Getting through my backlog - sorry I've joined this thread so late!
Greypins@a... wrote:
>
> << 1) Alma talked about that as performers, we have to perform for
> ourselves, not the audience, or any other reason, and we need to take
> ownership of our performances by not giving anything away. >>
>
> if alma is a former olympic athlete, this idea makes more sense.
> sports are executions of athletic skills contested either directly or
> indirectly. they are not performances for an audience. an athlete who is
> distracted by performing for the crowd may make the worst choice for the
> winning of the game.
>
I heard no mention in this thread of the composer...
Maybe we should start to consider whether the composer's music is a
vehicle for our performance, or whether our performance is a vehicle for
the composer's music.
Now that I'm teaching 5-11yo in class, I constantly find myself
proposing to them that every time any music is performed there are three
people involved, though any of those people may in fact be a small or
large multiple, and some of them may be the same person. After some
dithering around and getting daft answers like "a violin player" we
eventually end up with the answer, the composer, the performer and the
listener. In fact a lot of the national curriculum for music is based on
this triangular idea, and the GCSE (the exam they can opt to take at 16)
has precisely these three sections. So if I'm in the middle of a field
on my own, singing and making it up as I go along, I am all three. We do
a lot of group composition in class, and often we have to select a few
players/singers to be the final version. My purpose behind bringing the
triangular relationship to their notice is largely to encourage those
that don't get picked to understand that they, the listeners, are still
playing an essential role.
All this talk of taking ownership, giving away, and so forth, rather
sounds as though we feel we have bought all artistic rights to the music
itself. The composer has done his job ages ago and should have ridden
off into the sunset by now and left us to it: it's just us and the
audience now.
I often wonder, if I had held up a large picture of Cavalli after
conducting the Messa Concertata, and the singers getting rapturous
applause, would not the audience have given him an even warmer accolade?
It certainly happens when the composer is there in person (probably
wouldn't recognise Mozart after all this time, though, even if we could
manage to locate the place...oops)
cheers
Linda
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