From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Subject: Re: Performance precedents 
Date: 25 Jan 93 22:10:20 PST
Followup-To: rec.music.classical.guitar
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA

In article <basinski-230193125407@lully.biosci.arizona.edu>, 
basinski@biosci.arizona.edu (Mark Basinski) writes:

>> I once was in a master class in which the teacher indicated that
>> performance precedence was much like legal precedence in the law profession
>> in that even if an interpretation is not what a composer intended or not
>> in line with the musical structure of the piece (as in Recuerdos) that it
>> nevertheless becomes an authoritative interpretation if its recorded by
>> a famous artist in that way. You then may have to take the pressure of
>> bucking the establishment of this precedence, even have people perceive
>> your more musically enlightened performance as "incorrect" :-).
>> 

> 	  Still, there were plenty of examples of things Segovia did that
>"worked"  yet were utterly different from "the composer's intentions". For
>example,  there  was a TV special shown shortly after Segovia's death (with
>Hugh Downs of  all  people)  Anyway, they showed a video clip of Segovia
>performing Villa-Lobos   Study # 1 on the Ed Sullivan show (from late 50's or
>early 60's), and   he played it VERY fast, with the effect being a very fluid
>and shimmery  wave of sound from his ability to play those arpeggios so very
>fast and  so very smoothly. Quite impressive. Now, that is not at all what 
>Villa-Lobos  had in mind -the piece is clearly marked "Allegro Non Troppo" and
>when the  performer can realize the syncopations that occur in the piece (as
>opposed  to  playing the arpeggios totally evenly, without inflection), the
>moderate  groove, the brazilian character of the piece emerges. Which has more
>musical  value? Tough question. But! the performer owes it to the composer to
>at  least  explore "what was the composer's intention" to the fullest degree
>possible  before he or she decides to do things differently according to his
>own  artistic vision.

Villa-Lobos Etude #1 is a very good example to bring up. I have not heard  a
recording of this that wasn't very fast. I did not know that Segovia was the
one who established the precedent but it sure had an effect on everyone else
including me. I remember back in the '70's, I was on kind of a macho trip on
showing how fast I could play that piece and so the "Allegro Non Troppo" became
"Play as fast as you play without loosing control so as to show off how fast
you can play - LOOK MA!!!". I then developed a reputation started by my teacher
at CSULB about how fast I played (actually it was when the instructor dropped
his jaw the first time I played it for him that I first realized I was 
actually doing something that others thought was execptionally fast - I was
just influenced by what I heard on recordings such as Parkening or whoever
without thinking anything of it - and then I had a reputation to live up to
:-). This is mentioned not for bragging but as a confession to falling into
such childish traps at one time in my development, and also an anecdotal
confirmation of how performance precedence can become the standard. I can think
of many examples in the keyboard literature of pieces that have been played too
fast by most recording artists (especially of a certain Bach prelude that I am
thinking of right now - can't remember what suite) and thereby loosing the
music for the sake of show or display to draw attention to the performer 
rather than to the music. 



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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
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	USA        		          293 Dwapara :-)
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