Re: Why do you like Mozart's music?


<david7gable@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1134865831.981497.110810@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>>When traditions migrate from one place to another, almost inevitably they
> mutate in some form in the process
>
> Two points. (1) Yes, they do. But they evolve from the same starting
> point in the same fashion, incrementally over time.

And often with many ruptures along the way.

> Austrian and
> German performing traditions are also distinct.

And there are different traditions within distinct regions of Germany. It
doesn't really make much sense to speak of Germany as an entity until the
late 19th century, and Austria until the early 20th.

(2) Language is used
> everywhere by the overwhelming majority of Americans locally, where you
> live, to negotiate purely local problems of work and home. Classical
> music is a public international affair,

To a large degree today, to various lesser degrees in the past.

> and European and American
> performers of classical music have worked side by side forever.

Well, only since the mid- to late-19th century to any degree, and much more
so in the 20th century than previously.

> American classical performance was never cut off from Europe. There's
> always another European conductor taking over an American orchestra,
> another European singer making his or her Met debut, another American
> pianist studying with a Russian Jewish teacher.

Yes, on the highest level (though there are probably more Americans doing
those things than there are Europeans still). On other levels of
music-making the balance is quite different (certainly this is true in the
contemporary music world).

> Americans routinely
> study performance in Europe. American schools routinely employ
> European as well as American teachers. A separation resulting in
> totally distinct traditions hasn't remotely occurred.

Because traditions aren't 'totally distinct' doesn't mean there isn't some
separation.
>
> QUESTION: What do you think of Mr. Schaffer's cultural chauvinism and
> anti-Canadian remarks? Do you agree that a German can understand the
> issues under discussion while a Canadian cannot? Do yuu find his
> remarks in this vein as offensive as Mr. Conrad's entirely innocent
> resort to the metaphor "in the blood"?
>
As I said in a previous post, I don't at all accept that this is a fair
representation of what Michael is saying. He's talking about the reality of
these supposedly unbroken traditions to which you are continually referring.
Even if one believed in such things, it would be a hard case to make that
such traditions have survived in unbroken state all the way down to
contemporary American musical educational institutions.

Ian


.

Relevant Pages

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