On Feb 3, 2009, at 1:19 AM, David Tayler wrote: > I'm old fashioned, I guess; I think the old ways are better.
So do I. But the expression "the old ways" covers a multitude of sins. I don't like, for example, those "old" recordings of the Matthew Passion where the opening chorus takes longer than the entire piece would take in a "modern" recording! I'm exaggerating of course, but I get a strong sense that the 19th-C Romantic "take" on Baroque music was not exactly what we would consider good music today, another e.g. Stokowski's Bach. Ditto the 20th-C "modern" take on 19th-C Romanticism: Berlioz played by a 100-piece symphony orchestra consisting of notemachines trained to play like human midi- files is not exactly going to knock my socks off! We love to change the past in order to make it better. Or so we rationalize. Didn't JS Bach add his own basso continuo to one of the Palestrina masses. Yikes!!! But Bach himself, who I think had great respect for the "stile antico" would have thought that he was improving the piece by bringing it up to date. The question is, what exactly were the old ways? Did the old ones play their allemandes and bourees with their local lute god's fingering and ornament instructions propped up in front of them. I imagine they all did at first, but sooner or later one has to go beyond the primer stage and get into the music on one's own terms. Segovia once likened all the rules and regulations involved in learning music, as a scaffolding: eventually the scaffolding has to come down, and the building will then, hopefully, be able to stand on its own... > I also think one learns more form one note of a great player than a > whole book of deconstructionist. Absolutely! Deconstruction is temporary; music is forever. DR dlu...@verizon.net -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
