{"id":359,"date":"2009-06-29T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp\/2009\/06\/matter_of_opinion\/"},"modified":"2018-01-14T17:35:01","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T22:35:01","slug":"matter_of_opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2009\/06\/matter_of_opinion.html","title":{"rendered":"Matter of opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

After several master classes at the Ecole Normale de Musique<\/a> in Paris, given by several of us pianists, a student asked me: “Isn’t it all just a matter of opinion?”<\/p>\n

And after so many diverging ideas and approaches, strongly expressed, who could blame anyone for asking that question? With so many differences, perhaps opinions just seem like … random thoughts?<\/p>\n

I told him what I believe. “In music — or politics, or anything — the ‘best’ opinions are based on information,” I say.<\/p>\n

Example 1:<\/p>\n

After Herbert Blomstedt conducted Mozart’s C-Major Symphony, K. 388, I asked him why there’s no minuet in the piece. Mozart scratched it out in his manuscript, Blomstedt says. “Why did he do that,” I persist. “No minuet is necessary or possible,” Blomstedt opines, “it’s Italian opera overture music…”<\/p>\n

Example 2:<\/p>\n

A prominent pianist is talking about his own changing way of playing Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto — different at each performance, he says. I ask him if Beethoven’s many elaborate annotations in a copy of the piece, documented by Barry Cooper<\/a>, have any bearing on what he does, in these varying performances of his. \"GalileoAJ.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Cristiano Banti: Galileo Facing the Inquisition<\/em><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

My colleague falls silent. I speculate on what such early recordings of the concerto as Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler’s with Conrad Hansen<\/a>, with its considerable tempo modifications within movements, may show us about the flexibility of earlier performance practice in this music? Silence.<\/p>\n

We would be terrified of a surgeon who made incisions according to his whims. “Let’s try here<\/em>…” Should we tolerate that in music?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After several master classes at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, given by several of us pianists, a student asked me: “Isn’t it all just a matter of opinion?” And after so many diverging ideas and approaches, strongly expressed, who could blame anyone for asking that question? With so many differences, perhaps opinions just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1542,"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":[90,47,428,421,425,426,841,429,423,424,430,431,325,87,422,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-basis-for-opinion","9":"tag-beethoven","10":"tag-conrad","11":"tag-ecole-normale-de-musique","12":"tag-fourth-piano-concerto","13":"tag-furtwangler","14":"tag-galileo","15":"tag-hansen","16":"tag-herbert-blomstedt","17":"tag-kv-388","18":"tag-musical-opinion","19":"tag-musical-thinking","20":"tag-musical-thought","21":"tag-opinion","22":"tag-paris","23":"tag-wilhelm","24":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","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=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4630,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/4630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}