Len Fehskens replies to me:

>>Unless, of course, the composer made a mistake or miscalculated.  But
>>apparently the composer can never be wrong.  Sweet racket.
>
>So, what determines what's "correct" about an artist's work? Someone
>else's preferences? You're not happy with an artist's work because it
>violates your esthetics? Make your own art.  Then you can decide what's
>right or wrong.

We're not talking about "correct" but "better." How do you normally judge
the quality of one work of art, relative to another?

>>In other words, we shouldn't have to submit to composers' opinions -
>>high or low - of their own stuff.  We don't take authors' views of their
>>own work, painters' judgments of their own canvanses, or actors' reviews
>>of their own performance as gospel.
>
>It's one thing to disagree with an artist's *opinions*,

I just want to make sure at this point that we're talking about the
artist's opinion of his own work or even a particular passage of his own
work, not about the artist's opinion about peace in the Middle East or
NAFTA.

>it's quite another to alter their work to suit our own preferences.  We
>don't "edit" canvases, we don't edit movies, etc..

On the contrary, we do it all the time to movies and, apparently, to music.
As I say, the only objection a priori I can find is an ethical one.  That
is, the original disappears in favor of the edition or, more drastically,
the arrangement.  I happen to love Rimsky's edition of Boris, but when
at one time it had suppressed performances and scholarly editions of the
original, I resented it like hell.  Now that Mussorgsky's Boris is back,
I don't have the same objection.  I can now compare performances and
editions.  It so happens I prefer Mussorgsky's original, but for a long
time the best performances to my mind were of the Rimsky.

I would also make the point that the Ravel orchestration of Pictures isn't
necessarily inferior to Mussorgsky's piano suite, any more than Webern's
orchestration of the Bach Ricercar (from the Musical Offering) is inferior
to the Bach original.  These have their virtues.  Do I extend the same
dispensation to every arranger and editor? Of course not.  I judge the
particular thing in front of me.  Honestly, I don't see this as a
controversial or unreasonable position.

Steve Schwartz