Re: Why do you like Mozart's music?


Mr. Gallagher:

Your comments don't remotely touch my arguments, and most of what
you've written is only tangentially relevant to what I'm trying to say.
You have done some terrific misreading in the true Ian Pace manner,`as
for example when you write:

>even in such micro societies, there was more diversity than uniformity. People simply do not play violins or pianos with the same unformity that they pronounce words.

Where did I say anything about uniformity, either that it existed or
that it was a good thing? Nowhere. In fact, I think it's a bad thing,
and the comparative loss of variety and distinction in the realm of a
crucial aspect of phrasing is precisly what I protest.

I'm sure that every person plays an instrument differently from every
other, although it's equally obvious that persons in one community will
tend to share many patterns of behavior of the kind at issue. The
issue of the PRONUNCIATION of words YOU have introduced. I didn't say
anything about the pronunciation of words. On the contrary, I'm
talking about the cadences of speech, the constant fluctuations in
volume and speed and tone characteristic of speech, the constant subtle
nuances conveyed continuously and "unthinkingly" in real time, the
continuous enveloping dimension of sound that surrounds individual
words and swallows them up in a seamless continuum, and these are
dependent on much more than the pronunciation of words. In short, I'm
talking about that aspect of speech that is analogous to what in music
is referred to as phrasing.

>You're trying to argue that it is "wrong" to take any attitude toward music that you, David
Gable, define as "HIP"

"Wrong" is a moral concept, and I certainly don't think the HIPsters
are morally wrong. I'm attempting to explain what it is that HIP has
accomplished, which of their implicit arguments I take issue with, why
I vastly prefer pre-HIP performance practice and daily lament its
ongoing disappearance. In any case, the concept of "wrong" as a
quasi-moral category was patented by the HIPsters. I'm surprised you
haven't noticed the moral tone some of the more rabid HIPsters around
here adopt in dismissing un-HIP performances. Some of Michael
Schaffer's posts are Exhibit A.

-david gable

.

Relevant Pages

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