Thursday, January 24, 2008

Musical Traditionalism?

I'm sure she didn't intend to answer my question, but she inadvertently gave me more materially to work off of. My friend Blip is to see Alfred Brendel perform live soon! (Now I'm not familiar with Alfred Brendel, but he's a concert pianist, that's all I know!) Anyways, here's a quote from him that is a counter to the performer being the interpreter.

"If I belong to a tradition it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece twll the performer what he should do and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like, or the composer what he ought to have composed."
-Alfred Brendel

So obviously I'm wrong about all pianists holding to the theory of Musical Relativism...

But the question remains, how should music be performed?

1 comment:

Pauline said...

Oh wow! Very interesting thoughts. :-) I've been wondering about the same thing lately...I wonder how we are to know exactly what and how the composer wanted a piece played? Gahh.. And do we naturally favor interpretations that seem to align with the original? I don't know if that makes any sense. Heh, anyways..Looking forward to seeing what you find!