{"id":1253,"date":"2011-11-01T06:09:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T10:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2011-11-01T10:57:41","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T14:57:41","slug":"dont-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2011\/11\/dont-ask.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was learning William Duckworth’s The Time Curve Preludes,<\/em> and even preparing to record the first dozen<\/a>, I did not contact the composer. I didn’t play for him, get advice, or even ask him questions about 2 or 3 notes that puzzled me in the printed music, a reproduction of Duckworth’s handwriting. After the recording was released, I got an email from Bill, “I understand you’ve been playing my music…”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Classical players usually seek out composers for coaching. And I have played for Mr. Glass, or Mr. Cage, or Nico Muhly. Recently though, when Nico wrote a new solo piece for me I didn’t play it for him in advance. He eventually heard several live performance recordings, and hasn’t complained.<\/p>\n

At Juilliard, and at New England Conservatory, I’ve helped students prepare music written by George Perle<\/a> and Gunther Schuller<\/a> and avoided having the composers hear the playing before public performances. Both Perle and Schuller liked the results, and both expressed the same thought: not being involved in rehearsals (that nonetheless yielded satisfying performances), suggested that their music would be OK without them in the future.<\/p>\n

The idea that music can survive a composer’s death is relatively new. (And I sometimes suggest an historic aberration.) If we acknowledge written music as a “text” then we will welcome multiple readings of it. And not privilege the reading of it by its scriptor! If a composer tells you how to play, you’re not really allowing written music to function. A written piece achieves its identity as it is read, and heard variously by many people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was learning William Duckworth’s The Time Curve Preludes, and even preparing to record the first dozen, I did not contact the composer. I didn’t play for him, get advice, or even ask him questions about 2 or 3 notes that puzzled me in the printed music, a reproduction of Duckworth’s handwriting. After the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[717,725,96,724,719,720,33,200,718,721,239,93,723,722],"class_list":{"0":"post-1253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-authorial-control","9":"tag-composer-identity","10":"tag-composers-authority","11":"tag-duckworth","12":"tag-george","13":"tag-gunther","14":"tag-muhly","15":"tag-nico","16":"tag-perle","17":"tag-schuller","18":"tag-signification","19":"tag-text","20":"tag-william","21":"tag-william-duckworth","22":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}