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In Reply to: RE: My question is: Why does YOUR opinion matter?... posted by WritsRUs on February 18, 2008 at 05:43:55
The Ysaye solo violin sonatas have a very well-documented performance history. There is even a silent movie of Ysaye playing one of the movements, I forget which, it might even be the Ballade. If one does not know what one is talking about, one may question the usefulness of a silent film. However, assuming film viewing is at the proper speed, one can use the bowchanges to gauge the tempi of each section.
One of Ysaye's last students was Mr. Gingold. Mr. Gingold was a principal teacher of my friend Arturo Delmoni, and Mr. Gingold taught Mr. Delmoni these works. People know how these works go.
As Mr. Heifetz is reported to have said to a student, everybody knows how this work goes, why don't you just play it the way it goes?
I think that it is a fact that Ms. Little's opening for the Ballade is the slowest I have ever heard. So slow indeed, that it gave me heebie jeebies about what I'd hear when the going gets very tough. In the event, the heebie jeebies were unjustified, it's a fine job, with one interpretative idea that in my opinion doesn't work.
I got a new recording of Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium which is a sublime performance, except for a totally overdone pause after the first line. As it was Lauridsen who sent me the CD, it was with some trepidation that I emailed him a long email setting out my concern that a gesture that the singers obviously intended to convey profundity ended up losing the flow to the extent one wondered whether it was a tape-editing error or lack of confidence on the part of the singers whether the next phrase could ever be so good.
He replied: Of course you are right, that pause goes on far too long.
There is an element of subjectivity to this but there is also an element of objectivity, measured by the composer's intentions and the performing tradition. Whether any given departure from the canon is inspired or a bad idea depends upon both subjective and objective factors.
I am sorry your dining companion annoys you. But what I was doing is not at all the same thing. I was impressed by Ms. Little's site to the extent that I sent the URL to the tenor Brian Cheney and suggested he do the same with our mic-test project.
Brian, thanks for the sane words.
JM
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