Jocelyn Wang writes:
>Name one "practical problem" that would warrant removal of repeats on
>artistic grounds.
A fair number of correspondents have given you plenty of reasonable
examples. Unfortunately, you've not made any noticeable attempt to
engage with them.
In my case, I believe you took the line that the performers had no business
to be playing Schubert's Quintet in a Cathedral acoustic. That really
missed my point entirely as they didn't have a choice in the matter. You
see, this was a real-life case, in a far from ideal or theoretical setting.
To repeat: in this real case, the "practical problem" of the acoustic
should have led the players to the practical compromise of cutting the
repeats, for everyone's good including Schubert's. Satisfied?
>Wow. The composer's dead, therefore living performers have carte blanche
>to mess up their works any way they darned well please. Oh, yeah, that's
>some reverence for art.
Nobody says such a thing. And is it not a problem for you when some
tiresome composers pay so little attention to this "reverence" due to their
own work?
Here's Leslie Kinton on Mozart:
>Live performances, however, are a different thing. I used to be a fanatic
>about always doing all repeats as being the only historically accurate way
>of doing things... 'till I heard no less than Malcolm Bilson point out
>that Mozart himself was quite cavalier about the whole matter, and left
>them in, or took them out according to how the piece would fit the rest of
>the programme.
To which I imagine you'd reply, with Salieri in Pushkin's marvellous little
drama; "Oh Mozart, you are not worthy of yourself!".
Mozart, of course, merely laughs uproariously and asks him where they're
going to have dinner.
Hey ho ... what's new? I suppose the world will always be divided into
Salieris and Mozarts.
Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"
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