Bernard Chasan replies to Karl Miller and me:

>But there is a puritanical strand in all of this- how much better to play
>music than just to LISTEN to music!!!

Guilty.  Actually, I recognize that there is such a thing as performing
talent (something I have very little of, incidentally), and not everyone
has it.  My point is this:  understand music as best you can.  If you can
play, do so, because that will provide its own insight into musical works.
There's no question that I know works I've performed far better than works
I haven't.  There's also no question that the concentrated repetition of
rehearsal has given me access to works I initially loathed.  I assume that
others have had this experience in this way.  Is it necessary? Who knows?
Will it hurt you to try? Probably not.  I don't say that performers are
better than listeners, but the experience of getting up a work for
performance differs from the experience of just listening.  You can get
insight both ways, but why block either road?

I guess I can illustrate this best with two composers - Brahms and
Sessions.  Brahms I disliked.  I performed him and continued to dislike
him.  On the other hand, I couldn't avoid listening to him.  Eventually,
it clicked.  Sessions, outside of his early work, put me off initially.
It sounded crabbed and turgid.  I doubt I would have cracked it just by
listening since I had no incentive to buy the recordings and since I've
never bought a ticket to a concert where Sessions was performed (or,
incidentally, had the opportunity to buy a ticket).  However, I did have to
rehearse some Sessions.  It was that process that cracked open the music.

>Yes, and how much better to grow our own food.  And make our own clothing
>!!!  But that is not the world in which we live.

How much better to have books read to us and interpreted for us, rather
than to do the work ourselves.  We can take this analogy as far as you
wish.  The question is, as always, where does it become unreasonable?

Steve Schwartz