John Smyth responds to me:

>>My subject is the overt displays of people in deep anguish.  All I'm
>>looking for is some foundation for it - otherwise, cut it out.
>
>I don't know if it can be cut out.

I'll assume that some artists could cut it out and others couldn't or
wouldn't.  However, the best resolution is for the artist to convey the
intensity *and* its foundations.

This might as well be the point to bring up the Russian theory of
intonatsia which I like to think of as having its 'macro' and 'micro'
elements.  In the big picture, intonatsia specifies a marriage between
music and the composer's psychology, that the score contains this marriage
which is just as effective (or more so) than verbal communication.  From
my perspective, the artist's two most important functions are to find the
marriage in the score and then convey it to the listener.

How does the artist convey the composer's psychology? - through the
'micro' and technical elements of intonatsia such as articulation, note
values, intervals, and the resulting tension.  Should I expect less from
a professional artist? Is the piano unable to deliver on this issue? Even
I can convey Scriabin's overt intensity and its foundations on my piano,
and I'm about the last person that anyone would identify as being artistic
or would want to hear.

If the above process of finding and conveying the composer's psychology
and deepest thoughts is not followed, all we have are a bunch of notes
and chords with spaces between them.  This type of musical performance
definitely has the capacity to entertain and offer lovely sounds, but it
has no ability to illuminate.  In essence, the performance is incomplete as
it only serves the artist and the notes on the page.  I hear performances
of this ilk quite often.  They come from Tabe playing Debussy, Cazal
playing Poulenc, Murray or Roberts playing Bach, Lortie playing Beethoven
- the list goes on and on.  In these performances, the artists either can't
find the composer's psychology in the score or they give it no attention.
I enjoy Tabe, Lortie, and company.  Yet, there is so much more reward from
those artists who provide a beacon to a composer's inner sanctum.

Don Satz