Judith Zaimont wrote:

>"Music is eminently a living medium -- it will change, even just
>a bit, in the performance of every player.  (So, for example, Fur
>Elise, is not merely the sum total of three pages of Beethoven, but
>the Gestalt of every rendition of this lovely piece, from the beginning
>pianist who lives on the corner to Artur Rubinstein's fluid and lovely
>version -- to its use as sinister background sound in the movie
>"Rosemary's Baby", and beyond!)....

This uncomfortably suggests (for me at least) that all these renditions and
renderings are equally "good." I don't think so.  The beginning pianists'
versions may have the potential for becoming good at some point down the
line, but with Rubinstein you are also hearing years and years of a
master's preparation and thinking about music.  That's gotta be worth more,
no matter how humanitarian and noble one's thoughts are along the lines of
"everybody has a right to play Beethoven." I admit I'm probably missing
your point, however, which may be more that there IS no single platonic
ideal realization of this or any other piece.  I have no quarrel with that.
But some performances through their artistry reveal more (or at least
appear to do so for me) about the piece than others.  One of my professors
said that Toscanini's performance of Light Cavalry (Suppe) fooled him into
thinking it was great music.

>Fundamentally, Art is both a lens and a mirror -- meaning that
>although composers may wish to think of their works as distillations
>of personal conceptions and idiosyncratic display of craft (the Lens),
>what the listener grasps from any given performance is precisely
>those aspects of the piece the listener is personally ready to take
>in at the time (the Mirror).  ...

By extension one may say that no one can ever communicate ANYTHING to
another in such a way that the other will understand it in exactly the same
way its originator did.  I think I have discovered a flaw in this argument.
When you write about "bonding" with a composition what do you mean? I take
it to mean that the music itself has no power to impose itself on a person,
that that person must first be receptive (in the mood), something which
implies no effort.  It makes no sense to me to say "now I am going to work
at being in the mood." But it does make some sense to say "I'm going to
work at learning to get into this piece." Bonding isn't the same thing as
understanding.  I can bond with a Popsicle.  That doesn't make it a work of
art.

Speaking of "inquisitiveness of the moment"--for me the important thing is
not that I be inquisitive all the time, but that I be inquisitive when it
counts.  Which is when the opportunity to grow presents itself.  If I'm not
there, it's pointless to try to convince me of the value of a piece.  You
seem to suggest this isn't something we have control of.  I know from
experience that it's possible to go into inquisitive mode at will,
particularly if there's the anticipation of a payoff.

Don't get me wrong--I've done the things you describe.  I've wanted pieces
to be other than what they are.  I've done it with The Prayer Cycle, which
I mentioned in my previous post.  I wanted him to do certain stuff and he
didn't do it.  So I'm faced with the challenge of trying to understand the
work on its own terms.  For me the process of doing that is very important,
because I'm the sum total of my experiences, and the more experience I can
bring under my personal process of understanding the more I understand what
it is to be human.  As much as I love reading stuff that I already agree
with (or hearing music I already know I like), I do realize the only way
to grow is to be challenged by what I DON'T understand.

Chris Bonds