Quoting Richard O. Burdick: > > I don't like this trend of needing to hear someone else perform the music > to learn it. There really is room for individual interpretation and > expression in music.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, but I gotta relate this anecdote about myself. I was in the stacks one day looking for something else when I ran across a "Solo pour cor en fa avec piano" by Raoul Pugno. It was a Paris Conservatory contest piece at one time. Well, some of us remember that Pugno was once a very big deal indeed. So I thought I'd work it up, and one of my colleagues, a professional accompanist, said she'd read through it with me. (The reading session has yet to happen.) So usually I've either heard the piece I'm preparing or other works by the same composer or the same aesthetic movement and style, and have some idea about how the thing should go. However, M. Pugno kind of threw me for a loop. The piece is kind of episodic. Some of the markings make little sense to me. Example: an allegro passage in eighth notes with accents marked "a l'aise," and so on. Not to mention my relative unfamiliarity with late romantic French music in general. It has been a real test of my musicianship. Though at this point I'm determined to figure out for myself how it should go and don't really want to hear anyone else play it, I can understand someone's desire to have an example as a point of departure. Howard Sanner [email protected] _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
