Indeed the markings in classical music are prescriptive, but the further back one goes, the fewer markings one finds. The classical world has its own oral or aural tradition. The much-maligned (in some circles) reliance on the dots was simply because new repertoire was expected exceedingly often (hence Bach's "300 odd cantatas (sic)", rehearsal time was minimal, recording had not been invented until around the beginning of the 20th century so lots of fine music would have been lost if musicians had relied on memory, and possibly last but by no means least, because the scale and complexity of the music was often so much greater than with traditional music. (This is not a value judgment, but could you really imagine Beethoven (already deaf) teaching an orchestra, chorus and soloists the entire 9th symphony by ear, expecting them to perform it from memory, and then expecting people not to have forgotten it a few hundred years later? This would be a collective feat of memory far beyond what is required to memorise even the longest and most sophisticated of variation sets for the pipes.) I repeat: this is not a value judgment. I'm just explaining to the "the-buggers-couldn't-do-it-if-it-wasn't-written-down" camp that use of the dots in classical music has always been pure pragmatism. Memorising a short but exquisite poem is one thing, memorising, say, War and Peace or the telephone directory is another. Btw, conservatoires and music colleges always insist that students play their examination pieces by heart, and it is very unusual to see a concerto soloist with the dots in front of him/her, dammit, them (though I did once see Perlmann play the Elgar with the dots).
>PS my spellchecker offered as alternatives to 'stratocaster': >'toastmaster' or castrated. Ah! the wonders of a digital age. > Love it. Word's spellchequer used to suggest "fellated" for "filleted". Is that dubious enough, Richard? Happy daze, C To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
