Subject: | |
From: | |
Date: | Sun, 13 Feb 2000 13:08:02 -0800 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Steve writes:
>On the other hand, one can easily imagine - although in practice I admit
>it's hard to think of a live, successful example - a score definitely
>improved by some brilliant editing
IIRC Bernstein dropped more than a few measures from the finale of
Copland's 3rd Symphony and performed it that way without Copland's
permission. Copland was furious, but admitted later that the amended
version was an improvement.
Again, if it is true, as HC Schoenberg says, that composers up to Debussy
fully expected that (at least) their piano music would be improvised; and
if it is true, as Jean Clay points out, that much Baroque and Classical
music was of the"documentary" spirit, as opposed to the "monumental" spirit
of Romantic music and beyond; what do these points point of view say about
the strict observance of repeats?
(Documentary would mean that music was written to be part of a larger
whole, such as a social event, while monumental suggests that the music
itself *is* the event.)
Would repeats in a Mozart Serenade be as important as repeats in a Mozart
Symphony, for instance?
Baroque and Classical music is not my forte, (nor even my mezzo-forte,) but
I do enjoy Social History. Could the answer to the question of repeats be
clearer if looked at from a social/historical point of view?
Jean Smyth
|
|
|