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From:
Jocelyn Wang <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 11 Mar 2000 19:14:41 -0800
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Chris Bonds <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>The pianist Bill Doppman, when he was a professor at Iowa in the 60s, once
was going to play the Schubert B-flat (Op.  Post.) sonata, which as you
know has a rather long first movement.  He previewed it for Eldon Obrecht's
music appreciation class (I was Obrecht's graduate assistant then), and
Eldon asked him if he were going to take the repeat of the exposition.  His
answer was instructive:  He didn't know whether he would or not until he
had played the exposition, and then he would decide based on his experience
of his own playing at that performance!  ...

No, he was treating it as if he knew better than Schubert that a passage
ought to be repeated, and he did not.  He was placing his own whim of the
moment above the composer's genius, and that is uncondonable musical
butchery.  As a performer, it his his job to make the piece --ALL of it,
which includes the repetitions-- work.  If it did not in any particular
performance, then that is the musician's shortcoming, not Schubert's.

-Jocelyn Wang
Culver Chamber Music Series
Come see our web page: www.bigfoot.com/~CulverMusic

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