Mimi Ezust wrote: >I'd like to discuss the importance of rests in classical music. Rests are >especially helpful after a long discussion of repeats. > >Mimi Ezust <[log in to unmask]> > >[I think the musician deserves the artistic freedom to ignore rests in >order to "get on with it" and keep the short-attention-span cadre from >losing interest. -Dave] An excellent topic!! To Dave: Stokowski had this philosophy, I believe (pace Stumpf!). I remember Otto-Werner Mueller conducting a rehearsal of Dvorak's 8th, which has rests between the phrases at the opening. He would say "...and the rest, also in tune." Very mystical. How can a rest be in tune? (I have an idea about what he meant, though...) The quality of a rest depends entirely on what comes before and after. Handel has some of the most powerful rests in tonal music. Example: in the chorus "All We Like Sheep" in the final slow section, the chorus sings "And the Lord hath laid on him....[rest]...the iniquity of us all." This is the tension created by putting a rest between a dissonant chord and its resolution. There are also rests where a metrical beat continues in the listener's mind, and others where any semblance of beat dissolves (most especially a rest after a ritard). Again these are psychologically different, of course. Chris Bonds