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Okay, Dennis -- rack 'em up:
Let's address your premises in reverse
order: first, your "don't crawl, fly first" theory:
Well...if we don't know where we came from, how
can we know where we're going? Yes, I can imagine your eyes
rolling at that one but come now! It's hard to tell if you're being
facetious, and particularly in light of the interesting ideas you promoted and
then self-deflated in your online piece - are you really serious?
Are you now reverting back to your earlier position that we MUST throw
out everyone and everything which has come before us; that we must have enforced
ignorance of all precedent work? So that out of that roomfulla
chimps all sitting at their MacFinaleK5s -- one of them might accidentally
compose the Mahler 2nd all over again and claim it as his own -- simply because
he didn't know Gus beat him to it? Isn't it somewhat
better to have at least a simian knowledge of what came before in
order that he might actually build upon it? And if you follow my
logic, how can those poor damned apes aurally get to know the Mahler unless
someone plays it!? That we must ignore Bach, Shakespeare, da
Vinci, Wagner, Ibsen, Monet, Dostoyevsky, Proust, Mozart, Christopher
Marlowe...oh heck with just Chris; one imagines you're advocating
dumping even Philip Marlowe -- and if I were then to continue
my hobbling sidestep from the 'fine' arts to the 'not-so-fine' arts: does this
mean that in le monde selon Dennis I would have to give up my
beloved Buster Keaton and Max Linder and (horrors) even the Brothers
Marx? That instead I would ONLY have those works created within some
shadowy timeline beginning in the extremely recent past and ending only --
tomorrow? That if I wanted to see a film comedy I'd have to
choose between Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey? As your original premise
stated, the quality of a work is completely, totally irrelevant; the only
importance is its chronology relative to the audience's own.
Remember: your original premise -- which you haven't truly otherwise
refined for us in specifics -- was updated by you to include only those works
created within one's own lifetime, so at least I could throw in the later film
works of Billy Wilder but couldn't keep, for example, any of the classic Preston
Sturges. What a quandary! Evaluate the good only
based upon its age relative to that of the consumer; my
(currently-)seven-year-old son can therefore never hope someday to (when he's a
bloody ADULT of at least 30 if I have anything to say in the matter) revel in
the bawdy glory of 'Blazing Saddles,' (which may or may not be a good thing,
damn it) nor may he even see nor hear anything I, Daddy produced
before his birth -- and he himself would jusssst make the cut there; if he had
been born a few minutes earlier he wouldn't be allowed to regard himself in
a mirror, but now we're getting a tad existential....
So -- let me get this straight: if the
creator of a work is still alive -- or at least was alive when you were born
-- that work is worthy and more meaningful to us than -- well, in a
specific case: Sibelius, whom you related to us died before you were
born. I was seven months old when Sibelius died.
So he's not verboten to me, but is completely useless to
you. Am I interpreting you correctly? Or were you
then and still now being facetious merely for the sake of
speciousness? Please let me know because if I have you right, I'm
going to have to do some serious culling of my wine cellar....
I would never hope to close myself
off to something based strictly upon age. As I previously
stated, I make no such parameter judgment -- as I also previously stated, I base
my MSO programming inclusion upon factors both blithe and concrete;
aesthetic and cost-responsible -- but also practical for my specific
organization and its limitations. And to play right into your
waiting hands, Dennis, I'll confide a little secret: I really don't enjoy the
Baroque as much as I do later periods with far more tonally and rhythmically
complex language -- as well as challenging form and intellectual
provocation. But: there is a place, I feel, even for such
older, 'simpler' music -- and so I program it; and you know what? I
find that in so doing, I learn and grow and enjoy and respect and sometimes,
sometimes....even come to love works I've written off, simply because in
studying them as a performer and not merely as a listener I begin to see worth
beneath the surface....and never so much more so than when I see the works of a
later composer who clearly and intentionally built upon something which came
before.
Once all the practical criteria have been
met, my kajillions of possible choices have been whittled down to a few hundred
or thousand; as my conditions of operation change through the years (i.e. if I
do get a reliable bassoonist or two -- and a larger stage allowing for more
players -- a bigger budget -- and increased proficiency, but I can't
complain there as they have come along remarkably in the past two years...) so
grows my potential programming pond. But for now, I'm not too
badly off; which takes us then into that wonderful land of
subjectivity! What I think is good and therefore worthy of
playing and disseminating to our audience at large, as I previously
wrote. But oh, I've gone on too long, Dennis -- it would be
extremely rude of me at this point NOT to say:
You first.
Next point (backwards:) Are we Americans really
too self-effacing? In my personal case, perhaps so....but only
because I think it polite to wear such a mask in order that I might hide my
actual bloated, self-feeding, Pavarotti-sized ego. In my case, I
usually enjoy endless cruises through the lovely land of South
Self-Deprecation. Funny; I was just discussing this with an
acquaintance and in my own personal experience, I've found the greater artists
I've been fortunate to know personally within the many disciplines to be those
who are the more self-effacing, perhaps because there is a sense of security and
contentment within their own talent which conversely allows them the freedom to
utilize that talent a little more fully. Just a silly little
theorem on my part based upon many years of contact with others, but who
knows? I do know that the self-aggrandizing artistes with
whom I've worked are those with whom I'd not care (usually) to work again,
despite any potential creative award -- and not only because their
personalities may have made the experiences a bitter one, but because in not
freeing their own talent, they self-crippled their own resources; there was also
a subliminal need to shoot down the talent of others around
them. No names; don't ask. To backtrack to
that previous life of mine: some of the most brilliant acting talents I was
fortunate to work with were also the most down-to-earth and just plain great
company and here I'm delighted to divulge: Albert Finney and Vanessa
Redgrave immediately pop to mind and yes, Dennis, not Americans but
kinda-sorta-Europeans....and completely self-effacing. I'm just
uncomfortable literally blowing my own horn, which is why it's difficult for me
to push my brilliant compositions, such as my 'American' Symphony on New
and Old Tunes which had not one but two performances last year and was an
astonishing revelation, ground-breaking landmark of 21st-century art which
changed for the better the lives of everyone not only who heard it in concert
but merely heard ABOUT it or read the title or breathed the air which passed
through the great-aunt of the cousin of the head custodian of the theatre
who, while he wasn't actually at any of the performances, experienced the
aura......
Moving up your post: how do I decide what to
program? Easy; if I haven't already stamp-pressed that one
into nothingness:
I program that which I enjoy
hearing. What communicates with me, my head, my
heart. And yes, you mentioned that you set 'personal taste
aside' -- well, in my personal case, it would be disingenuous and in some ways
even dishonest of me to program and/or pass on music which is incompatible
in some way with my own personal taste: how can I make a good,
convincing argument for a piece if I don't believe in it
myself? How can I be an advocate for something I don't
like? And do I give up on something at first blush if my head says,
'no good!' No! I do try to give myself
repeated hearings of music which I initially
don't get; sometimes I do find value and change my first impression; other
times, I merely confirm my initial reaction. And I may simply
feel I'm not yet ready for a particular work and will then keep
it on the shelf to come back to and try again in the future.
Have I changed? Has -- somehow --
it? But I would like to think that I have a very
broad range of flexibility within what might be called my own personal
taste. And so therefore what do I program? Most usually
-- but not always -- tonal music. With -- more often than not
-- rich use of harmonic resources, intelligent structuring, perhaps - but not
always -- an emotional component -- and there's the rub, Dennis, there's
why we continue to program and play and listen to and enjoy and experience the
composers of today AND yesterday AND the day before AND the day before
that.....because....on a personal level....they still communicate with us
today. Right outta them dead dudes to our ears. When
Beethoven gives out angst, I still feel it. When Mozart
radiates joy, I get happy. When Shakespeare kills off someone he's
made me care about, I am upset. When Moliere makes a bon mot, I get
it! I don't care when it was created; good art is timeless and
communicates just as well today as it did no matter when it was initially
created. So if Dennis Bathory-Kitsz communicates to me today, I
respond! It appears you've just been therefore validated
as a great artist, Dennis....
Best,
Les
Les Marsden
Founding Music Director and Conductor, The Mariposa Symphony Orchestra Music and Mariposa? Ahhhhh, Paradise!!!
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