--- Anne Ozorio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Music isn't a commodity that can be formulated and auditted.

For me, that is a most fascinating notion.  While I assume you meant
that observation in the context of a subjective evaluaton...and of music
in performance...for me, most reviewers do not make the distinction
between the subjective and objective.  A musician can play wrong notes,
ignore dynamic markings etc.  Yet even Rachmaninoff disregarded, from
time to time, the dynamic markings in the music of others.  His objective
"errors" can be auditted, even as they apply to his emotive expression.

True, there are considerations like "stylistically appropriate," however,
when one considers the history of music, even through recordings, such
notions change over time.  I am reminded of how Stravinsky's interpretations
of his own works, as envinced in his own recordings, changed over time.

On the other hand, music, outside of performance, is formulated and
auditted in every music theory class.  Perhaps it is a fundamental need
of our species to "organize" and evaluate information, hence we even try
to quanitfy emotive expression with notions of levels of differentiation,
etc.

So, while I believe music in performance can be, to some extent, "formulated
and auditted," even if it done on a comparative basis, I do not believe
in the notion of absolutes.  However it would seem that such quantification,
as ill informed, or informed, and as inconsistent, or consistent, as it
might be, is often the stuff of music criticism.  Is it not?

Karl

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