position on that Sure. I mean, I think like I'm
00:57:18.969 --> 00:57:21.130
pretty much pro anything as far as cadenzas go,
00:57:21.230 --> 00:57:24.110
but I do think I am. I'm happy that like it seems
00:57:24.110 --> 00:57:28.050
like the trend is moving back towards performer
00:57:28.050 --> 00:57:31.190
improvised and performer composed cadenzas rather
00:57:31.190 --> 00:57:34.429
than just like everyone plays the same cadenza
00:57:34.429 --> 00:57:37.289
to like Mozart third violin concerto or something
00:57:37.289 --> 00:57:39.329
like that, which is, you know, because I remember
00:57:39.329 --> 00:57:41.789
when I was a kid, I learned that piece and learned
00:57:41.789 --> 00:57:43.949
the standard cadenza and tried to write my own.
00:57:43.969 --> 00:57:45.630
My teacher wasn't happy that I tried to write
00:57:45.630 --> 00:57:48.980
my own, you know. So that's the thing. I mean,
00:57:48.980 --> 00:57:50.840
cause when I was, yeah, when I was a teenager,
00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:53.860
I like, right. I wrote my own cadenza for Mozart's
00:57:53.860 --> 00:57:55.699
third violin concerto. I wrote my own cadenza
00:57:55.699 --> 00:57:58.840
for Mozart, the C minor piano concerto number
00:57:58.840 --> 00:58:03.079
24 and quoted Beethoven's third piano concerto,
00:58:03.079 --> 00:58:05.559
which is in the same key, but was written later
00:58:05.559 --> 00:58:08.219
in my cadenza. So I I'm, I'm super pro this,
00:58:08.239 --> 00:58:10.199
you know, obviously someone like Robert Levin,
00:58:10.280 --> 00:58:13.840
you know, the, the force a pianist is like, has
00:58:13.840 --> 00:58:15.519
really developed a whole improvisational practice
00:58:15.519 --> 00:58:18.510
surrounding. improvisation and i think it's amazing
00:58:18.510 --> 00:58:22.340
to see i mean he's an amazing player um but i
00:58:22.340 --> 00:58:24.440
think it's good to improvise cadenzas um and
00:58:24.440 --> 00:58:26.059
to or to write your own if you're not comfortable
00:58:26.059 --> 00:58:28.760
improvising i think that like yeah that my 30
00:58:28.760 --> 00:58:31.280
000 foot take on this is kind of like to agree
00:58:31.280 --> 00:58:34.280
with george lewis so there's a there's 1996 article
00:58:34.280 --> 00:58:37.159
by george lewis called improvised music after
00:58:37.159 --> 00:58:41.079
1950 uh after logical and neurological perspectives
00:58:41.079 --> 00:58:42.679
i think i have to tell you right but essentially
00:58:42.679 --> 00:58:44.719
like one one of many points he makes in this
00:58:44.719 --> 00:58:49.829
article is like you know they there was like
00:58:49.829 --> 00:58:52.030
improvisation was like a thing in classical music
00:58:52.030 --> 00:58:54.449
so what we call classical music now for a long
00:58:54.449 --> 00:58:56.769
time and then like we got away from it you know
00:58:56.769 --> 00:59:00.619
and like uh you know and i'm not saying we should
00:59:00.619 --> 00:59:02.300
get back to it i don't think there's any getting
00:59:02.300 --> 00:59:05.900
back as such but i do think that like um the
00:59:05.900 --> 00:59:08.719
removal of improvisation from classical music
00:59:08.719 --> 00:59:12.460
as a whole I don't necessarily think is an entirely
00:59:12.460 --> 00:59:15.559
positive thing for the discourse. You can do,
00:59:15.619 --> 00:59:17.760
it's, you can do a lot with notation, right?
00:59:17.840 --> 00:59:20.940
So like very precise notation like Mahler has
00:59:20.940 --> 00:59:23.440
is cool because you really can organize a big
00:59:23.440 --> 00:59:25.980
orchestra and make it do cool stuff. But what
00:59:25.980 --> 00:59:28.480
you lose, what you gain with that, you really
00:59:28.480 --> 00:59:33.659
like lose in like performer creativity. So I
00:59:33.659 --> 00:59:35.659
think, and you know, and I think also, again,
00:59:35.739 --> 00:59:38.829
if we're trying to be authentic, you know, you
00:59:38.829 --> 00:59:41.250
know, the violinists and singers back in the
00:59:41.250 --> 00:59:44.110
day, they, like, would have done their own thing,
00:59:44.250 --> 00:59:45.690
you know? And they were expected to do their
00:59:45.690 --> 00:59:48.250
own thing, you know? Like I said about Joachim,
00:59:48.309 --> 00:59:52.019
like, in Brahms, like, you know, Joachim, like,
00:59:52.059 --> 00:59:53.980
was heavily involved in this violin part because
00:59:53.980 --> 00:59:55.360
he was the person that was supposed to be playing
00:59:55.360 --> 01:00:00.440
it, you know? And so I would, you know, you know,
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:02.760
and then, like, later composers writing cadenzas
01:00:02.760 --> 01:00:04.579
for earlier pieces, I think, is also a really
01:00:04.579 --> 01:00:07.179
interesting thing. Like, I was... earlier today
01:00:07.179 --> 01:00:09.800
i was listening to the the cadenza by alfred
01:00:09.800 --> 01:00:12.940
schnitka to the beethoven violin concerto um
01:00:12.969 --> 01:00:15.030
russian composer alfred like he died i don't
01:00:15.030 --> 01:00:18.150
know 10 10 12 years ago um he wrote these like
01:00:18.150 --> 01:00:20.210
wacky cadenzas to the beethoven violin concerto
01:00:20.210 --> 01:00:22.090
which are super great and have the timpani in
01:00:22.090 --> 01:00:24.550
them and everything um i love that stuff personally
01:00:24.550 --> 01:00:27.489
so um and i think that's more like kind of in
01:00:27.489 --> 01:00:29.510
line with the spirit of a piece like a concerto
01:00:29.510 --> 01:00:33.329
where like you know it's kind it's more of a
01:00:33.329 --> 01:00:36.530
partnership with the composer you know um you
01:00:36.530 --> 01:00:38.750
know obviously Brahms wrote Brahms wrote most
01:00:38.750 --> 01:00:41.469
of it you know but like the soloist really has
01:00:41.469 --> 01:00:44.539
a take on the piece um and I think part of the
01:00:44.539 --> 01:00:47.599
soloist take on a piece can be like a cadenza
01:00:47.599 --> 01:00:50.300
that like shed some light on what the composer
01:00:50.300 --> 01:00:52.099
wrote in a way the composer may not have intended
01:00:52.099 --> 01:00:54.659
which said I don't think I mean ultimately I
01:00:54.659 --> 01:00:56.360
think the composer is an important voice but
01:00:56.360 --> 01:00:58.920
isn't the only voice and a soloist voice and
01:00:58.920 --> 01:01:01.599
a concerto really does matter and that's what
01:01:01.599 --> 01:01:03.059
makes it interesting that's the only reason you
01:01:03.059 --> 01:01:05.590
want to listen to it is because like this soloist
01:01:05.590 --> 01:01:07.349
plays it differently than this other soloist
01:01:07.349 --> 01:01:11.530
you know um yeah so yeah i don't know does that
01:01:11.530 --> 01:01:14.250
answer your question yeah it's also refreshing
01:01:14.250 --> 01:01:16.929
to hear that like view like it's okay to think
01:01:16.929 --> 01:01:19.030
about that like like in that mindset because
01:01:19.030 --> 01:01:21.949
um i just don't i don't think it was talked about
01:01:21.949 --> 01:01:24.449
that much i mean when you like you're in a studio
01:01:24.449 --> 01:01:27.659
lesson when it comes to the condensed part maybe
01:01:27.659 --> 01:01:30.900
you'll just have the teacher say um you can make
01:01:30.900 --> 01:01:33.789
one if you want if you want like and if it's
01:01:33.789 --> 01:01:38.849
convincing yeah for me no it's great yeah yeah
01:01:38.849 --> 01:01:41.789
honestly if teachers are encouraging people to
01:01:41.789 --> 01:01:44.550
write their own cadenzas these days that's super
01:01:44.550 --> 01:01:47.449
great and i like really um i find that to be
01:01:47.449 --> 01:01:49.670
an encouraging trend i don't know i you know
01:01:49.670 --> 01:01:51.690
sometimes i say it to paul um you know where
01:01:51.690 --> 01:01:54.530
i teach both undergraduates and graduate students
01:01:54.530 --> 01:01:56.769
you know that if there's one thing that i would
01:01:56.769 --> 01:01:58.989
add to our undergraduate curriculum for like
01:01:58.989 --> 01:02:02.289
classical performance majors it would be an improvisation
01:02:02.289 --> 01:02:05.730
class. I don't think I'm going to get that passed
01:02:05.730 --> 01:02:07.130
through the curriculum committee, but that's
01:02:07.130 --> 01:02:08.750
okay. I mean, I don't, not everyone has to agree
01:02:08.750 --> 01:02:10.550
with me on that, but I'm just saying, I think
01:02:10.550 --> 01:02:15.260
that really like classical performance, you know,
01:02:15.260 --> 01:02:18.360
majors really do benefit from some familiarity
01:02:18.360 --> 01:02:21.199
with improvisation. I think that makes you better
01:02:21.199 --> 01:02:24.429
at traditional rap also, you know? Yeah. And
01:02:24.429 --> 01:02:26.590
those who do get the opportunity before they
01:02:26.590 --> 01:02:29.510
come to college is also like, it's, it's, I think
01:02:29.510 --> 01:02:31.969
something like, you should take as a liberty
01:02:31.969 --> 01:02:35.210
in a sense yeah i think with your answer um so
01:02:35.210 --> 01:02:40.510
short but nuanced um uh conclusion um for that
01:02:40.510 --> 01:02:43.869
you can answer to um what do you think the future
01:02:43.869 --> 01:02:47.610
of classical music holds and um another interesting
01:02:47.610 --> 01:02:50.610
one how do you think easy question and how do
01:02:50.610 --> 01:02:53.269
you think other countries are kind of like following
01:02:53.269 --> 01:02:55.469
because i i was looking because i'm a fan of
01:02:55.469 --> 01:02:58.000
like uh looking at uh east asian orchestras like
01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:00.780
japan and sure korea yeah their recordings i
01:03:00.780 --> 01:03:03.559
see uh what russia is doing right now versus
01:03:03.559 --> 01:03:06.420
what western europe and british orchestras are
01:03:06.420 --> 01:03:08.719
doing do you have like a short answer for that
01:03:08.719 --> 01:03:11.900
i don't have a short answer but i think that
01:03:11.900 --> 01:03:14.760
like maybe um as a person that works a lot in
01:03:14.760 --> 01:03:18.159
new music i'll just say like you know which the
01:03:18.159 --> 01:03:19.519
relationship between new music and classical
01:03:19.519 --> 01:03:22.570
music is not it's a little bit they're kind of
01:03:22.570 --> 01:03:24.860
similar but there's like a Venn diagram and they
01:03:24.860 --> 01:03:26.739
kind of overlap. But I think the thing about,
01:03:26.739 --> 01:03:28.519
the thing about new music is that new music,
01:03:28.519 --> 01:03:30.840
it really is an international music, you know,
01:03:30.840 --> 01:03:33.980
in a way that like whatever else Beethoven was,
01:03:34.199 --> 01:03:39.309
he was a guy from Germany, you know, you know,
01:03:39.309 --> 01:03:41.869
he was not from Japan. He wasn't from Argentina,
01:03:41.969 --> 01:03:44.769
you know, he's not from New York or Chicago.
01:03:44.849 --> 01:03:47.070
He's from Germany. And like a lot of those, like
01:03:47.070 --> 01:03:49.530
a lot of music just is, was written by people
01:03:49.530 --> 01:03:51.329
in central Europe at a certain time, you know?
01:03:52.590 --> 01:03:55.510
So I think that like, you know, it's all great
01:03:55.510 --> 01:03:57.250
music and I love it and like orchestras all over
01:03:57.250 --> 01:03:58.510
should play it. I'm not saying they shouldn't.
01:03:58.510 --> 01:04:02.610
But I do think like different countries and locations
01:04:02.610 --> 01:04:04.349
developing different performance traditions,
01:04:04.409 --> 01:04:07.630
both of like traditional repertoire. I don't
01:04:07.630 --> 01:04:09.949
use the term standard repertoire. Developing
01:04:09.949 --> 01:04:11.389
their own performance traditions of traditional
01:04:11.389 --> 01:04:14.230
repertoire and then also combining that with
01:04:14.230 --> 01:04:16.969
like music by composers from their community
01:04:16.969 --> 01:04:19.710
is a super interesting thing. I think the country
01:04:19.710 --> 01:04:23.309
that does this really well is Mexico. Every time
01:04:23.309 --> 01:04:26.469
I've worked in Mexico, my professional ensemble,
01:04:26.610 --> 01:04:28.750
Ensemble Del Miente, which is a Chicago -based
01:04:28.750 --> 01:04:31.010
contemporary music group, when we go to Mexico,
01:04:31.289 --> 01:04:35.429
whenever we perform, whoever the presenter is
01:04:35.429 --> 01:04:37.869
always makes us add more Mexican composers to
01:04:37.869 --> 01:04:41.050
the program, which I think is great. And they
01:04:41.050 --> 01:04:42.789
have a lot of great composers in Mexico. And
01:04:42.789 --> 01:04:44.710
you see that when you go to their symphony orchestra
01:04:44.710 --> 01:04:47.829
programs, there's always a Mexican composer right
01:04:47.829 --> 01:04:49.489
there next to a Beethoven symphony or whatever.
01:04:50.170 --> 01:04:51.690
You know, so there's just a sense that like,
01:04:51.769 --> 01:04:55.530
you know, classical music, contemporary music
01:04:55.530 --> 01:04:58.300
in Mexico, there's just an understood cultural
01:04:58.300 --> 01:05:01.380
sense that like they're contributing to this
01:05:01.380 --> 01:05:04.619
kind of large tradition, you know, and it's as
01:05:04.619 --> 01:05:07.519
important as playing like music from the traditional
01:05:07.519 --> 01:05:09.840
repertoire. And their government also supports
01:05:09.840 --> 01:05:11.300
it really well, which I think is a great thing,
01:05:11.380 --> 01:05:14.239
like which, spoiler alert, our government doesn't
01:05:14.239 --> 01:05:18.099
support it well. um yeah hot take hot take that
01:05:18.099 --> 01:05:19.579
no one that no one agrees with i'm kidding everyone
01:05:19.579 --> 01:05:22.219
agrees with that um but i think that like just
01:05:22.219 --> 01:05:24.260
an example of a country that really i think is
01:05:24.260 --> 01:05:27.780
doing kind of is a model to look at for like
01:05:27.780 --> 01:05:30.900
all kinds of non -european countries is mexico
01:05:30.900 --> 01:05:33.440
because they are they are so supportive of their
01:05:33.440 --> 01:05:37.039
local composers um support it with government
01:05:37.039 --> 01:05:39.480
money and really like invest in the composers
01:05:39.480 --> 01:05:43.059
um invest invest in trying to like get good performances
01:05:44.210 --> 01:05:46.289
So I think that's terrific. And that's that's
01:05:46.289 --> 01:05:49.230
hopefully I'm going to fingers crossed. I hope
01:05:49.230 --> 01:05:50.829
that's kind of the direction that classical music
01:05:50.829 --> 01:05:53.429
is going in is to be increasingly international
01:05:53.429 --> 01:05:56.829
and, you know, less standardized. I think for
01:05:56.829 --> 01:05:59.349
a while it was like there was a trend towards
01:05:59.349 --> 01:06:01.369
standardization. You know, you listen to like
01:06:01.369 --> 01:06:04.769
Soviet orchestras from the 50s and they sound
01:06:04.769 --> 01:06:06.789
like super wacky. I love it, actually. Like,
01:06:06.809 --> 01:06:08.769
it's really great stuff. But they they sound
01:06:08.769 --> 01:06:11.210
super wacky and like not at all like U .S. orchestras.
01:06:11.860 --> 01:06:13.420
And now you listen to Russian orchestras and
01:06:13.420 --> 01:06:15.380
they kind of sound the same as US orchestras.
01:06:15.800 --> 01:06:18.119
Not exactly, of course. There's like little minor
01:06:18.119 --> 01:06:19.880
variations for people like us who are really
01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:22.460
in the weeds. But if you listen to the Leningrad
01:06:22.460 --> 01:06:25.559
Philharmonic from the 50s, it's just a radically
01:06:25.559 --> 01:06:28.159
different playing style. And I think that's an
01:06:28.159 --> 01:06:30.599
obvious example because it's so different. Paris
01:06:30.599 --> 01:06:32.099
Conservatoire orchestras from the same period,
01:06:32.199 --> 01:06:35.260
50s. And now things sound much more the same.
01:06:36.599 --> 01:06:39.480
And my hope is that things start to diverge from
01:06:39.480 --> 01:06:41.179
that and start sounding more different again.
01:06:41.559 --> 01:06:43.059
kind of based on the interests of, like, the
01:06:43.059 --> 01:06:47.130
local population, you know. Certainly, Kenny,
01:06:47.210 --> 01:06:49.130
I mean, I was in, you know, like, I've only performed
01:06:49.130 --> 01:06:51.409
in Asia one time. I went to Hong Kong a few years
01:06:51.409 --> 01:06:54.309
ago and, like, met a bunch of composers. It was,
01:06:54.309 --> 01:06:58.789
like, you know, and, like, they were asking,
01:06:58.969 --> 01:07:01.250
like, very interesting questions about, like,
01:07:01.250 --> 01:07:03.369
what a composer from Hong Kong should sound like,
01:07:03.449 --> 01:07:07.150
you know. You know, and, like, and again, you
01:07:07.150 --> 01:07:09.550
know, and the orchestra there, again, had very
01:07:09.550 --> 01:07:13.329
interesting programming, you know, like, So I'm
01:07:13.329 --> 01:07:15.090
pretty, I don't know if I'm hopeful exactly about
01:07:15.090 --> 01:07:19.050
the future of classical music, but I, if, if
01:07:19.659 --> 01:07:22.719
we get away a little bit from being like, we
01:07:22.719 --> 01:07:25.699
only want to play European music and we only
01:07:25.699 --> 01:07:28.739
want to play it in a specific way, I think that's
01:07:28.739 --> 01:07:31.380
a good direction for the kind of industry to
01:07:31.380 --> 01:07:33.500
go in. And I think like Chicago is doing an okay
01:07:33.500 --> 01:07:35.960
version of this, you know, where people started
01:07:35.960 --> 01:07:37.860
playing the music of Florence Price a little
01:07:37.860 --> 01:07:40.420
bit more. You know, I still think like people
01:07:40.420 --> 01:07:41.960
don't always interpret that music very well,
01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:45.219
but like, but she was from here or not from she's
01:07:45.219 --> 01:07:46.579
from arkansas actually but she lived here for
01:07:46.579 --> 01:07:49.260
a long time um and she was a like an important
01:07:49.260 --> 01:07:53.079
historical figure in chicago and so i think groups
01:07:53.079 --> 01:07:55.940
in chicago should play her music more and should
01:07:55.940 --> 01:07:58.679
be more thoughtful about stylistic questions
01:07:58.679 --> 01:08:00.639
about how should it sound how would it have sounded
01:08:00.639 --> 01:08:03.980
in the 30s in chicago um so yeah i guess does
01:08:03.980 --> 01:08:05.320
that answer your question that i kind of like
01:08:05.320 --> 01:08:08.199
i like your answer i hope yeah i hope that we're
01:08:08.199 --> 01:08:10.239
going more towards like what does the actual
01:08:11.050 --> 01:08:12.570
whatever what's what does the local community
01:08:12.570 --> 01:08:15.670
want to get out of classical music you know and
01:08:15.670 --> 01:08:17.569
i think like i'm not saying we should get rid
01:08:17.569 --> 01:08:19.149
of any traditional rep because i love i mean
01:08:19.149 --> 01:08:21.369
honestly i don't like tchaikovsky's fifth symphony
01:08:21.369 --> 01:08:23.130
but that's a whole different topic we can get
01:08:23.130 --> 01:08:25.029
every other piece we can keep but check five
01:08:25.029 --> 01:08:26.750
you know i'm not saying we should get rid of
01:08:26.750 --> 01:08:28.369
those pieces but i but i am saying that like
01:08:28.369 --> 01:08:31.550
orchestras are living beings and these technologies
01:08:31.550 --> 01:08:34.090
are living and like the people you know there's
01:08:34.090 --> 01:08:35.430
a lot of composers in mexico they're writing
01:08:35.430 --> 01:08:38.210
for orchestras mexican orchestras play those
01:08:38.210 --> 01:08:40.050
pieces and that's great that's exactly what they
01:08:40.050 --> 01:08:41.760
i don't know i'm not going to tell them what
01:08:41.760 --> 01:08:43.159
they should or shouldn't be doing but i think
01:08:43.159 --> 01:08:45.760
that like we in the us i'm saying could could
01:08:45.760 --> 01:08:48.279
take a lesson from that like we could do a better
01:08:48.279 --> 01:08:51.119
job of supporting composers writing right now
01:08:51.119 --> 01:08:54.079
and like also historical composers that are part
01:08:54.079 --> 01:08:56.220
of our community um you know and florence price
01:08:56.220 --> 01:08:58.979
is an obvious example because she's so prominently
01:08:58.979 --> 01:09:02.460
from chicago and with you know had had some performances
01:09:02.460 --> 01:09:04.199
in the 30s and then wasn't played for a long
01:09:04.199 --> 01:09:07.079
time you know and kind of seeing a revival now
01:09:07.079 --> 01:09:09.460
and i think like We're only at the beginnings
01:09:09.460 --> 01:09:11.399
of talking about how that music should sound.
01:09:12.119 --> 01:09:14.560
But I think that's a good conversation to at
01:09:14.560 --> 01:09:19.500
least start. Thank you for giving off so much
01:09:19.500 --> 01:09:22.520
of your wisdom to this podcast. You added another
01:09:22.520 --> 01:09:25.779
voice and another dimension of thinking that
01:09:25.779 --> 01:09:28.640
I think a lot of people are going to like. they
01:09:28.640 --> 01:09:30.859
ever happened to stumble on it so it was a great
01:09:30.859 --> 01:09:33.699
pleasure having you um talking about all these
01:09:33.699 --> 01:09:36.460
things and even if they're a little controversial
01:09:36.460 --> 01:09:38.539
i think it's it's it's always better to talk
01:09:38.539 --> 01:09:40.880
about them have a position rather than just like
01:09:40.880 --> 01:09:44.460
being quiet about it so yeah it's really nice
01:09:44.460 --> 01:09:46.800
to have you here yeah no happy to do it i mean
01:09:46.800 --> 01:09:49.060
i'm just you know just my opinions you know people
01:09:49.060 --> 01:09:51.979
have lots of opinions and like i hope they And
01:09:51.979 --> 01:09:53.859
they should. So people that really disagree with
01:09:53.859 --> 01:09:55.779
me on all this stuff, I welcome that disagreement
01:09:55.779 --> 01:09:57.640
because that's the only way we like actually
01:09:57.640 --> 01:10:01.770
grow as artists. Of course. Thanks for having
01:10:01.770 --> 01:10:05.409
me. Yes. Without further ado. Bye!