Re: Further Analysis


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Posted by Michael Grant on April 07, 2001 at 18:13:46:

In Reply to: Further Analysis posted by Grant MacIntyre on April 07, 2001 at 10:01:17:

Grant -

How do you know that Bach wanted only "technical" interpretation of his work? How do you know that Bach had any intentions of his music other than to write his music? I do not think of Bach as "technical" music. Strictly music. Beautiful music. The technical mastery of his works can be quite demanding and yet, some of his most enduring melodies are of the most simple, fluid lines. Lines that require a musical mind to interpret so that the line or phrase is heard and not the individual notes. Is the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto only a "technical" work? It certainly has many notes and requires incredible technical skills? Are the works of Mahler purely musical, requiring no technical abilities whatsoever? Just because you don't like Baroque music does not make it a less "musical" period. You just don't like it! There is nothing wrong with that. I do not like baseball very much and I love hockey. Is baseball no longer a sport? Now back to music. I heard Rex Martin in a masterclass discussing Penderecki's "Cappricio" for solo tuba. He took a work that I looked upon as an exercise that proved ones amazing technique to his or her fellow tubists. In ten minutes Rex had the entire room seeing (and hearing) the very musical aspect of this piece. The waltz section was beautiful. I look at this work with very different eyes now. As I read your postings I compared your view of Bach's music to my car. My car has no emotion. It has no feelings. It, however, can raise my emotions. Maybe I see it and get thrilled! At the end of a near-miss auto accident where all is fine my car still has no emotion. I however am feeling a dozen different things. Bach's music too has no emotion. It is strictly ink on a page. The human adds the emotion, the feeling. I could read Hamlet aloud and people would pay me to stop. Yet Kenneth Brannaugh can read it and make grown men weep. For you to listen to Bach's works (and I have an idea you have not listened to alot of it... there is an incredible amount and it does not all sound like Contrapunctis IX)) and not feel some emotion baffles me. Maybe you've listened to all his works? Perhaps you are not listening? It is there, even in his "sacred" works. One does not have to follow western religion to hear it in his "sacred" works nor does one have to be a non-believer to find it in his "secular" (are you catching the "sacred" and "religion" connection there) works. Pick up your horn, take the Bach Cello suites and make some music. Make them sing. Tell a story. Sing a song. Or how about a pyrotechnics barnburner like "Sheep May Safely Graze"! Like you, I choose musicality. Take this challenge. Take Bach and make it musical. Take the most technical piece for you. The one that lacks all emotion and contains no musicality. Then make it musical. Put the emotion in that is missing. Create music. Then tell me if it is Bach that lacks the emotion or is it the interpretor that fails to create it.

Have fun!

Mike Grant



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