{"id":369,"date":"2009-11-09T05:07:42","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T05:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp\/2009\/11\/case_law\/"},"modified":"2020-07-13T22:47:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T02:47:27","slug":"case_law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2009\/11\/case_law.html","title":{"rendered":"Case Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Setting out to learn a piece of scripted classical music, a pianist usually looks at print. Some musicians listen to recordings.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 6px 12px 8px 0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/bordesholmAJ.jpg\" alt=\"bordesholmAJ.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"166\">A celebrated American violin pedagogue sent her young virtuosos to listen to five or six recordings of a new piece. The kids calculated the speed of each performance with a metronome, averaging the numbers together to determine the right tempo for their own performance &#8212; a focus group for tempo!<\/p>\n<p>Other teachers counsel strict avoidance of recordings. Is it better to read for ourselves? <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=EfyCm-oumU4C&amp;pg=PA164&amp;dq=leinsdorf+conducting+inauthor:leinsdorf&amp;lr=&amp;as_drrb_is=q&amp;as_minm_is=0&amp;as_miny_is=&amp;as_maxm_is=0&amp;as_maxy_is=&amp;as_brr=0&amp;ei=UXfFSta7No2-zASg54yUBA#v=onepage&amp;q=triangle%20can%20be%20heard&amp;f=false\">Erich Leinsdorf faulted young conductors who learned new repertory from recordings.<\/a> Obvious sonic details (the triangle!) were prominent in their sense of a piece, but not basic structures or concepts, Leinsdorf maintained.<\/p>\n<p>Embarking on research in science or the humanities, an initial stage is the discovery and reading of <em>all<\/em> the previous work. Lawyers study case law, as well as statutes. As he prepared to record Beethoven&#8217;s &#8220;Hammerklavier,&#8221; I discussed this with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Russell_Sherman\">Russell Sherman<\/a>. Would it make sense to find and listen to all the previous recordings of the sonata? Or can a pianist, in our period of relatively easy access to the legacy of recorded performing, dare not to listen to previous recordings of &#8220;his&#8221; piece? Can these recordings simply help in making sure there are not errors of text-reading? Or will they impede music making?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps listeners know the legacy. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeromelowenthal.com\/\">Jerome Lowenthal<\/a> told me he was accosted backstage after playing Tchaikovsky&#8217;s First Concerto. A woman asked: &#8220;Do you play the Rubinstein or the Horowitz version?&#8221; Arturo Toscanini is reported to have said he couldn&#8217;t compose because his head was too full of other people&#8217;s compositions.<\/p>\n<p>Is there middle ground? Is there some way to be aware of the recorded past, to draw information about style from it &#8212; even inspiration and courage &#8212; and yet not become a jukebox or encyclopedia? <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 16px 0 1px 10px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/callanAJ.jpg\" alt=\"callanAJ.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"198\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right\">Jonathan Callan: <em>Stubb<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Setting out to learn a piece of scripted classical music, a pianist usually looks at print. Some musicians listen to recordings. A celebrated American violin pedagogue sent her young virtuosos to listen to five or six recordings of a new piece. The kids calculated the speed of each performance with a metronome, averaging the numbers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1205,"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":[320,323,322,306,321,316,324],"class_list":{"0":"post-369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-case-law","9":"tag-jerome-lowenthal","10":"tag-musical-interpretation","11":"tag-performance-practice","12":"tag-score-reading","13":"tag-script","14":"tag-sound-recording","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","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=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5256,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/5256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}