Jon Johanning responded to Dave Lampson's demolition of the Kronos Quartet: >It's like a reverse Emperor's New Clothes; everyone else can see they are >naked, and only I can see the threads. Could someone explain what is wrong >with me? I'm beginning to doubt my sanity! I'm not sure that there is anything wrong with Jon (whom I have long regarded as one of the saner and wiser members of this list - along with others too numerous to mention, of course). I too fail to understand the contempt - if that is not too strong a word - which many people of usually sound judgement have for the KQ. I've heard them live just once. Almost exactly five years ago: 23 July 1994 at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. The stage setup was very much the same as that described by Ron Chaplin, and the programme included quartets by Gubaidulina and Gorecki, a couple of pieces by Don Byron, some "typical" KQ oddities, and Hendrix's Purple Haze. I didn't care for everything they played, but I recall being greatly impressed by their commitment to what they were doing, their determination to communicate to the audience, and their technical command and musicianship. I hope that hasn't blown my MCML credibility wide open once and for all. >Dave used a term which strikes me more and more curioser as I think about >it: "competitive repertoire." I guess this is another one of my personal >quirks, certainly not shared by the majority of posters to the list, but >I don't like to think of art, and especially music, as a competitive >enterprise, like sports or business. Then I'm in the minority again. Music is not a part of the Olympic Games, and I don't think of it in competitive terms. That's why I rarely contribute to "Best Recording of X" or "Best Contra-Bassonist (etc.)" threads. I'm much more interested in why a particular performance is the way it is, and in what can be learned from it, than I am in ranking one performance above another. Sometimes the only things to be learned from a particular performance are that (a) the performers are incompetent, and (b) they are best avoided in future. I haven't heard the KQ play "competitive repertoire", which I take to mean the mainstream string quartet pieces from Haydn to Shostakovich, so I can't give an opinion of them in that territory; but I haven't heard anything from them, live or recorded, that suggests incompetence to me. I have to wonder if some of their critics aren't importing irrelevant notions of what a string quartet "should" sound like, rather than allowing themselves to respond freely to what the Kronos Quartet are actually doing. They are not a mainstream quartet, and there's no point in judging them as if they are something they are not. >Seek out the musical experiences that inspire and delight you, and forget >about the rest. Life is just to short for all this mean-spirited chatter. Sound advice from Jon here. >I get rather disheartened sometimes, looking through the many posts on >this list in which people fiercely duel over whose performance of work X >is "best." To me, this is all beside the point. Jon, you're not alone. Ian Crisp [log in to unmask]