A pianist has succinctly expressed the core of yesterday’s rant in my review of a box-set of Francis Poulenc’s published songs.
I’ll have more on young Luxembourgeoise Cathy Krier tomorrow. She says something particularly apt in an interview printed in the liner notes to her début album:
As a musician it is my duty to serve the composer, presenting the unique masterworks to the audience and not those of lesser quality. The latter might be interesting historically, but for us pianists — and, most of all, for the audience — I find them superfluous.
There’s a brutality to that assessment, and also truth: an experienced listener can tell good music from bad; a musician will quickly make the same judgment based on structure, repetition and variation, aural textures and effect vs difficulty.
In a culture that exalts credentials, we are expected to cede such value judgments to musicologists. But do we really need to?
Yes, musical fashion plays a large role in what gets played and how it’s played, but any scan of musicological writing shows that fashion holds the same sway over academics as everyone else in a society.
Here’s what I’m getting at: We need to better recognize the value of the people who make music as giving the music value. They are curator as much as interpreter.
Good music interpreted with conviction will make an impression even on an inexperienced listener.
Isn’t that what everyone wants?
John Terauds