Richard Wexler writes:
>Since most of the time neither the performer nor the musicologist
>is present at the creation, it becomes the task of both to discover
>a coherent interpretation.  ...  I hope that's the kind of
>interaction you're getting at.

Yes, partly so, and partly it was an implication that while the
composer is not essential to making music, the performer is.

>But the answer is indeed very easy, I think:  Fully informed.
>When the performer runs out of things to read, the performance
>can begin.  There isn't so much written about any particular
>repertory that at least the basic literature on it is too much to
>take in.

Ok, basic literature is fine, but there is something new written
somewhere about nearly any repertory every week!  I don't mean to
be rude, but I think it is naive to talk about being fully informed.
Surely Safford Cape & Noah Greenberg were quite ignorant of many
of the things we have discovered since, for instance.

>What I'd like them to do is to read what we publish.

I did not mean "speak" in a more literal way, so I am sorry for
any confusion on this point.  Dolmetsch and the others of course
did their own musicology, as I see it... things were just less well
established in terms of what was what.

>The analogy between the recreation of mostly forgotten historical
>traditions of performance and the native traditions of other
>cultures has limited validity, it seems to me.

It has very limited analytical validity surely, but there are so
many details of a performance which we can never discover from
purely historical methods... there is something to be said for
living ideas, I think, simply as a source of inspiration if nothing
else.

Anyway, that was not really my idea at the time.  I wanted to
suggest only that many artists, including those in other cultures,
manage to create very fine art without a broad knowledge, and so
in short that ignorance is not inimical to art.

A person has only so many skills... the more required for a task,
the fewer people who can possibly perform it.  I only ask that you
look at what you are requiring of performers:  good technical skill
to make music, creativity in that if they are to follow their muse,
good enough understanding of theoretical issues to read journal
articles, an excellent memory to correlate these references, and
last but not least a flair for rhetoric and disputation!

When I originally said "insisting that the performer be able to
explain himself" I referred specifically to the latter, a skill
which is essentially meaningless for performance itself.

And what of amateur music-making?  Music must be seen as something
to be *done*, and one must balance maintaining an eye for what has
been learned against discouraging people who are attempting to
follow their muse or simply show music the ultimate respect by
attempting to perform it.

I see all of these things blending into a kaleidoscope of detail,
and while it would be excellent to have a world of musicians who
are technically sound, creative, and "fully informed", I do not
want to dismiss the others so quickly.

>[Aesthetics] ... seems to be disappearing almost entirely as a
>consideration of any kind.

Ha!  Touche!  This seems a good invitation to commiserate on the
state of society... maybe another time.

>Regarding your remark about musicology's being responsible for
>the rediscovery of some very good ideas, it seems to me you're
>betraying a certain lack of awareness of what musicology's real
>accomplishment has been, that being nothing less that the rediscovery
>of the music itself.

You mean the dusty old papers with the funny squiggles?  What good
are they without some ideas to bring them to life?  I think we mean
somewhat different things by "the music itself" but more or less
agree otherwise.

Regards,

Todd McComb
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